Diamante worked with Duterte backers
Tuburan Mayor Democrito Diamante clarified that it was not him who claimed to have helped President Rodrigo Duterte during the 2016 elections but a parallel group whom he had worked with during the campaign.
Diamante was reacting to the statement of former congressman Pablo John Garcia accusing him of being a liar and a traitor for allegedly claiming that he campaigned for Duterte.
Diamante said it was the group of Davao City Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang, national president of the Philippine Councilors League, whom he had worked with in organizing the local chapters of Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan in the third congressional district of the Province of Cebu, who recognized his help.
“Dili man na akoa ang statement about sa among mga lihok ni Davao City Councilor Dayanghirang three weeks before elections, kang Councilor Dayanghirang as member of parallel group. Is PJ calling Councilor Dayanghirang bakakon?” Diamante said.
During the basic membership seminar of PDP-Laban in Tuburan last Monday, Dayanghirang declared his support for Diamante, saying that they were together three weeks before the 2016 elections supporting the presidential bid of Duterte.
“Ang iyang statement during his speech is sa whole Philippines siya (Dayanghirang) ang nagparallel and ako ang iyang gipatabang para sa Cebu. That is why ilang gi-recognized ang akoang tabang nila,” Diamante said.
Garcia and Diamante will be running against each other for congressman of the Third District in the 2019 elections. They will also have to fight for the party nomination from the PDP-Laban.
Meanwhile, Garcia yesterday accused Diamante of trying to sabotage the party’s existing formidable organization in the district by organizing his own local party.
Garcia pointed out that PDP-Laban has mayors in five out of the six municipalities (Barili, Aloguinsan, Pinamungajan, Balamban, and Asturias) and an alliance with the mayor of the lone city in the district (Toledo).
In the barangay level, he said that the One Cebu-PDPLaban group can count on the support of at least 70 percent of the district’s 230 barangays: 32 of the 42 barangays in Barili; 14 out of the 15 in Aloguinsan; 22 out of the 26 in Pinamungajan; 30 out of the 38 in Toledo City; all of the 28 barangays in Balamban; 21 out of the 26 in Asturias; and 14 out of the 54 in Tuburan.
Despite the existing organization of the party in the district, Garcia said Diamante called the LP leaders in some towns to a meeting and membership seminar despite the fact that these leaders are former and future opponents of the existing PDP-Laban mayors and allies.
“Which is which? Is he working for the party or against it? He cannot have it both ways,” Garcia said.
He said it is impossible, for instance, for the Yaphas to join the same party as Mayor Glenn Baricuatro in Pinamungajan or, at this point, Mayor John Henry Osmeña in Toledo City.
Diamante’s recent actions, he said, are “either not politically astute or downright divisive.”
“What is his agenda? Is he trying to sow discord and confusion among the ranks of PDP-Laban? Does it have something to do with the fact that Governor Hilario Davide, who is a Liberal Party official, has expressed his support for Diamante’s candidacy?” Garcia asked.
Garcia added that he finds it “suspicious” that, after claiming to be working for PDP-Laban, Diamante then came out with a statement that he was working to form his own local party in the district. He said that what makes Diamante’s moves more questionable is that they are not being done in coordination with, but behind the back of the party’s 3rd district president, Deputy Speaker Gwendolyn Garcia.
He asked PDP-Laban officials in the Province of Cebu, particularly president Jojo Dizon, to be careful about these maneuvers from “recent defectors from the Liberal Party.”
But Diamante hinted that he has the blessing from the national leadership of the party.
Gregg M. Rubio/FPL
“Dapat ang PDP national headquarters ang ilang pangutan-on,” Diamante said.—Gregg
M. Rubio/FPL