Koko: PDP-Laban members in drugs to be expelled

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III on Saturday warned members of Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) of expulsion from the ruling party if their names turn up on President Duterte’s drug list.

Two mayors of Iloilo towns were on the list but had been admitted as new members of PDP-Laban in a mass oath-taking ceremony led by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

Mr. Duterte apparently was unaware that Mayors Alex Centena, of Calinog town, and Mariano Malones, of Maasin town, had already been sworn in by Alvarez as new PDP-Laban members.

“I don’t know. I have not checked it,” the President said when told during his visit to the wake of murdered migrant worker Joanna Demafelis that the two mayors were among the newest members of his party.

“I didn’t even know that they are with PDP already,” Mr. Duterte said. “If they are really involved in drugs, then I’m sorry, PDP cannot help you,” he said. Should the mayors be innocent, however, Mr. Duterte said “we can also have a remedy for that.”

Pimentel, PDP-Laban president, said the party has “zero tolerance” for officials involved in drugs. Those “unfairly linked” to drugs, however, would be given a “chance to prove their innocence,” Pimentel said.

Drugs, Pimentel added, “is contrary to the principles of the party.”

Mayors Centena and Malones were among those who took part in a mass oath-taking of new PDP-Laban members in Iloilo last month.