The Philippine Online Chronicles

Nacionalista Party (NP) senatorial candidate and Bayan Muna party-list representative Satur Ocampo tagged Liberal Party (LP) senatoriable and Akbayan party-list representative Risa Hontiveros as the one who “mouthed out” the rumored collusion between NP presidentiable Manny Villar and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in a forum with Blog Watch last Tuesday.

Ocampo revealed that the alleged collusion, dubbed “Villaroyo,” is “traceable to Risa Hontiveros.”

“Nagma-mouth yan kay Risa Hontiveros. Isang paninira na 'secret candidate' raw [si Villar] (The 'Villaroyo' rumor was mouthed out by Risa Hontiveros. That Villar is Arroyo's 'secret candidate' is a false charge),” Ocampo said.

Ocampo added that he has been receiving text messages of rumors that LP presidential bet Noynoy Aquino is Arroyo's secret candidate because Aquino's uncle and aunt are part of Arroyo's Cabinet.

“Kung papatulan yan, it can work both ways (If one will believe this rumor, it can either be true or false),” Ocampo said.

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Ocampo is “delusional”

However, Risa Hontiveros denied Ocampo's allegations and said in a text message to the Philippine Online Chronicles that the rumor was originally an online discussion.

Hontiveros maintained though that the “Villaroyo” rumor “is not a figment of our imagination” and that it “may be true.”

“Senator Villar never fully renounced GMA (Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo)--not her administration and certainly not the politics she represents. While the funds of opposition politicians have been cut by the GMA regime, Senator Villar's funds were released,” Hontiveros explained.

She added that Villar "never categorically called for GMA's resignation" and that he and Arroyo “share the same kind of politics—one that is corrupt and one that uses political power to promote self-interest over the interest of the majority.”

On the allegation that Aquino is the “secret candidate of Arroyo,” Hontiveros said that Ocampo “is delusional.”

“Unlike Villar, Noynoy has openly denounced the Arroyo administration and vowed to prosecute Arroyo if elected, despite having relatives in Malacanang,” Hontiveros countered.

Political, ideological rift

Ocampo and Hontiveros, though part of the Left bloc in Congress, come from opposing left leanings.

Ocampo's Bayan Muna is leaning to the national democratic political line while Hontiveros' Akbayan is a result of the schism of the national democratic movement in the early '90s and became part of the so-called “rejectionist” bloc, while Bayan Muna is the political center of the “reaffirmist” bloc. Akbayan's pluralist political line is a mixture of socialist and liberal leftist ideologies.

Both groups were active during “EDSA II” which led to the “ouster” of ex-President Joseph Estrada and both supported the ascent of Arroyo to the presidency. The two groups later joined the opposition and called for the ouster of Arroyo after reports of corruption and human rights abuses within the Arroyo government.

Villar and Aquino have been recently locked up in a statistical tie in major surveys, with just barely two months before the May elections.