Sotto: NPC will meet to prepare for 2022 elections

Senate President Vicente Sotto III has announced that the leaders of his Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) party will meet to prepare for the upcoming 2022 presidential elections.

According to Sotto, they are still mourning the NPC for the passing of their founder and “kingmaker” Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco in June.

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“We are doing well, still grieving for our loss, but we have met some of our leaders already. Ang usapan namin originally kasi was after the 40th day of Ambassador Danding. The leadership will meet again to focus on the continuation and the leadership of the party,” Sotto said at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.

“We are preparing for the 2022 elections, we will be meeting soon. Our leadership will be meeting soon,” he added.

Despite Cojuangco’s passing, Sotto said the NPC remains solid as a party.

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“We have always been the second-largest political party who is not in power. We have never been in power since 1992, di ba? Pero pinaka-solid, bihirang [may] umaalis, unless tinanggal,” he added.

The NPC has three senators [Sotto, Sherwin Gatchalian, and Lito Lapid], 44 congressmen, eight governors, and several other local officials.

Sotto: NPC will meet to prepare for 2022 elections

Earlier, Sotto, his last term as senator, said he had not yet decided whether he would run for a higher position in the 2022 election.

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Among those to be elected in the 2022 elections are the country’s new president and vice president.
The Nacionalista Party is the oldest political party in both the Philippines and in Southeast Asia in general. It is responsible for leading the country throughout the majority of the 20th century since its founding in 1907; it was the ruling party from 1935 to 1946 (under Presidents Manuel Quezon and Sergio Osmeña), 1953–1961 (under Presidents Ramon Magsaysay and Carlos P. Garcia) and 1965–1972 (under President Ferdinand Marcos).
The Nacionalista Party was initially created as a Filipino nationalist party that supported Philippine independence until 1946 when the United States granted independence.
Since then, many scholarly articles that dealt with political parties’ history during the Third Republic agreed that the party has been increasingly populist. However, some argued they had conservative tendencies because of their opposition to the Liberal Party and the Progressive Party.