The Wutz Up in the Philippines!

Presidential aspirants Senators Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III and Manuel Villar Jr. continued to engage in a neck and neck race, with the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll showing the two to be statistically tied two months before the May 10 elections.

The SWS survey, commissioned by BusinessWorld newspaper, showed that while Aquino remains the top pick among presidential aspirants, Villar appeared to be catching up.

It said that while both Aquino and Villar lost ground, the cost was “more substantial” for Aquino, whose overall score was cut by six points to 36 percent.

Villar’s ratings dropped 1 percentage point to 34 percent, the survey added.

“The gap between the two falls within the ±2.2% margin of error used in the Feb. 24-28 survey, which used face-to-face interviews of 2,100 registered voters nationwide,” according to a report on BusinessWorld on Tuesday.

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MANILA, Philippines - Nacionalista Party (NP) president and standard-bearer Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. said the party will nominate its own candidate for House speaker in the next Congress to challenge President Arroyo, in case she is elected congresswoman and aspires for the speakership.

“The (Nacionalista) Party would choose its speaker and hindi naman miembro ng party namin si Presidente (and the President is not a member of our party),” Villar told The STAR editors and columnists gathered for the start of the paper’s presidential series yesterday. “I am not saying that we are going to win. I am just saying that we are going to nominate (a speaker).”

Villar has rebuilt the NP from scratch and steered it to its status as one of the most formidable political parties in the country today, boasting of hundreds of local leaders in its roster.

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MANILA, Philippines - The race is on for presidential candidates beginning today, after months of unofficial free-for-all.

The frontrunner, Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, kicks off his campaign in his home province of Tarlac, at his family’s old house in Concepcion.

He and his running mate Sen. Manuel Roxas II, as well as LP senatorial candidates, will hold a motorcade to the Aquino Museum and then to the municipalities of Bamban, Capas and Tarlac City.

The Nacionalista Party led by its standard-bearer Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. kicks off its “90-day journey to a better Philippines” in Calamba, Laguna, the birthplace of national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, with visits to public markets.

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MANILA, Philippines - The Senate adjourned session yesterday without a vote on the Committee of the Whole’s report on the C-5 road controversy involving Nacionalista Party standard-bearer Manuel Villar Jr. as he and his allies in the minority did not show up.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, Senate President Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada, and Senators Jamby Madrigal, Richard Gordon and Rodolfo Biazon assailed the apparent “boycott” by Villar and his allies.

They said their absence compromised other pending bills as well as the Blue Ribbon Committee’s report on the national broadband network controversy, which held President Arroyo, First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and other officials accountable for the overpriced project.

Absent at yesterday’s last session aside from Villar and Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. were Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, Loren Legarda, Edgardo Angara, Joker Arroyo, Manuel Lapid, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

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MANILA, Philippines - After a vicious word war between allies and foes of Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. early this week in connection with the C-5 road controversy, senators have agreed on a ceasefire to give way to last-minute work on priority legislative measures.

Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri clarified the majority was not trying to delay the vote on the Committee of the Whole report recommending censure for Villar but was only trying to save a day to pass priority bills on second and third reading and ratify those that had been approved by the bicameral conference committees.

Sen. Joker Arroyo, meanwhile, took advantage of the lull in the plenary battle to remind his colleagues - including Villar’s critics - that they had approved the controversial P200-million insertion four times during the deliberations on the 2009 budget.

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Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile chats with Sen. Aquilino Pimentel after Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago walked out of a Senate plenary session yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines - In yet another twist to the controversy that has divided the Senate and opened up old wounds, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said yesterday Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. offered him “help” in return for killing the investigation into the C-5 road scandal.

“He was trying to buy me off, I suppose in exchange for a very favorable decision,” Enrile said at a press conference, referring to what had reportedly transpired in a meeting with Villar at a Makati hotel in August last year.

Enrile briefly excused himself from the press briefing to take medication for hypertension, saying he felt his blood pressure shoot up.

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Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile blasts Sen. Manny Villar while Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano defends his partymate during deliberations on the C-5 report yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines - Allies and critics of Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. squared off yesterday over the ethics case against him during an emotional and tension-filled floor debate. Villar snubbed the session.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile lashed out at the absent Villar, standard-bearer of the Nacionalista Party, for not facing his colleagues to explain the ethics case against him in connection with alleged road project anomalies, particularly the C-5 road extension.

In a report, the Senate Committee of the Whole chaired by Enrile said Villar should be censured for failing to divulge his real estate companies’ interests in the Las Piñas-Parañaque link road and the C-5 road extension projects.

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