Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — Interior Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II met with members of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC) for the second time on Tuesday (September 8).
The difference this time — the dinner meeting at the NPC clubhouse in Quezon City was initiated by the party itself.
The first meeting was hosted by Roxas at the ruling Liberal Party’s main headquarters in Quezon City — and only about dozen NPC lawmakers were there.
This time, though, more NPC members were expected, similar to how they’ve attended their previous meetings with Sen. Grace Poe and more recently, with Vice President Jejomar Binay.
NPC had said that the series of meetings was part of its ongoing consultation among its members to help them decide on who they will support in 2016.
This despite earlier pronouncements from their members that majority of them were indeed inclined to support a possible Grace Poe and Chiz Escudero tandem.
While it’s possible for Roxas to lose NPC’s support because of Poe, he’s still optimistic that some of its members would still support him.
In fact just a day before, more than a dozen local officials of NPC formally switched parties and took their oath as new LP members.
NPC remained unfazed by this — one of its spokesmen, Valenzuela mayor Rex Gatchalian said these were isolated cases and added that the number of NPC members who jumped ship was small compared to their membership.
He said that in this season, circumstances at the local level might have led them to move to a different party.
He added that NPC had also been swearing in new members at the local level over the past few months.
