DUMAGUETE CITY – Now that the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) season has ended, expect basketball star-power to attract the crowd in the forthcoming campaign sorties of the Liberal Party.

LP standard-bearer Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III said starting next week they will commence parading prized personalities like players of the PBA’s newly-crowned team Purefoods led by cage superstar James Yap.

Aquino, who was beaming after a highly successful rally here, said they are already preparing to bring along Yap and his teammates when they go around in other parts of the Visayas region.

Yap hails from the town of Escalante, Negros Occidental, several kilometers outside of Bacolod City.

Yap is married to the senator’s younger sister, popular actress and TV host Kris Aquino.

The cager led the Purefoods team in completing a four-game sweep of the KFC-PBA Philippine Cup Finals against AlaskaWednesday night. He was also named Best Player of the season.

“Now that the season (PBA) has ended, perhaps they can join us in our sorties, especially in the Visayas,” Aquino said.

Due to the clamor from many of their supporters, Aquino said they are also studying the possibility of bringing Baby James, son of Yap and Kris, in some of their campaign sorties.

“We just don’t know yet how we can best protect him while travelling because he is still too small,” Aquino quipped.

For the past several days, Aquino has been raising the ante of their campaign by barnstorming several provinces, towns and cities in one full swing. Last Tuesday, Aquino, together with his vice presidential bet Mar Roxas flew to Borongan, Samar, and Tacloban City in Leyte.

From there, they held a motorcade in Ormoc City together with actor Richard Gomez who is the LP’s bet in that area. Gomez’ wife Lucy Torres is from Ormoc City.

The Aquino-Roxas led LP group then proceeded here in Dumaguete City where they received a very warm welcome from majority of the province's top local officials.