Senator Manuel Villar Jr. on Thursday welcomed the Commission on Elections (Comelec) decision approving the alliance of the Nacionalista Party (NP) and the Nationalist Peoples’ Coalition (NPC).

This developed as the NP demanded that Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Aquino III and his running mate Sen. Mar Roxas apologize not only to the NP-NPC but to the Filipino people for engaging in dirty tricks and black propaganda.

Villar, the NP’s standard-bearer, said the poll body’s decision disputes rivals’ claim that the NP-NPC coalition is bogus.

“We’re glad the Comelec made the right judgment. Kami naman talaga ay tunay na koalisyon. Sinasabi ko nga sa mga kababayan natin ay kapag sinuri n’yo ang ginagawa ng NP at NPC, makikita n’yo na kami ang tunay na oposisyon,” Villar said. (We are really the true coalition. As I have been telling the people that if you just scrutinize what the NP and NPC are doing, you will see that we are the real opposition.”)

The NP-NPC had also applied for a dominant minority status.

Comelec Commissioner Lucenito Tagle confirmed the approval of the merger Wednesday, saying “we already signed the resolution.”

He said the Comelec rejected the opposition filed by the Liberal Party because they failed to provide evidence that the merger of the two political parties was a sham.

“We’re hoping that the LP will respect the Comelec's verdict and the fact that the NP-NPC merger is a true alliance and not for show,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Comelec, has yet to decide on which party to proclaim as the dominant minority party, which will be entitled to the sixth copy of the election returns (ERs) and a server showing the election results as they are transmitted.

According to Comelec, the dominant minority party status is given to the group that has the highest number of incumbent elective officials and candidates for national and local positions.

Comelec records show that LP will be fielding 5,934 candidates in the May polls while NP will be fielding 5,565 and NPC 2,373.

“I have already ran for national posts thrice but now is the dirtiest campaign being waged by our rivals, (apparently referring to LP), said NP-NPC vice presidential bet Sen. Senator Loren Legarda who, along with the party’s senatoriables, issued a strong statement condemning the Liberal Party (LP) which they claimed have been employing dirty tactics and smear drive instead of campaigning based on good platform and good governance.

In a press conference Thursday, Legarda, who appeared in a fighting mood, along with NP senatorial bets Reps Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza, Ramon Mitra Jr, and Atty. Adel Tamano, said the LP should apologize to the NP-NPC coalition and the Filipino people for condoning what they described as black operations in the course of this campaign period.

Incidentally, the NP found an ally in their predicament about the so-called black propaganda after a UP professor and political analyst Benito Lim stated that the use of dirty tactics like what the LP is doing in the campaign is the style of a party that lacks real platforms for the good of the people.

Lim also said only unprincipled politicians resort to dirty tactics thinking this would help them in their campaign.