MANILA, Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte is set to meet with the two warring factions of PDP-Laban officials on Thursday, August 9.

“PRRD as chair of the party wants to meet and talk about the 2019 elections and other matters,” said Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, PDP-Laban president, in a message to Rappler.

This was confirmed by Special Assistant to the President Bong Go. He said the meeting will take place outside Malacañang.

Duterte, chairman of the party, is meeting with his party-mates due to infighting between two camps, that of Pimentel and Rogelio Garcia, a lawyer and the President’s former classmate.

Garcia’s camp will also meet with Duterte.

“SAP (Special Assistant to the President) told me he will invite them too,” said Pimentel.

Garcia’s camp held a national assembly on July 27 where they elected officers to replace Pimentel as party president and former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez as secretary-general.

Garcia’s group had accused Pimentel’s camp of violating the party’s by-laws and constitution, when it held a mass oath-taking of new members without the required proper basic seminar.

Pimentel, in turn, said Garcia’s group is composed of “expelled rogue members.”

Go had previously said Duterte intended to hold a “caucus” to “unify” the warring factions. Go was retained as party auditor by Garcia’s camp in their assembly.

In PDP-Laban’s August 2 assembly, some members also expressed confusion about the dynamics between PDP-Laban; Hugpong ng Pagbabago, regional party of Davao City Sara Duterte-Carpio; and a supposed “Bong Go group.”

Pimentel said he wanted to ask Duterte how to “minimize” a situation where “allied forces” would compete with PDP-Laban. – Rappler.com