Alex Villaviza, TUCP vice president said there is no split in the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, but that it is “only the two sons of resigned president Democrito ‘Kito’ Mendoza trying to forcibly and illegally wrest control of what they perversely regard as their dynastic inheritance,” a press release said yesterday.

Villaviza also said, “The sons Raymond and Michael (Mendoza) have illusions of entitlement -- that TUCP is like a chunk of family property that they can rightfully acquire by inheritance from their father.”

Villaviza, a former member of Congress representing the labor sector, said in the press release that TUCP is not a family-owned corporation, and not a piece of private real estate that the father can bequeath to his sons but a democratic center of various free labor federations.

Villaviza is president of the Philippine Federation of Labor, an affiliate of TUCP. Every affiliate federation is represented in TUCP’s executive board by an official who holds the rank of vice president, the press release said.

He said TUCP has a Constitution and by-laws and based on their rules, (Kito) Mendoza has resigned, and has since been succeeded by former Senator Ernesto Herrera.

He added that the TUCP meetings called by the Mendoza brothers to invent a new set of officers were all patently illegal and done long after the national executive board had unanimously accepted their father’s resignation, the press release said.

“Under our Constitution, once the president vacates his post, the secretary-general steps in as chief executive. This was how Senator Herrera became president,” Villaviza also said.

“We pity their father. At 89, Kito is very old and tired. Yet, he is being forced by his sons to sign this and that, even if he no longer wants to,” Villaviza added. *

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