MANILA - The PDP-Laban will not endorse in next year’s elections the members who joined a renegade faction of the party, Senator Koko Pimentel said Monday.

The Commission on Elections recently recognized Pimentel's leadership over that of a faction headed by lawyer Rogelio Garcia, which submitted its own list of nominees in the 2019 midterm elections for at least 28 areas.

• Comelec affirms Koko Pimentel wing in PDP-Laban row

Pimentel, president of PDP-Laban, said his group has its own candidates and cannot adopt Garcia's bets.

"How can we adopt, magkakalaban?" he told reporters.

(How can we adopt when they're running against each other.)

"We have to start party discipline… Hindi puwedeng you bypass legitimate party leadership just because you want a party certificate of nomination so kukuha ka sa colorum,"he added.

(You cannot bypass legitimate party leadership just because you want a party certificate of nomination so you'll get one from the colorum.)

PDP-Laban, which is chaired by President Rodrigo Duterte, is studying filing criminal cases against Garcia's faction, said Pimentel.

"Kung mayroon kang gusto, paghirapan mo, 'wag yung shortcut palagi ang nasa isip, parang the Lotto mentality," he said.

(If you want something, work for it, don't think of shortcuts akin to the Lotto mentality.)

"They cannot insist na PDP-Laban sila, but if they insist on campaigning they are actually deceiving the people already. So meron nang (there is already a) political issue... and a possible criminal case," he added.

Report from Sherrie Ann Torres, ABS-CBN News