Lakas ng Bayan

Lakas ng Bayan
Abbreviation	LABAN
Founder	Ninoy Aquino
Founded	1978 (1978) (as party) 1987 (1987) (as coalition)
Dissolved	1986 (1986) (merged with PDP) 1988 (1988) (as coalition)
Split from	Liberal Party Nacionalista Party
Merged into	PDP–Laban
Political position	Big tent
National affiliation	United Nationalist Democratic Organization (1984)
Coalition members	PDP–Laban (1987) Lakas ng Bansa (1987) Liberal (1987)
Politics of the Philippines Political parties Elections

Lakas ng Bayan (English: Power of the People), abbreviated as Laban, was an electoral alliance, later a political party, in the Philippines formed by Senator Ninoy Aquino for the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa regional elections. The party had 21 candidates for the Metro Manila area, all of whom lost, including Ninoy. The party's acronym (Laban) is a Filipino word meaning "fight".

After Aquino's exile to the United States, the party was managed by his brother-in-law, Peping Cojuangco.

By 1984, the party had formed a coalition with the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino of Nene Pimentel, himself a Laban party member. By 1986, the two parties were completely merged to form the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan party or PDP–Laban.

The name "Lakas ng Bayan" would eventually be reused in the 1987 Philippine legislative elections as the name of a coalition led by the United Nationalist Democratic Organization party of President Corazon C. Aquino and Vice President Salvador H. Laurel.^[1]