Presidential candidate Gilbert "Gibo" Teodoro is caught between a copyright dispute for the song "Posible," used in his TV commercial that started airing early this month.

Two camps are claiming ownership of the song. On one hand, there's former Rivermaya front man Rico Blanco and his record label Warner Music. Blanco and another composer wrote "Posible" for the Southeast Asian Games, which was held in the Philippines in 2005.

Lizza Nakpil, on the other hand, the former manager of Rivermaya, registered the song September last year with Copyright Office of The National Library.

Rivermaya and Nakpil have been involved in a bitter dispute since October last year. Mark Escueta, Rivermaya's drummer, told PEP in an e-mail that their former manager is "killing their career" by claiming exclusive rights to own the name "Rivermaya." (CLICK HERE to read related story.) 

In a separate interview, Nakpil asserted her ownership of the band name, saying she "created Rivermaya." (CLICK HERE to read related story.) 

Lastly, Blanco told several music magazines that he could not comment on the band name ownership issue because "he's not affiliated with Rivermaya anymore." He left the band on May 2007 without giving any clear reason. (CLICK HERE to read related story.) 

Blanco started his solo career with Warner Music on June 2008.

RICO CRIES FOUL. On January 5, a short post in Rico Blanco's Twitter account started one of the first controversies in Gilbert "Gibo" Teodoro's presidential candidacy. (CLICK HERE to read Teodoro's candidate profile.)

"i'm itching to tweet about this VERY STRANGE intellectual property issue that came to my attention just last night," said Rico at http://twitter.com/1ricoblanco. According to the former Rivermaya front man, the former Defense Secretary breached copyright laws when he used the song "Posible" in his campaign ad on television.

The TV spot, which started airing early this month, features "Posible," but with the lyrics changed. The 30-second commercial changed the original lyrics "Sulong, Laban" to "Sulong, Gibo!"

In his successive Twitter posts, Rico said the presidential candidate did not get his permission to turn the song into a campaign jingle. He also said the jingle "copied" his singing voice, thereby hinting that he was endorsing Gibo.

"i'd like to understand how can a presidentiable can overlook a simple matter such as intellectual property. command responsibility," Blanco said in his Twitter post.

He admitted, however, that he may have agreed to endorse Teodoro had his camp asked for his permission to use the song he composed. The singer said the administration bet was one of the two candidates he's thinking of voting for the May 2010 elections.

But he added that he did not know how a "smart" candidate could overlook property rights.

"i don't have an explanation even in my imagination but i'd still like to give him benefit of the doubt til we get all the details to be fair," he said.