With President Ramon Magsaysay's death in 1957, several members of his Nacionalista Party (NP) became dissatisfied with Carlos P. Garcia (Magsaysay's vice president who succeeded him).
While the NCP was never "considered [as] a broad democratic party," and was labeled as "businessman's nationalism," they were able to influence Garcia's administration by adopting a "Filipino First policy" which favors Philippine-made products over foreign-made ones.
[3] The cooperation between the NP and the NCP produced an appointment of Garcia of Recto to his cabinet, and an NP-NCP alliance for the 1959 Senate election, where Tañada won a Senate seat.
However, Recto died in 1960, and nationalism and Garcia's Filipino First policy was branded by the Liberals as corrupt; Garcia and the NP lost the 1961 presidential and vice presidential elections to Macapagal and Emmanuel Pelaez.
[4] Tañada would later be reelected to the Senate under the NCP banner in 1965 for the last time.