MILITANTS STORM COMELEC, CALL FOR JUNKING OF GMA-BACKED PARTYLISTS AND CANDIDATES

Submitted by courage_phil on Mon, 03/29/2010 - 00:11.

Kontra-Daya, COURAGE,
Migrante, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Gabriela, Kadamay and other militant groups today
stormed the COMELEC office to condemn the poll body’s blatant leniency in
allowing GMA-backed partylists to run in the 2010 elections.

                                                         

The militants called
on the public to junk Arroyo’s collaborators in the upcoming polls. A number of
GMA allies and former cabinet officials were discovered to be partylist
nominees when the filing ended last Friday.

 

Government funds and
resources will most likely be used to finance the campaign of these bogus
partylists, said Kontra Daya convenor and COURAGE National President Ferdinand
Gaite. He added that the grand plan to install Arroyo as Speaker of the 15^th
Congress through the ‘House of Arroyo’ is a double whammy to the Filipino
people. “They are bastardizing the partylist system and at the same time
spending the people’s money to advance their political ambitions.

 

While millions of
Filipinos are suffering from severe poverty and hunger, they still have the
audacity to waste billions of pesos. These should have been allocated to
education, housing, health and other social services that shall ease the dismal
condition of our countrymen,” the leader asserted.

 

Citing the case of
COURAGE Partylist which was earlier rejected by the poll body for alleged lack
of national constuency, Gaite decried COMELEC’s double standards in accrediting
parrtylists. “We are so enraged after seeing the list of accredited partylists.
While the Commissioners claimed  that
they have already purged bogus groups, more or less 50 percent of the 187 accredited
partylists were obviously government-sponsored. On the other hand, they have
unjustly barred progressive groups such as COURAGE and Migrante who genuinely
represent the marginalized government workers and overseas Filipino workers
(OFW), respectively,” he said.

 

COURAGE pointed out
that this is an insult to those who fought for the institutionalization of the
Partylist System. “The marginalized sectors were in
the forefront of the struggle that ended the Marcos dictatorship and brought
about the 1987 Constitution which included provisions for the partylist system.
Nakakalungkot at nakakagalit lang na ang
mga lumaban noon para magkaroon ng partylist system ay siyang mga hindi
pinapayagan ngayon na lumahok,” the militants lamented.

 

Kontra-Daya also expressed
support for transport group PISTON who today filed a disqualification case
against former Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, the first nominee of 1-UTAK.

 

The protesters
announced that until the poll body disallows GMA-backed partylist nominees,
they shall continue to barrage the COMELEC with series of mass actions. Other
than filing of disqualification cases against the groups and individuals they
have identified as Arroyo’s dummies, the militants also plan to hound the
national headquarters of GMA-backed partylists and candidates. #