FIVE PHILIPPINE PROGESSIVE PARTY-LITS ORGANIZATIONS ENDORSES SENATORIAL BETS

FIVE PHILIPPINE PROGESSIVE PARTY-LITS ORGANIZATIONS ENDORSES SENATORIAL BETS


Manila-- Five progressive party-list organizations headed by ANAKPAWIS and SUARA BANGSA MORO on Wednesday endorsed eight senatorial candidates including Team Unity’s Joker Arroyo and Ralph Recto.

The groups also endorsed Genuine Opposition’s Loren Legarda, Aquilino Pimentel 3rd, Francis Escudero, Alan Peter Cayetano and Manuel Villar and independent candidate Francis Pangilinan.

Besides Bayan Muna, the other party-list groups that announced their support for the eight candidates were Suara Bangsamoro, Anakpawis, Gabriela and Kabataan Party.

Zaynab Ampatuan, chairman and first nominee of Suara Bangsamoro, said Arroyo and Recto got their nod because of their track record and their “consistent stand” against human rights violations of the Arroyo government.

Ampatuan said Arroyo and Recto were endorsed despite being members of the administration slate after they promised to remain independent. She said both candidates protested the “calibrated preemptive response” and other Malacañang-backed policies that violate human rights.

Ampatuan said Arroyo has an outstanding reputation as a human rights lawyer. She added that Recto’s stand against rights violations overshadowed his role in the passage of the Expanded Value-Added Tax (EVAT) Law, which progressive groups consider as antipoor.

“Progressive groups are consistent with their stand that the EVAT Law is antipoor and should not have been passed into law, but the candidates’ stand on human rights is our primary criteria,” Ampatuan said.

She said the five groups have yet to decide on the last four senatorial candidates to endorse.

Observers were surprised that Bayan Muna endorsed Recto, who is the proponent of the EVAT Law.

But pro-administration Rep. Douglas Cagas, House contingent head for the Electoral Tribunal, saw nothing surprising about the endorsement.

“Politics unites strange bedfellows so politicians survive . . . Nothing is ever permanent in politics, only permanent interests,” Cagas said.

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