“It was based on track record, and years of cooperation — not just months or during the electoral season — on various issues that Makabayan stand for,” Makabayan’s Ariel Casilao said, disabusing beliefs that their endorsement was only for political convenience.
By MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN
Davao Today
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan (Makabayan), the coalition of progressive partylists, adopted five senatorial bets on Thursday.
Makabayan president Satur Ocampo, in an e-mailed statement, said they are endorsing or adopting candidates “based on a history of cooperative relationship with each of them on people’s issues and advocacies.”
He pointed out though that Makabayan is fielding “just one official candidate” for the Senate, Bayan Muna Representative Teddy Casiño.
Casiño, according to Ocampo, will be reinforced by five other senatorial candidates, namely: Senators Loren Legarda, Joseph Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero and Aquilino ‘Koko’ Pimentel III, former Representative Cynthia Villar, and Ms. Grace Poe-Llamanzares.
The coalition proposed to field the team as the “Six Senate Champions,” to manifest their “confidence in the leadership qualities of the six, their personal integrity, and their pro-people stand on significant public issues.”
Ariel Casilao, Makabayan’s National Executive Vice President and coordinator for Southern Mindanao, also said that their endorsement is “based on platform” and the advocacies their guest candidates shared with Makabayan.
“It was based on track record, and years of cooperation — not just months or during the electoral season — on various issues that Makabayan stand for,” Casilao told davaotoday.com, disabusing beliefs that their endorsement was only for political convenience.
In a news report, Casiño said that the endorsement was not intended to bolster his candidacy as most of their guest candidates are big political names in the country. He said Makabayan’s move was about the commonality of the platforms of governance.
Meanwhile, Ocampo said that each of their guest candidates “has shared, or agreed to support, in varying degrees” the advocacies of Makabayan, involving actions toward:
1. The Lowering of prices of oil products, water, power and other basic commodities and services by introducing reforms on taxation and pricing policies;
2. Pushing for genuine agrarian reform; pro-people mining policies and environmental protection; equitable minimum wage and salary adjustments in the public and private sectors, subsidy for farmers and fisherfolk, and incentives for micro and small-medium enterprises;
3. Increasing budgetary allocations for essential social services such as education, health and housing and reviewing the automatic appropriation for foreign-debt servicing to channel more public funds for social services and job-creation;
4. Asserting national sovereignty and the people’s interest by thoroughly reviewing to rectify unequal bilateral treaties and agreements with the IMF-WB-WTO triad and the VFA and upholding our territorial and EEZ claims in the West Philippine Sea;
5. Working for the passage of the Freedom of Information and Whistleblowers Act, and opposing special treatment in handling criminal cases against Gloria Arroyo and other former officials;
6. Seeking an end to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of activists and journalists; amnesty to all political prisoners similar with military rebels;
7. Repealing or amending the Cybercrime law and decriminalizing libel; and
8. Urging the immediate release of detained NDFP consultants and other JASIG-protected persons and pushing for the resumption of peace talks between the GPH and the NDFP.
Ocampo said that their candidates will take these issues during the campaign and when elected, they will “endeavor to translate most of them into legislation.”
Makabayan has clinched the accreditation of the Commission on Elections in January this year to participate in the 2013 elections. It’s a coalition of progressive party-lists Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela, Kabataan and Act Teachers; and progressive groups like Migrante, Katribu, Akap-bata, Piston and Courage. (Marilou Aguirre-Tuburan/davaotoday.com)
