It is “only proper and fair,” the guerilla spokesman said, for politicians to coordinate with the NPA and people’s militia, organs of political power, revolutionary forces and branches of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as well as “respect the distinct territories held by the revolutionary government.”
By MARILOU AGUIRRE-TUBURAN
Davao Today
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — As the campaign period for the local candidates kicks off this Good Friday, March 29, the New People’s Army (NPA) in Southern Mindanao reiterates its “revolutionary policies” on elections within their claimed territories.
In a statement Monday, Rigoberto F. Sanchez, spokesman for the NPA’s Southern Mindanao Regional Command, said that candidates vying the posts at the provincial, congressional and mayoral levels “should adhere to the policies and programs of the People’s Democratic Government.”
The term “candidate,” according to the Commission on Election (Comelec) Resolution 9615 or the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the Fair Election Act, referred to any individual who’s seeking an elective public office, who has filed his certificate of candidacy and who has not been disqualified before the start of the campaign period.
It also referred to any registered national , regional or sectoral party, organization or coalition that has manifested their intent to participate under the party-list system.
Citing seven requisites, NPA’s Sanchez said that candidates must: demonstrate sincerity in both words and deed as they relate with the masses; undertake concrete actions to conform to campaign promises especially within revolutionary territories; and desist from performing counterrevolutionary intelligence activities against the NPA and revolutionary movement.
Sanchez furthered that local politicians must also abstain from carrying out anti-social activities like gambling, drinking, prostitution and other decadent bourgeois exploits that affect the youth and promote profligate culture; deter from conniving and/or conspiring with the AFP and Oplan Bayanihan; provide material and financial help to fund mass production campaign, education, health, and immediate infrastructure projects especially in areas badly hit by Typhoon Pablo and other calamities; and shun from carrying firearms.
The NPA, Sanchez explained, is a separate and distinct armed force which “exercises control over a significant portion of territory in the country” adding that it “acts for and in defense of the constituency of the People’s Democratic Government.”
It is “only proper and fair,” the guerilla spokesman said, for politicians to coordinate with the NPA and people’s militia, organs of political power, revolutionary forces and branches of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as well as “respect the distinct territories held by the revolutionary government.”
This as the “politicians and bourgeois political parties” are expected to reach out to the people for the midterm elections set on 13 May 2013.
The requisites, according to Sanchez, is within the CPP’s policy and practice of classifying politicians as either allies, neutrals or enemies.
Meanwhile, Comelec Chair Sixto Brillantes, in a message posted at their website has appealed to the candidates “for stringent compliance to all rules, regulations and laws relating to the conduct of free and fair elections.”
He said that the Comelec, for the past two years, has been engaged in “instituting vital administrative and electoral reforms” citing the purchase of the precinct count optical scan machines, cleansing the party-list system of representation, annulling the book of votes, the holding of general registration of voters in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and the holding of field test, mock elections and configuration and printing of ballots
While setting their policies, the NPA emphasized that they have long considered the electoral process “as farcical because traditional politicians of the exploiting classes monopolize this fleeting circus.”
“The reactionary elections do not reflect the people’s will nor can it dispel the people’s discontent,” Sanchez said.
No matter who wins in the elections, “there will be no fundamental change,” Sanchez noted as the country is continuously “ruled by the big compradors and landlords that lay prostrate to imperialist dictates.”
Sanchez said that “the people should identify and isolate the re-electionist officials and incumbents who have maliciously and wickedly aggravated the economic and political conditions of Typhoon Pablo victims” as well as opposed the “despotic re-electionist officials that ride on the back of the brutal Oplan Bayanihan.”
“Politicians who have taken hook, line and sinker the rabid, anti-people and duplicitous Oplan Bayanihan of the AFP are crooks that the people must oppose. They should not be supported at all,” Sanchez said.
With only less than 50 days, the May election is the second Automated Elections in the country. (Marilou Aguirre-Tuburan/davaotoday.com)
