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POLITICS
Year of Triumph for
Progressives
(Last of two parts)
The progressive party-list bloc may very
well consider 2004 a year of triumph. Bayan Muna repeated its 2001 feat of
topping the party-list election, and joining it in Congress this year are
sister party-list groups Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party. They braved
the odds and, in Congress, found themselves in an interesting political
mix.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Photo by Aubrey SC Makilan
The year 2004 saw the
progressive party-list group Bayan Muna (People First) topping the
party-list contest, thereby repeating its feat in the 2001 election – and
being joined by two sister party-list groups: Anakpawis (Toiling Masses)
and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP).
This makes for six
party-list representatives from the cause-oriented movement. Bayan Muna’s
Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casiño, and Joel Virador – all noted leaders of the
multi-sectoral mass movement under the umbrella of the Bagong Alyansang
Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance) – walk the halls of the House
of Representatives arm in arm with labor leader Crispin Beltran and
peasant leader Rafael Mariano of Anakpawis and long-time women’s leader
Liza Maza of GWP. Not since 1946, when the Democratic Alliance (DA) won
six seats in the House of Representatives, have there been as many
activist solons in the so-called Lower House.
Anakpawis is focused
on legislation concerning the issues of the basic masses – workers,
peasants, and urban poor; while GWP’s work emphasizes the crafting of
bills and resolutions on the rights and welfare of women, children, and
consumers.
From 2001 to 2004,
Bayan Muna’s work description covered all of these concerns, together with
legislation countering the government’s pro-U.S. foreign policy and its
adherence to the pro-globalization economic framework.
While the
representatives of the three progressive party-list groups support each
other in their legislative work, co-sponsoring each other’s bills and
resolutions and working to get support for these by networking with fellow
representatives, the entry of Anakpawis and GWP opens possibilities for a
“division of labor” of some sort among the three – which could result in
more legislative measures on each major area of concern.
Costs of victory
Even as the three
progressive party-list groups may mark 2004 as a year of triumph, they are
not going to forget the cost at which they attained electoral victory.
During the campaign
period, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales came out with an
“expose” against the six progressive parties that ran for election: Bayan
Muna, Anakpawis, GWP, Anak ng Bayan (Sons and Daughters of the People)
Youth Party or AnB, Migrante Sectoral Party (MSP), and Suara Bangsamoro
(Voice of the Moro People).
Gonzales accused the
Bayan Muna representatives of channeling their Priority Development
Assistance Funds (PDAF) to the New People’s Army (NPA). Meanwhile, he
called the other progressive parties “front organizations” of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA. Challenged to
provide proof for his accusations, Gonzales chose to remain mum.
The progressive
party-list groups saw Gonzales’ finger-pointing as a veiled license for
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to harass and even physically
attack their organizers and campaigners.
The February-May
campaign period saw 10 members of progressive party-list groups – seven
from Bayan Muna, two from Anakpawis, and one from GWP – ending up as
casualties of election-related violence. Among the main casualties was
Bayan Muna’s Naujan, Oriental Mindoro mayoral candidate Juvy Magsino,
a human rights lawyer, who was shot dead together with public school
teacher Leyma Fortu in February.
Meanwhile, Pedro
“Tata Pido” Gonzales, an Anakpawis candidate for Quezon provincial board
member, was shot seven times, but fortunately survived the attack.
As for harassment,
the most notable case was that of AnB’s second nominee Ronald Ian Evidente,
who was arrested during the campaign period and accused of murdering a
commander of the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB),
an armed group that broke away from the NPA in the early 1990s. The
progressive party-list groups experienced several instances in which their
campaign sorties were blocked and fired at by police and military.
Not only that: they
also encountered numerous attempts to cheat them of victory. Suara
Bangsamoro, in particular, suffered vote-shaving in its own turf, Mindanao.
Bayan Muna, GWP, and AnB experienced similar cases.
Political mix
Still Bayan Muna,
Anakpawis, and GWP won – and would find themselves in an interesting mix
in Congress. With their representatives are congressmen from 11 other
party-list groups:
Akbayan Citizens’
Party, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM or Worker’s Party), Buhay Hayaan Yumabong
(Buhay or Let Life Grow), Butil (Grain) Farmers’ Party, Alagad (literally,
Agent);
Alliance of Volunteer
Educators (AVE), Veterans Freedom Party (VFP),
Cooperative-National Confederation of
Cooperatives (Coop-Natcco), Citizens’
Battle
against Corruption (Cibac), An Waray (literally, Those Who Have Nothing),
Anak Mindanao (Amin or Children of Mindanao), and Association of
Philippine Electric Cooperatives (APEC).
All together, the 14
party-list groups have 23 out of 237 representatives, or 9.7 percent of
the membership of the 13th Congress. While this is an
“improvement” from the 12th Congress, in which 12 party-list groups had
all in all 19 out of 214 representatives or 8.88 of the total membership
in the House, still this does not speak quite well of the party-list law’s
ability to ensure adequate representation of underrepresented sectors in
the legislature.
So in the 13th
Congress, as was the case in the 12th Congress, the country has
less than a tenth of its congressmen representing (whether actually or
avowedly) underrepresented groups and more than 90 percent of them
obviously representing big business and landed interests.
All things said,
however, the current composition of the party-list bloc – with
representatives from the multi-sectoral mass movement, basic masses,
women, the rejectionist groups, cooperatives, Warays (a groups native to
Samar and the Leyte provinces in the Visayas, south of Manila), volunteer
teachers, Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC or Church of Christ members) and Mindanao
(southern Philippines) natives – makes up an interesting mix.
Equally interesting
was the mix of candidates for president: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a
whole-hearted U.S. ally and main globalization proponent; film
actor-director-producer Fernando Poe, Jr., student leader-turned-lawyer
Raul Roco, activist-turned-evangelist Eddie Villanueva, cop and alleged
martial-law torturer Panfilo Lacson, and crackpot Eddie Gil (now a
television star). Bulatlat
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