NEWS RELEASE
February 28, 2010
DAVAO CITY – Bayan Muna councilor bet for the 1st district Joel Virador hits the camp of retired Major General Jovito Palparan and ANAD Partylist Representative Jun Alcover for their continued vilification campaign against progressive partylist groups.
Virador, Bayan Muna Vice President for Mindanao, said the groups represented by Palparan and Alcover, both recently declared as persona non grata by the Davao City Council, have all the motives to conduct smear campaigns against the campaign materials of progressive partylist organizations and Makabayan senatorial bets Representatives Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza.
This he said after finding out that a lot of the campaign posters of progressive partylists and candidates were pasted over with signs of “Kampon ng Komunista” and “Utok sa CPP-NPA”.
“We saw almost all of our posters along Buhangin and in Agdao areas were smeared with these signs,” he said.
Alcover and Palparan have previously maliciously labeled progressive partylists Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela, Kabataan, Act Teachers, Katribu and Akap Bata as CPP-NPA fronts. Also recently, they came out with a one-page paid advertisement in a local paper calling for the revival of the Alsa Masa in Davao City.
“This continuing black propaganda is their way of discrediting the progressive blocs in the electorate – a scheme included in the military’s general counter-insurgency plan called Oplan Bantay Laya,” he said.
“But they will never succeed in their campaign. The voters can clearly discern who is pro-people and who is not. Bayan Muna, along with other progressive partylists, has been constantly at the forefront of the struggle for genuine land reform, just wages and social services while ANAD and Bantay exists to serve the interest of the Arroyo government and its minions to undermine freedom of speech and civil liberties,” Virador added. Bayan Muna, he said, will continue its fight for good governance and pro-people programs.
Reference:
Joel Virador, Bayan Muna Vice President for Mindanao
