MANILA — Bayan Muna Representative and the Makabayan party’s senatorial bet Neri Javier Colmenares filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) today, Oct. 12. He was among the first to file candidacy for the senate.
Different people’s organizations and personalities gathered at the National Press Club, then marched to the Comelec office at the Palacio del Gobernador in Intramuros, Manila to show their support to Colmenares.
Colmenares’ aunt, actress Angel Locsin was among his supporters, having earlier joined the clamor for the lawmaker to run for senate in the 2016 national elections.
Also there were satirist Mae Paner a.k.a. Juana Change, former Bayan Muna Representatives Satur Ocampo and Teddy Casiño, as well as Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Emmi De Jesus.
Colmenares’ platform includes the protection of consumers, particularly, against rising prices of electricity, water, oil, and basic commodities, increase wages and pension and end contractualization, implementation of genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization, and assertion of Philippine sovereignty against intervention by US and China.
Text by Anne Marxze D. Umil
Photos grabbed from Rep. Neri Colmenares Facebook account and by Kathy Yamzon 
A government of, by, and for the people has been bandied about by politicians who make a mockery of this quote. Neri Colmenares is the great exception! Defender of the downtrodden, Colmenares is a human rights lawyer whose heart beats for the oppressed.