Militant senatorial bets won’t support Marcos bid

MANILA, Philippines — Even if they are altogether running together under Senator Manuel Villar’s Nacionalista Party (NP), senatorial candidates Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza said they will not support the senatorial bid of Ilocos Norte Representative Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

The Makabayan coalition of Ocampo and Maza on Monday entered into a “mutual adoption agreement” with the NP tandem of Villar and Senator Loren Legarda for the May 2010 election.

“We wish to emphasize that the key basis of Makabayan’s mutual adoption agreement with the Villar-Legarda tandem is the accord to carry specific reforms in our platform during the campaign and to implement them after victory,” said Ocampo and Maza in a statement.

Ocampo said that “Makabayan intends to talk with other senatorial candidates of the Nacionalista Party for concrete forms of cooperation on the basis of our platform except with Bongbong Marcos.”

Marcos Jr. will also run for senator under NP.

Ocampo said Makabayan has to go by the decision of its constituents not to back Marcos Jr. because of his repeated claims that his family did not do anything wrong during his late father’s administration.

“We respect and uphold the expressed will of our mass constituents not to support Bongbong Marcos’s senatorial bid because he echoes his mother’s repeated claim that former President Marcos did nothing wrong in his dictatorial rule,” Ocampo said.

Ocampo said that the Marcoses “have in so many ways obstructed the rendering of justice and indemnification of the victims of martial law and the recovery of ill-gotten wealth.”

According to him, one of the factors that sealed the agreement with the NP was the commitment of both Villar and Legarda to immediately bring justice and indemnify the victims of Marcos’s martial rule.

Makabayan is a coalition of eight progressive parties—Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Gabriela, Kabataan, Migrante, ACT Teachers, Courage, and Katribu.

The NP will field a full 12-person senatorial slate in next year’s election namely, Ocampo, Maza, Marcos Jr., re-electionist Senators Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr., and Pia Cayetano, and Colonel Ariel Querubin.

Lawyer Adel Tamano, former labor undersecretary Susan "Toots" Ople, Gwendolyn Pimentel (daughter of Senator Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel Jr.), Ramon "Mon-Mon" Mitra (son of the late Speaker Ramon Mitra), and former congressman Gilbert Remulla.