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Not even a pygmy



Not even a pygmy
Editorial
Malaya
March 27, 2010

MIKEY Arroyo, nominee of a party list group representing security guards, dared compare himself to sitting nominees of leftist party groups. Predictably, he exposed himself for what he is: a fraud.

Mikey said leftist militant congressmen are "hypocrites" for assailing his party list nomination because most of them, including self-exiled communist party founder Jose Ma. Sison, do not belong to the working class which they claim to represent.

"Mr. Jose Ma. Sison had been the chairman of the CPP and it is widely believed he is still chairman of the CPP up to now. But then, the CPP is a movement of the working class. Is Mr. Sison a member of the working class himself? I don’t think so," he said.

We hold no truck with Sison. In fact, we are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. On economics, we favor the market system over central planning. On politics, we stand solidly planted on the side of liberal democracy against the dictatorship of the proletariat. But we know for a fact that Sison has been a communist since his late teens. He is now in his seventies and there is no living Filipino who can question his bona fides as a leader the communist party and of the working class movement.

Let’s see who could be the "hypocrites" Arroyo was referring to. There’s the Bayan Muna party which the Armed Forces continues to tag as a communist party "front" organization.

Bayan Muna, whose No. 1 aim is "to establish a democratic, nationalist and popular government by empowering the people," has three sitting members in the House, namely, Neri Javier Colmenares, Teddy Casiño and Satur Ocampo.

Here are the capsule biographies we got from the Bayan Muna website.

Neri Javier Colmenares. A long-time human rights lawyer, constitutionalist and expert on international humanitarian law. He was among the youngest political detainees during martial law. Prior to joining the legal profesion, he was a student activist.

Teddy A. Casino. A genuine social reformist and one of the most dynamic young leaders in the country today. He was first swept into the politics of change when, as a high school student in La Salle Green Hills, he volunteered for the National Movement for Free Elections and took part in the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. The experience changed him so that since then, his life has been characterized by a conscious choice for the road less traveled.

Satur C. Ocampo. Born on April 7, 1939 in Sta. Rita, Pampanga in the Philippines to a family of landless tenant farmers. He is married to Carolina "Bobbie" Malay, a writer and professor of journalism…He supported himself through his university education. In 1963, he worked as an economic journalist for the Manila Times until Martial Law shut down the newspaper in 1972. He was a vice-president of the National Press Club in 1970-72.

(The information on Ocampo is somehow sparse, but it is on record he was detained during martial and continues to be accused by the AFP as a leader of the communist party)

These three have no need to prove their "pro-people" credentials.

They may not be moral giants but compared to them, Mikey cannot even reasonably be described as a pygmy. He stands on a moral plane no higher than a crocodile’s.
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