“Abolishing the party-list component in Congress is like summary killing,” said Buhay Party-List Rep. Lito Atienza. He was expressing his view in response to a question by Channel 5 anchor Cheryl Cosim in the early morning news.
It was obviously an aside to the unabated extra-judicial killing of suspects, the death toll of which has reached more than 400 and still counting since President Rodrigo Duterte’s all-out war against illegal drugs.
While Atienza acknowledged that the Commission on Elections needed to cleanse the party-list roster, he said totally abolishing the congressmen representing the marginalized sector of society is a big mistake. He also said that the President, citing the case of Mikey Arroyo representing security guards, was the worst example to denigrate the work of party-list members.
“In many instances,” Atienza pointed out, “it’s the party-list members in Congress who are at the forefront of raising questions about major bills that could have been railroaded by the sheer majority.” He cited the fiscalizing of Reps. Neri Colmenares (Bayan Muna), Jonathan dela Cruz (Abakada) and of course his own Buhay Party-List which opposed the Reproductive Health bill for its embedded abortion intent and the constitutionally flawed Bangsamoro Basic Law initiated by the previous Aquino administration. Had it not been for these vocal opposition party-list members and Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s scrutiny, the Aquino administration could have rammed the BBL down the people’s throats.
Atienza also cautioned against entrusting charter change to congressmen whom Duterte wants to convene into a Constitutional Assembly. House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez apparently already got his marching orders from the Palace to carry out a plan to railroad charter change using its supermajority in the chamber. Alvarez said only 50 congressmen can do the work of changing the charter. These are, of course, Malacañang-designated congressmen ready to do the President’s bidding.
But what else is new? This was the scheme of things during Noynoy’s administration. So it will be in Duterte’s term.
Atienza said there are major amendments like the proposed federalism and parliamentary form of government plus game changing rules on economic and trade policy that cannot be left to a group of lawmakers with varied vested interests. Atienza is a former member of parliament in the Batasang Pambansa during the martial law regime and a six-term party-list congressman. These attest to his background in legislative work.
A major issue which Atienza expressed concern over was the crafting of an implementing law on political dynasties, pointing out that congressmen undoubtedly won’t work against their own interests to end this political anomaly.
What does Atienza think about Duterte’s unilateral ceasefire and the President’s sudden withdrawal of his own initiative when the communist rebels didn’t meet his deadline to explain the deadly Davao ambush?
“Well, Joma Sison has a point. The President can’t just say he’s ordering a unilateral ceasefire without coordinating this with the other side,” said Atienza. The President, in his first State of the Nation Address, stunned everyone when he announced a unilateral ceasefire without specifying details and disregarding the process and protocol of such a major decision.
Sison in his overseas interview, called the President’s decision-making as “volatile” and Duterte’s behavior as that of a bullying “butangero” (hoodlum). The exiled communist leader’s remark was by far the most cutting said of his former student at the Lyceum University.
“He [Duterte] cannot just give an ultimatum to the NDF-NPA to explain the fatal ambush of CAFGU [auxiliary] government troops in Davao like the rebels were his “muchachos “ whom he can fire for not complying immediately with his order. Sison added the CPP-NPA forces are ideologues who take their orders from party higher-ups with their own set of rules. Luis Jalandoni, a ranking National Democratic Front member, said in Utrecht, Netherlands that it was the Armed Forces of the Philippines that didn’t observe the ceasefire when government troops continued their military operations in Southern Min-danao.
With Sison’s acerbic comment on Duterte’s style, the prospects of peace talks and the communist leader’s coming home to Manila now appears bleak unless the mercurial President shows he can take criticism in stride. But this looks remote because even his own circle of friends said the President is cold to taking advice from them. Hence we are witness to seeing and hearing unpresidential, off-the-cuff and quotable comments.