The People’s Progressive Humanist Liberal Party (PolPHIL Party) has taken the bold and provocative step in entering the Philippine political arena by formally launching its national organization during its first national assembly in Bahay ng Alumni at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City on Saturday, Feb. 10.
With the launching theme “Larga, Magkaisa Pilipinas!” PolPHIL Party will bank on the people behind the organization composed and led by political officers, former activists and rebels, cadres of revolutionary movements, patriotic leaders, grassroots sectoral leaders, scholars, civil society and development workers, entrepreneurs, non-government (NGO) workers and organizers who have championed various people’s issues.
Noteworthy to state is the party’s council of elders whose long and splendid experience in the national political situation can clearly define the country’s political trajectory.
The council of elders is led by Edicio dela Torre, Bishop Nilo Tayag, Rodolfo Salas, and Nilo dela Cruz, all former political prisoners during the martial law era after fighting repressive dictatorial regime in the early 1970s.
Dela Torre is the founder and current president of the Education for Life Foundation (ELF), an NGO that runs a grassroots leadership-formation program, and co-convenor of Atin Ito Coalition, an organization which supports the Philippines’ sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.
Dela Torre was a former Catholic priest and political prisoner.
Bishop Nilo Tayag, founding member of National United Front for the Kingdom of God and Filipinism (NUF-KGF), co-founded, along with the late Jose Maria Sison and others, the Kabataang Makabayan, a youth group in 1964.
Rodolfo Salas, a former Communist Party of the Philippines chairman and New People’s Army chief known to his comrades as “Kumander Bilog,” was a former political prisoner detained at Camp Crame for six years.
Released in 1992 and later appointed by former President Gloria Arroyo to manage an electric cooperative (PELCO), serves as chairman of National Electrification Administration (NEA) and Chief Executive Officer of Pampanga Electric Cooperative.
Salas is now active in cooperative development, empowering farmers, craftsmen, and micro-entrepreneurs in Central Luzon.
Nilo Dela Cruz is the former chairman of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa ng Pilipinas-Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade, and currently a labor federation consultant.
Timely as it may seem, the PolPHIL Party leadership, in the spirit of inclusivity, is prepared to accommodate in various levels those who would seek to collaborate come the 2025 midterm elections and the 2028 national elections, “provided that the advocacies are people-centered, issue-based such as environment, political, economic, social, and cultural,” the group said in a statement.
Amid the brewing political divide brought by issues such as the Philippine territorial dispute with China, Mindanao secession, International Criminal Court probe on Duterte administration’s drug war, Charter change and inflation, PolPHIL Party took the initial step to seek the Commission on Election’s accreditation by electing its national officers, with Rudy Caneda voted as its National Chairman.
The party’s Chairman Emeritus, Fr. Dela Torre, in his analogy during the launch said the country “is not in the doldrums. The fiery spirit among the new crop of leaders may still slowly ignite when the right time comes. Just like a dying flame in a firewood stove, a slow blowing of wind could keep the fervor burning.”