National Security Adviser and National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) Vice Chairman Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. said on Tuesday that he is confident that the Commission on Elections will disqualify Gabriela Party-list in next year’s polls for receiving money from foreign donors, a flagrant violation of the 1987 Philippine Constitution.
At the NTF-ELCAC’s weekly virtual press conference, Esperon said he had finished testifying on the petition for the cancellation of registration of Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) and the General Assembly of Women and Reforms (GAWR) in the party-list system last Thursday (August 12, 2021) before the Comelec’s 2nd Division.
“My task is done in the Comelec. Other witnesses will be called,” Esperon said.
Officials from the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) will also testify in the disqualification case “to prove that Gabriela is receiving money from abroad,” he added.
Esperon said he believes in the Comelec’s swift resolution to cancel Gabriela since there will be a registration of parties for the coming elections.
“We certainly pray, and I hope and I’m confident, that the Comelec will resolve this petition because, by my recollection from other reports, there are many applicants for party-lists numbering more than a hundred,” Esperon said.
The NTF-ELCAC petition contends that Gabriela violated Section 2, Paragraph 5, Article 9 (C) of the Philippine Constitution by receiving financial assistance from a foreign government and non-government organizations (NGOs).
Political parties found guilty of such offenses can have their registration with the Comelec canceled.
Esperon said one of the AMLC officials who has appeared at the hearing informed Comelec that Gabriela received funds not only from the Belgian government but also from Viva Salud VZW, a Belgian-accredited non-government organization (NGO) and another European group.
“Viva Salud from Belgium sent P1.8 M in March 2019. Yung tinanggap sa Viva kitang-kita sa Mazars,” he said, referring to an international accounting firm contracted by the Belgian government to audit Viva Salud’s programs. Another AMLC finding, Esperon pointed out, was the fund transfers ranging from P1 to P2 M from the INTL FCstone Ltd. of London from September 2015 to March 2019.
“Mazars report pointed out that Gabriela received funds together with the Ibon Foundation and Karapatan,” Esperon said.
Esperon continued that during the same period mentioned, then GWP Representative Emerenciana de Jesus who was also the chairperson of Gabriela, Inc. from 2013-2015, contributed a total of P930,000 to Gabriela during the 2019 national and local elections.
With this, the National Security Adviser said Gabriela, Inc, GWP, and GAWR are all interconnected. “Many of them have the same addresses.
Comelec has the same Gabriela address and Gabriela Inc.,” noting that the group has “interlocking bank accounts” according to AMLC findings.
This proves beyond doubt that Gabriela Partylist has circumvented the provisions of the Constitution and Comelec rules, the official said Meanwhile, Lawyer Marlon Bosantog, NTF-ELCAC spokesperson for Legal Affairs and IP Concerns, said they already have at least 9 witnesses in their petition to cancel the registration of the Kabataan Partylist.
“The case of Kabataan Partylist is centered on the Constitution of Kabataan Partylist as a creation of the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF). It is an organization that is made to infiltrate the legislative bureaucracy of the government,” Bosantog said He added that the NTF-ELCAC has a witness who was with the Kabataan Party-list from the time it was created. “We have witnesses that can testify on the recruitment of the Kabataan Party-list as a funnel for NPA fighters. We have testimonies that would show the current sitting representative of Kabataan Party-list personally recruited and informed them to go to the mountains and bear arms against the government,” he said.
NTF-ELCAC filed the petition to delist Kabataan from the party-list system on June 25, 2021, which coincided with the 32nd anniversary of the Rano Massacre in Digos, Davao del Sur.