NEWS THAT Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP), the party-list group whose representative in Congress is Mikey Arroyo, has been stripped of its accreditation by the Commission on Elections brings to mind the saying “How the mighty have fallen.”
If there is one enduring image of Arroyo, eldest child of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, it is of him standing in the front portion of the House Session Hall, just below the podium, his arms crossed across his chest while a vote was being taken on whether to oust Joe de Venecia from the speakership.
Ostensibly, De Venecia was being held to account for “loss of confidence,” with representatives raising such issues as his failure to appoint enough Mindanao lawmakers to juicy posts or cornering the majority of congressional funds for his favorite causes. But everyone knew the real reason for the vote: De Venecia’s support for his son Joey, who had been a “whistle-blower” in the NBN-ZTE case, implicating Mike Arroyo, the then President’s husband and Mikey’s father, in the anomalous deal.
There Mikey stood, imperious and glaring at every lawmaker announcing his/her vote, seemingly taking mental notes on who voted for or against the once-powerful Speaker. There was little doubt about who held the reins of power in that hall that afternoon, and even after Prospero Nograles took over from De Venecia, everyone knew he bent to the will of GMA, and everyone knew, as well, who enforced the President’s will in the House.
Mikey abandoned his post as representative of the second district of Pampanga to give way to his mother in the 2010 elections. But he found a place in the House by running (and winning) as the first nominee of AGP, which on paper sought to represent security guards and tricycle drivers, a rank absurdity since Mikey had never worked as a “blue guard” and drove only fancy SUVs, as far as anyone knew.
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IT’S a mystery why AGP was ever accredited by the Comelec for the 2010 party-list elections. But at least the Comelec today has found the gumption—if not the common sense—to de-list AGP, even if Mikey declares now that he is bowing out of politics.
Interesting, certainly, are the reasons cited by the Comelec for disqualifying AGP—for one, the “lone bill” filed in the House by Arroyo on the welfare of security guards, which has been languishing at the committee level.
The bill has just gone past first reading, and its slow progress through the committee level, said the Comelec, “was either a sign of ‘sheer laziness’ or a ‘glaring lack of empathy’ for the plight of the truly marginalized.”
Second was the apparent lack of interest of AGP’s leaders to defend its accreditation before the poll body. None of the party’s hierarchy bothered to show up at a hearing last August, with the Comelec coming to the conclusion that the party “purposely boycotted a lawful order of the Commission en banc or it is not at all interested in fighting for the cause of the sectors that it is seeking to represent.”
Well, it would be strange, indeed, for the once-powerful Mikey Arroyo to come to the defense of AGP when he has already milked every advantage from his affiliation with it. Also, he’s facing graver charges, tax evasion being one of them, and he no longer has time or energy for security guards and drivers.
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WHICH brings us to what some critics call “the new Ang Galing Pinoy,” which is nothing but the “old” party-list group Akbayan.
Akbayan has won every election it ran in, and now has two sitting representatives: Walden Bello and Kaka Bag-ao. In 2010, Akbayan threw its name and its numbers behind the candidacy of Sen. Noynoy Aquino. That decision has reaped many advantages for the party, including having its leaders named to key posts in the Aquino administration, but we must remember that in 2010 a P-Noy victory was still very much a matter of speculation.
True, the death of President Cory Aquino, an event met with an outpouring of public sympathy, gave her senator-son a tremendous and wholly unexpected boost. So much so that the Liberal Party, which was then backing Sen. Mar Roxas for president, began to look to Noynoy as a “winnable” alternative. The decision was cemented after Roxas gallantly stepped down from his candidacy.
But before P-Noy accepted the challenge, the presidential field had been dominated by another senator, Manny Villar, running under the resuscitated Nacionalista Party. Villar threw his considerable wealth and seemingly invincible machinery into his campaign. And that included courting the strangest of bedfellows, including some party-list groups that now count among the most vociferous critics of Akbayan.
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NO DOUBT Akbayan’s gamble paid off. Risa Hontiveros, who served three terms as Akbayan representative in the House, is today part of the Liberal Party coalition ticket (which includes, ironically, former congresswoman Cynthia Villar) for the Senate. This, after Risa’s heartbreaking 13th place in 2010. And as mentioned previously, many Akbayan officers have been appointed to government posts.
Does this make Akbayan a party in the mold of AGP? Akbayan registered and was accredited as a “multisectoral party,” and its own record in the House bears out its commitment to the welfare of marginalized sectors—farmers, women, sexual minorities, among others—and its staunch defense and progressive stance on issues like human rights, the environment and national interest.
Maybe a party-list group’s ties to the marginalized should be judged not just on the class origins of its membership or leadership but also on the party’s record of performance on behalf of the people it seeks to represent. And on that score, Akbayan passes with flying colors.