Human Rights Group Hails Comelec Purge Of Bantay, Hits ANAD

From the Manila Bulletin (Oct 25): Human Rights Group Hails Comelec Purge Of Bantay, Hits ANAD

A human rights group hailed Thursday the decision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) disqualifying the party-list group represented in Congress by retired general Jovito S. Palparan Jr., who is now facing kidnapping and serious illegal detention charges, and sought the disqualification of another group called “ANAD.” Cristina Palabay secretary-general of Karapatan accused Palparan’s Bantay party-list of having done nothing in Congress during its tenure.... Karapatan has accused Bantay of allegedly “representing the government’s counterinsurgency program, primarily implemented by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and is directed against the poor who struggles against poverty, oppression and exploitation.” It also called for the disqualification of the Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy (ANAD) and the Abang Lingkod Partylist led by the paramilitary group called the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB) that operates in the provinces of Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental. “ANAD is but a clone of Bantay. It’s one of the complements of the armed forces’ psywar machinery that spreads anti-left hysteria among the people, with a mantra that ‘if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck,” Palabay said.

http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/378693/human-rights-group-hails-comelec-purge-of-bantay-hits-anad