Gabriela Solon Gears for Palparan's Disqualification

“We strongly protest against Gen. Jovito Palparan’s assumption of public office. Palparan is responsible for the spate of extrajudicial killings, abductions, torture of government critics and other grave human rights violations in the country. Gen. Palparan has yet to account for these crimes against the Filipino people. We are gearing for his disqualification.”

Thus said Assistant Minority Leader and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Liza Maza today as Gabriela Women’s Party prepares for the disqualification case against retired Major General Jovito Palparan even before his possible assumption of office as party-list lawmaker.

While the Gabriela solon welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that increases by thrity-two the number of party-list seats in the House of Representatives in its landmark decision yesterday, Maza expressed concern with the entry of Palparan in the House of Representatives as nominee of his Bantay party-list.

“Right from the start, we already contested Palparan and his Bantay partylist’s bid for the partylist elections as these entities neither represent the marginalized sector nor reflect the sentiments of any sectoral group. This is just a bogus representation serving as an additional mouthpiece of the Arroyo administration in Congress,” Maza stressed.

“Majority of the party-list with additional representatives have been previously exposed as government-backed party-lists. Thus, they are wont to be aligned with the administration in Congress. This dilutes the essence of the party-list system outlined in R.A.7941 enabling representation of the marginalized and underrepresented sectors to the House of Representatives,” Maza said.