Leftist Filipino Lawmakers Join Nacionalista Party's 2010 Senatorial Slate

Manila, Philippines (AHN) - Reps. Liza Maza and Satur Ocampo announced on Monday that they will be Senate candidates next year under the Nacionalista Party. The two leftist lawmakers previously withdrew plans of running under the party after its chairman forged an alliance with the party created by former President Ferdinand Marcos during martial law.

In a statement, Maza and Ocampo said they made the decision after several months of talks with Sen. Manny Villar, president of the Nacionalista Party and a candidate for president next year.

"What clinched the alliance was the positive response of Sen. Villar and his party to the people's issues that we presented to all the presidential frontrunners," they said. "Of all the serious candidates for president, it was Sen. Villar who engaged us in earnest discussions on a common platform and program."

Villar, a former House speaker and the richest member of the Senate, said in a press conference with the militant party-list representatives, "We worked really hard to have Reps. Ocampo and Maza in our ticket. We recognize their sincere devotion to the welfare of the underprivileged."

Maza represents a women's group called Gabriela while Ocampo, who was tortured as a political prisoner during martial law under the Marcos regime, represents Bayan Muna. They join Rep. Bongbong Marcos, the only son of the former president, in the party's slate of Senate contenders.

They filed their certificates of candidacy last month as independents, following Villar's alliance with Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, or New Society Movement, the administration party during the martial law years.

At the time, the two lawmakers said becoming a Nacionalista candidates "would compromise our stand on the issue of recovering the Marcos family's ill-gotten wealth and compensating the human rights victims of the Marcos dictatorship." They added that the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan a party that "supported and benefited from [Marcos'] 20-year fascist rule," while Villar's group, the nation's oldest political party, "was virtually obliterated by Marcos' one-man, one-party dictatorship."

The criticisms prompted the Nacionalista Party to dissolve its alliance with the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan last week, while keeping Marcos as a candidate.

"In as much as the Nacionalista Party-KBL alliance has been questioned, it is now replaced by the adoption of Rep. Bongbong Marcos as a Nacionalista Party official senatorial candidate," former Rep. Gilbert Remulla, party spokesman, had said.