Ocampo, Maza not joining Villar’s party

MILITANT congressmen who previously expressed intention to join the Nacionalista Party (NP) have decided to run as independent candidates instead in next year's elections due to the party's alliance with the Marcoses' Kilusang Bagong Lipunan.

Party-list Reps. Saturnino C. Ocampo (Bayan Muna) and Liza L. Maza (Gabriela), who will run for senator, said the NP-KBL alliance made their support to the NP standard bearer Senator Manuel B. Villar now impossible.

“In our meeting this morning we formalized our decision not to pursue our guest candidacy under the NP. At this point, doing otherwise 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,” Mr. Ocampo said in a press conference at the Quezon City Memorial Circle today.

“There are issues that are very important to us and require closure. It would be a grave injustice to the Filipino people to ignore or gloss over them for the sake of political expediency,” he added.

Ms. Maza said that they will file their certificates of candidacy (CoC) on Nov. 30.

The Commission on Elections has set Nov. 20-Dec. 1as the official dates for the filing of CoCs. --Jhoanna Frances. Valdez