ANTIPOLO City, October 6, 2011—Anti-APECO [Aurora-Pacific Economic Zone and Free Port] groups are seeking “allies” in the Senate that would help them scrap an “onerous” project.
In a statement, Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) Vice Chair Salvador France said that they had been expecting the senators, excluding Edgardo Angara of course, about the issue and review the project which they believe will just “bastardize” the waters and land of Aurora and the nearby provinces, and will evict the thousands of fisher folks and peasants from their lands.
“The upper house has 23 senators, but so far none has open his or her big mouth to oppose this death certificate to Aurora people and environment authored by one of their peers—Senator Edgardo Angara. We are still hoping that in the coming days, a few good men in the Senate will rise above the occasion and tell the world that Apeco should be junked,” France said.
The Senate, France says, should take interest of investigating one of their colleagues, Sen. Edgardo J. Angara, Sr. as they are interested in grilling public officials involved in graft and corruption.
Last Monday, October 3, Pamalakaya and other members of Resist Apeco! Defend Aurora Movement staged three-in-one protest—planking, swimming and floating off Manila Bay beside the seawall of the Philippine Senate to demand senators to cross party lines and investigate the Angara clan.
“The people of Aurora and the collective interest of the Filipino people hereby order the Philippine Senate to kick off a full-blown investigation on the role of Angaras in Apeco. It is politically, legally and morally correct to put Sen.Angara in the spotlight of people’s inquiry,” the groups said in a joint statement.
They press for the exclusion of the P 332.5 million budget for Apeco in the General Appropriations Act of 2012 and the thorough review of the Republic Act 10083 which has created the free port authority in 2008. Interestingly, the said law was also drafted and pushed by no other than by the father and son tandem.
“We would like to inform this August chamber that Senator Angara and other members of the Angara political dynasty in cahoots with their stooges in Apeco board are behind the anti-people and anti-environment project. And that we demand that Senator Angara should be censured for calling His Excellency, Most Reverend Bishop Rolando Tria Tirona of the Prelature of Infanta as [an] "absentee bishop" of Aurora province and that the Pamalakaya as front of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for their strong opposition against Apeco,” they said.
For his part, Pamana vice chairperson and AMGL regional council leader Elmer Dayson said the Senate should conduct a thorough investigation on the P 2-billion funds spent for Apeco from 2007 to 2010.
“The ruling Angara dynasty and the Apeco authority should explain to the public how they spent 2 billion pesos of the taxpaying public in the name of a highly questionable and extremely anti-people and anti-environment project. The senators should step in and discover the underworld operation of the Angaras in Casiguran, Aurora,” said Dayson. [Noel Sales Barcelona/CBCPNews)
No comments:
Post a Comment