LGUs: A new battleground for the RH

 As the Sunday news report blared, a movement from the Catholic Laity openly endorsed the senatorial and congressional candidates who supported the Catholic Church in its fight against the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) bill. This newly-formed group calls themselves Lay Initiative for Elections (LIFE), which is composed of lay organizations within the Archdiocese of Cebu. Of course, the Cebu Archdiocese has maintained its stand of neutrality in this election…but if you looked at those who signed this endorsement, you can bet that the archdiocese approves of this endorsement without stating it officially.

One of the prime movers of LIFE is my good friend, Dr. Rene Bullecer of Human Life International (HLI) who said, “We endorse only candidates who legislate laws in the upper and lower chambers. Many of our leaders requested that supporting the local candidates is too divisive as many of our leaders are supporting many local candidates.” While I concur that the focus of LIFE is to stop senatoriables and congressionables who supported the RH bill from being re-elected… however I must warn Dr. Bullecer and the leaders of LIFE that the Evil One will not rest even if it loses their senatorial and congressional bets… because they will bring RH into the local government.

We must learn the lessons that we saw that happened in Davao City where the City Council already enacted a local ordinance patterned from the RH bill. If they do not choose carefully who are the pro-life candidates for governor, vice governor, provincial board members, city or municipal mayors, vice mayors and councilors… we might regret later why we did not include the candidates for positions in the local government units. I would like to believe that the LGUs are the next battleground for the RH.

Meanwhile, LIFE has openly endorsed their pro-life candidates, starting with my good friend, former Representative of Cebu City's North District Raul del Mar, 1st District's Sam-Sam Gullas, 2nd District's Rep. Pabling Garcia, 3rd District bet former Gov. Gwen F. Garcia, 4th District Benhur Salimbangon, 5th District Ace Durano, and Aileen Radaza of the 6th District.

For the Party-List Representatives, LIFE supports Buhay, Ang Pro-Life and ANAD Partylist bets.

As for the South District of Cebu City, Dr. Bullecer announced that they are still evaluating as to who of the two, Councilor Rodgrigo “Bebot” Abellanosa of BO-PK or Aristotle Batuhan of Team Rama that they would endorse. If both are pro-life, then I'm sure that the LIFE leaders would also look into other issues like corruption.

We all know that Councilor Bebot Abellanosa is under fire by the Office of the Ombudsman about the huge advantage he got and allegedly profited from the Cebu City Scholarship Program, which was subject to an open letter to the Liberal Party (LP) by his opponent, Total Batuhan entitled, “Who is Shamelessly Profiting from the Cebu City Scholarship Program?”

Of course, this is a totally separate issue from the pro-life issues. However when it comes to corruption or public officials misusing their power to gain undue advantage over the others…we should support the candidate who is spotless and clean. I'm not condemning Bebot Abellanosa for what he is being accused of… however he must explain the Cebu City Scholarship Program to his constituents.

On the senatorial front, LIFE supports the “Team Buhay” candidates, Sen. Gringo Honasan, Sen. Antonio Trillanes JV Ejercito, Nancy Binay, Rep. Mitos Magsaysay, Sen. Koko Pimentel, Cynthia Villar, Sen. Migz Zubiri , JC Delos Santos, Christian Seneres, Marwill Llasos and Dick Gordon. As for me, I'm removing the name of Sen. Antonio Trillanes because I also have my own list, wherein I will not vote into office those senators who convicted CJ Corona. In lieu of Sen. Trillanes, I'm putting the name of Lito David who should have been included in that list.

Yes, if there is any list that we ought to look into especially from the reelectionist candidates, it is their Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN). At the height of the Senate impeachment proceedings for CJ Corona, he threw a direct challenge to the floor to all Senators… to also open their SALNs for all to see. At this point, I only know of a few Senators who were up to the Corona challenge. But the rest of them refused to show their SALNs and now is the time to demand it from these re-electionists.

It's not yet a year since CJ Corona was impeached and his challenge has remain unanswered. So let us ask all the editors of the national dailies and local newspapers to demand this from our senators and congressmen. Now is the perfect time to scrutinize their SALNs, even their pork barrel. Sen. Trillanes for instance had the biggest travel expense when he was still incarcerated. Yet he has not explained this to his constituents. So why should be reelect him to the Senate? Remember these days…we are the boss!

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