AFP says it exposed left-leaning partylists in election

May 20, 2019

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) expressed belief that the military  played a vital role on making left-leaning partylist groups lose their hold during last week's 2019 mid-term polls.

“Since last year we are exposing them. We even sent a team with the Department of Foreign Affairs to counter their international solidarity works. So our consuls..also helped us to disclose the right information to those who funded them, in the guise of environmental degradation awareness,'' said Col. Noel Detoyato, AFP Public Affairs Chief, Monday.

Those are the issues that they have capitalized, so the funds were diverted to support their armed revolution,” added Detoyato.

Detoyato said the military was ''able to convince some local officials to help us.''  'That is why they lost a lot of votes,” he added.

Detoyato said the AFP had exposed left-leaning partylist groups to empower the people.

“The people already know them, on who they wanted to support, who are really representing the marginalized sectors because there are some partylist groups who are taking advantage of the partylist group system. They are not representing anybody except the interest of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) New People’s Army (NPA),” he said.

“An informed populace is a source of national power. We empower the people by giving them the right information so when they got the right information we saw that the right information was translated into votes,” he noted.

Detoyato said partylist groups '' lost millions of votes.''

“That is an indicator that the people are already aware of their true nature, because that is there, dual, revolutionary, dual tactic, legal and illegal. They have a legal front... and then they have the armed men,” he added.

Among the members of the Makabayan bloc which lost votes includes Gabriela, ACT Teachers, Kabataan and Anakpawis.

The latest partial and official canvass of partylists show ACT-CIS (2,569,702); Bayan Muna (1,102,167); AKO BICOL (1,045,670); CIBAC (915,840); Ang Probinsyano (761,677); 1 Pacman (708,398); Marino (679,876); Probinsyano Ako (623,271); Senior Citizens (507,633); and Magsasaka (484,814).

Occupying the next 10 slots are APEC (480,015); Gabriela (444,151); An Waray (441,291); COOP-NATCCO (415,615); Ako Bisaya (393,019); Tingog Sinirangan (390,621); ACT Teachers (389,050); Abono (376,898); Buhay (359,662); and Philreca (353,890). Robina Asido/DMS