Hugpong to junk candidates paying extortion money to NPA

Candidates found to be paying extortion money to the New People’s Army (NPA) will be outrightly junked from the Hugpong ng Pagbabago - Hugpong sa Tawong Lungsod (HNP-HTL).

The leadership of the HNP-HTL gave this stern warning in a statement sent to the media yesterday.

“The alliance will outright junk candidates who will be giving in to the demands of the NPA, a terrorist organization behind countless of horrendous crimes against the people,” the statement read.

Requiring candidates to pay in exchange for access to campaign in far-flung areas only shows the NPAs perverted views of democracy. The election ensures that people freely exercise their right to choose their leaders — and the NPA extortion scheme is an absolute travesty of the essence of the election, it added.

The HNP-HTL said paying the NPA is tantamount to bowing down to them and subscribing to their destructive ideology. 

“It is also as good as playing blind to the crimes they committed in the past, and supporting the crimes and more acts of terrorism they will commit in the future. “

“Paying to the NPA makes candidates NPA terrorists themselves,” it added.

Why Nograles Is A Force To Reckon With In Davao Politics?

Speaker Prospero Nograles has often been criticized for placing his name and his face in every project in Davao City. Lately, particularly before the last elections, I noticed how his son Karlo's face has been posted beside the poster of his father or even alone. A barangay hall in Catalunan Pequeño even had a big poster of Karlo proclaiming that it was a Nograles project or something.

Nograles' penchant for displaying his name and face in every project has become a laughing matter in Davao and it has become an irritant. However, if you look at it another way, suffering from nightmares out of seeing his face and name everywhere is better than suffering from the nightmare of voting for a politician who do not have projects at all. So where did their pork barrels go?

Local politicians and even his constituents even smirk about the eeny-weeny firetrucks of Nograles but after reading Cito Beltran's column saying "if the narrow roads in the country prevent the fire department from responding to fire emergencies then why not get small firetrucks that can go inside these roads?", you will immediately think of Nograles' funny firetrucks.

A lot of basketball courts in the barangays have Nograles' yellow and blue plywood banners. Some barangays boast of gyms courtesy of Nograles. Others complain about his unfinished roads but are nevertheless enjoying its use.

So he uses his projects to advertise himself or maybe to boost his image or satisfy an insecurity. Whatever. If there's one thing that can lead to the downfall of Nograles, it is not his politicking or his posters. It is the people behind him who have started acting like jerks even before he became a Speaker.

It's a given. All politicians are corrupt, they differ only in intensity. Given a choice, would you prefer a politician who provides projects for his district but advertises such a fact or a politician who do not have projects at all?

Be the judge.