Thursday, March 18, 2004
Journalist seeks House seat, campaigns for peace policy
DOES Congress, which has the sole power to declare a state of war, have room for an advocate of peace?
Broadcast journalist and peace activist Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel hopes so. She is the third nominee this year of Akbayan, one of 56 groups seeking House seats under the party-list system.
If elected, Baraquel, 37, hopes to push for a national peace policy and reforms in the military and police force, including measures “to institute greater respect for human rights.”
However, she finds “debatable” the proposal to return the police to local government control.
“While there is merit in increasing their accountability to the local community, the danger there is that the police may be turned into the mayors’ private armies,” Baraquel told Sun.Star. She was in Cebu yesterday to address a general assembly of development workers allied with Kaabag sa Sugbo.
Lip service
Unlike traditional parties, Akbayan decided against declaring support for any of the five presidential aspirants this year.
Appointed by President Arroyo in 2001 to a five-member peace panel to negotiate with the National Democratic Front, Baraquel found it disappointing that the candidates for Malacañang “have paid only lip service to the importance of peace.”
“There are some doubts on whether the peace constituency can be translated to a ‘peace vote,’ but we all have to think more long-term than that,” Baraquel said.
Akbayan, for its part, will need to do better than it did in the last party-list elections, before Baraquel can serve as congresswoman. In 2001, the party’s 377,852 votes translated to two House seats. Each party is allowed a maximum of three seats.
Among Akbayan’s proposals was a resolution, filed by Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales, to study the creation of an Independent Truth Commission that will take up human rights violations during Martial Law.
That proposal has been stalled in the legislative mill since September 2001.
Women’s seat
Another proposal to elect sectoral representatives in local lawmaking bodies, like city councils and provincial boards, gained the approval of the House, but has yet to be acted on by the Senate.
“Our view is that one of those local sectoral seats should go to women,” Baraquel said.
While aware that many party-list proposals often get shot down in Congress, the peace activist remains optimistic that there are enough progressive members of the House to push for “reform from within.”
“Congress can be more than a bourgeois sham,” Baraquel said.
Baraquel holds a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the Ateneo de Manila University and serves as national chairperson of the Pandayan Para sa Sosyalistang Pilipinas. She has worked, among others, for the protection of children in situations of armed conflict. IDA
(March 18, 2004 issue)
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