Friday, March 23, 2007 Osmeña brands Satur’s arrest ‘a bad PR job’
THE government is “doing a lousy job” at public relations in arresting Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo, said Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña yesterday.
Whoever suggested the idea of sending Ocampo to jail, Osmeña said, must be a Bayan Muna supporter because it drummed up public sympathy for the group’s leader.
“Bayan (Muna) gets votes. It gets strengthened with the arrest of Satur Ocampo,” the mayor said.
Asked if he meant that instead of humiliating Ocampo, the Bayan Muna representative’s arrest earned him the people’s sympathy, the mayor said, “Very strongly, yes.”
“Many Bayan leaders have been killed. Those who are not are arrested. Whatever it is, I cannot comment on the legality (of his arrest) because I am not a lawyer,” said Osmeña.
But as a public official, he is bound to uphold the law, he added.
He could not resist saying that Ocampo’s incarceration is a “lousy PR job on the part of the government.”
A Leyte court issued a warrant of arrest against Ocampo, House of Representatives deputy minority floor leader, for the killing of 67 rebels in 1984 and 1985 during the Communist Party of the Philippines purging of suspected deep penetration agents of the government.
Still running
Ocampo is Bayan Muna’s first nominee, followed by Teddy Casiño and lawyer Neri Colmenares.
If the group earns at least three percent of the total number of votes cast in the May 14 polls, Ocampo will get another three years as party-list representative.
Central Visayas Bayan Muna secretary general Arman Perez, in a separate interview, thanked Osmeña for recognizing their importance.
Bayan Muna was one of the Cebu City 70th Charter Day special awardees for peace and order last month, for heeding the mayor’s request not to disrupt the 12th Asean summit last January. (RHM)
