Saturday, April 28, 2007 Anakpawis dares nominee of Kalahi to quit race By Ben O. Tesiorna
ANAKPAWIS vice president for Mindanao Omar Bantayan challenged Kalahi second nominee Karlo Nograles to resign from the partylist nomination race to prove his claim that their partylist organization is not supported by Malacañang.
In a statement, Bantayan said only when the son of House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles backs out of the nomination would they believe Nograles's claim that he is indeed for the welfare of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families.
"We dare Karlo Nograles to choose among the nine million OFWs, somebody to take his place so that the OFWs will truly be represented. If he really wants to serve he can resign from his partylist nomination and continue serving them as legal counsel," Bantayan said.
"But I bet he will never do that because what he wants to represent are not really the migrant workers but Gloria Arroyo," he added.
In his reply, the young Nograles dismissed Bantayan's statement as baseless and illogical.
He challenged the militant to also resign so as to prove that the progressive group is also not connected with the communist group.
"His statement follows no logic. I do not work for Malacañang, neither am I connected with Malacañang. Maybe he (Bantayan) should resign to prove that he's not connected with the left," Nograles said.
Last Wednesday, Bantayan also figured in a word war with Representative Nograles after the former accused the Nograleses of being Arroyo lapdogs.
In his reply, Representative Nograles accused Bantayan of being a lapdog of communist leader Jose Ma. Sison
He said militant leaders like Bantayan are nothing more than destabilizers just like Sison.
"The left militants who call us fascists are also lapdogs of Joma. They just want to overthrow the government by revolution. Anyone who does not agree with them, are fascists. As usual they want to win thru party-list so they can impeach and put obstacles to derail the government. That's obvious. They sound like their father -- Joma Sison," Nograles said.
Militant leaders said Karlo Nograles's Kalahi Partylist is one of the partylist groups created by the Arroyo regime to position its allies at the House of Representatives.
