ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro —House of Representatives/Facebook
After serving in the House of Representatives for nine years, ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro heeded a call by a group of retired teachers to upgrade her advocacies and run for senator in next year’s elections.
The teachers’ appeal appeared spontaneous enough, with the call being made in an open letter that was read at the 42nd-anniversary celebration of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) on Wednesday night.
In the open letter, retired public schoolteacher Solita Diaz commended Castro as she neared the end of her third term as the representative of the ACT Teachers party list in Congress. “Because of your honesty and for advancing only the interests of the masses and many of our sectors, many of the thieves in the government, tyrants, and the people’s enemies were enraged,” Diaz told Castro in Filipino.
‘Voice of the voiceless’“We know that you are not afraid of any of them because you know that we are here and for being the voice of the voiceless, they will also be there for you,” she added.
But Diaz said Castro, 58, was too young to join the ranks of retirees and instead pressed the congresswoman to seek higher office.
“Instead, we believe you are fit enough to be in the halls of the Senate. Let us put someone in the Senate who [comes] from us. It is time that we have a first-ever senator who was a classroom teacher,” Diaz said.
Castro seemed speechless after Diaz finished the letter, but later recalled her years of struggle as a student activist in the League of Filipinos Students as well as in ACT.
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She recounted how ACT continuously pushed for reforms in the education system and advanced the cause of other sectors, such as that of workers and farmers, whether in the streets or the halls of Congress.
“We always wanted an alternative in every election and not to just be bystanders of the common political names that are now on warring sides, like the Marcoses versus Dutertes,” Castro replied.
“What we want here is real change and to push for a true nationalistic alternative who will run in the Senate,” she also said. “And this is why, I heed the call of ACT and of our retired teachers.”
In her years of service, Castro has never been accused of corruption and her voice remained irrepressible despite the killings of her colleagues in ACT or the criminal charges filed against her because of her left-wing beliefs.
Nonetheless, if elected, Castro will join a list of eminent leftists who have graced the Senate of the Philippines.
Among them professed socialists Isabelo delos Reyes and Lope K. Santos, the esteemed Lorenzo Tañada, cofounder of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, and his son Wigberto and, more recently, incumbent Sen. Risa Hontiveros, plus many other leftists in the House.