Militant group demands poll charges against Mikey, Dato Arroyo

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The militant party-list group Sanlakas has urged the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to file charges against the two sons of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for “making a mockery of the electoral system.”

James Miraflor, Sanlakas president, said it was not enough that Ang Galing Pinoy (AGP), the party-list group of Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, should be disqualified from the 2013 elections.

“Comelec just acted on what is already obvious,” Miraflor said in a statement. “How can someone who never wore a security guard’s uniform represent them?” he said, referring to the supposed constituents of the young Arroyo in the AGP.

Sanlakas also called on voters in Camarines Sur to reject their representative, Diosdado “Dato” Arroyo, because, it said, he was “misrepresenting himself as a Bicolano.” Miraflor said the only claim of Arroyo’s youngest son to being a Bicolano is “his days [spent] at the Ateneo de Naga” while a college student at the Ateneo de Manila University.

According to him, Dato was born in Manila while his parents are from Pampanga and Iloilo.

“How more non-Bicolano can you get? It just goes to show the lengths the Arroyo family will go to entrench themselves. That Dato did it when his mother is in power, when they should be making an example of exercising restraint, is really something else,” Miraflor said.

Late last year, the Comelec disqualified AGP for misrepresenting the ranks of security guards and tricycle drivers.

Mikey could not be reached for comments but Bernardo Corella, founder of AGP, said there was no basis to sue Arroyo because he did not misrepresent the security guards.

“I organized AGP in 2004. It is a multisectoral party, with members from among security guards and tricycle drivers. Mikey is a member of our Pampanga chapter. When we held a convention before 2010, we elected him to represent us in Congress,” Corella told the Inquirer by mobile phone.

“[There is] nothing in the party-list law that required security guards be represented by a security guard,” Corella said. “How can a security guard be expected to participate well in the plenary?”

Taking aim at Arroyo’s alleged properties abroad, Miraflor said: “We haven’t seen any tricycle driver owning millions of dollars worth of property in the United States.”

“We support the Comelec in its fight for electoral justice,” said Sanlakas in the statement.

The militant party-list group has been a constant critic of the Arroyo administration and the former president even during the so-called EDSA II People Power Revolution. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon