Bayan Muna lawmaker warns vs rejecting ‘Ka Paeng’ as DAR chief

Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate warned that the rejection of Rafael ‘Ka Paeng’ Mariano (photo) and the termination of the peace talks with the communists would spell the end of the alliance of Rodrigo Duterte with the Left. INQUIRER PHOTO

Rejecting Rafael “Ka Paeng” Mariano as agrarian reform secretary and terminating the peace talks will end the alliance between President Rodrigo Duterte and the Left, a progressive lawmaker warned on Tuesday.

“The last nails of the coffin on the Duterte-Left torpedoed alliance will be the possible rejection of Ka Paeng Mariano as DAR (Department of Agrarian Reform) secretary and/or the official termination of the peace talks. This will signal the end of the Duterte-Left alliance,” Bayan Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate told INQUIRER.net  in a text message.

Zarate said Duterte already “torpedoed” the alliance with the Left with his “anti-people, pro-imperialist, and fascist” policies and actions. He cited the President’s bloody crackdown against illegal drugs, the intensified attacks against the communists in the countryside, and the extension of martial law in Mindanao.

“He is aggravating drug-related EJKs and vigilante killings like that of Kian delos Santos. He sanctioned military and para-military attacks on lumads and farmers as well as other human rights violations,” he explained.

The lawmaker also criticized Duterte for allowing the Commission on Appointments to “unjustly” reject Judy Taguiwalo as Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Zarate also took a swipe at Duterte’s unfulfilled promise to release and grant amnesty to all political prisoners and to end contractualization.

“President Duterte should be held accountable for his unfulfilled promises and gross violations of human rights and further impoverishing the people,” he said.

“The people demands a stop to all vicious attacks and will continue to press for meaningful change,” he added.

The Makabayan Bloc, composed of Left-leaning party-list groups, is presently part of the supermajority at the House of Representatives. CBB