Ang Kapatiran expels Rizalito David for opposing party policy

The church-based Ang Kapatiran Party on Tuesday expelled one of its senior members who had filed without permission a certificate of candidacy (CoC) for president with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and who had opposed the party’s stand to boycott next year’s national polls.

Rizalito David, who was eventually declared a nuisance candidate by the Comelec, was expelled along with his running mate Alberto Alba, by the party’s national council on Tuesday, Kapatiran chair Edilberto Cuenca said in a letter to the poll agency’s law department.

David gained public attention after he asked the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) to disqualify presidential aspirant Sen. Grace Poe, for supposedly being unqualified to have run for the Senate in 2013, claiming that she was not a natural-born Filipino and did not meet the 10-year residency requirement.

David went to the Supreme Court after the SET dismissed his suit against Poe.

In his letter to the Comelec, Cuenca reiterated that David, Alba and other purported senatorial candidates of Kapatiran could not have filed valid CoCs since the party did not authorize any of its officials issue or sign a certificate of nomination to party members.

David was expelled for allegedly violating the party’s constitution and membership clauses; for disobeying Kapatiran leaders and usurping their powers; and for maligning the party when he opposed its decision not to participate in next year’s polls.

The Kapatiran council cited the posts made by David on his Facebook account wherein he accused party leaders of cowardice and exposed the party to ridicule by abandoning the party’s mission.

David claimed the “mass membership” of the party objected to the decision to boycott the polls and wanted him to run for president but the party’s “old guards” objected because he was poor.

He declared that he would run “under the only one true Ang Kapatiran Party now collectively shepherded by the Koalisyong Katoliko Kristiyano composed of leaders of various Catholic charismatic communities nationwide.”

Kapatiran announced in October that it would not participate in the 2016 elections and called on voters to boycott it.

The party said its objective was to usher in a shift to parliamentary-federal form of government from the current presidential system, and to realize vital provisions in the Constitution that have not been enacted such as the ban on political dynasties and freedom on information.  Jerome Aning