The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) condemns in the strongest terms the Gestapo-like mass arrest of 43 health workers including doctors in Morong, Rizal. The arrests were patently illegal. The entry into the premises of Dr. Melecia Velmonte was not covered by an search warrant. The alleged explosives found in the house of Dr. Velmonte were obviously planted there by the military and police.


This mass arrest of health professionals and health workers is unprecedented and is reminiscent of the Martial Law tactics of the Marcos Dictatorship. The so-called counter-insurgency program of the government has made everyone open targets for repression.

The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today warned that some very powerful interest groups may be behind the reported entry of some 5,000 cell phone jamming devices into the country as reported by the Comelec recently. A government investigation is now underway to probe the entry of these devices.

“Not many people can afford such a huge shipment of cellphone jamming devices. At $300 per piece, 5,000 pieces would amount to $1.5 million or some P69 million. That’s a huge amount of money. Who would have the means and motive to make such a procurement? Probably one who has a lot of money and would want to undertake massive cheating or push the failure of elections,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.

This was the question raised by the umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan as it observed the field test of the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines at the Aguho Elementary School in Pateros yesterday.


The test included the scanning of ballots by the PCOS machines and the transmission of election results to the municipal canvassers and the Comelec’s central server.


“There were many defects in the machines and there were lapses in the system. The Comelec and Smartmatic people seemed ill-prepared to cope with the problems. With 100 days left till election day, we are concerned that there may not be enough time to address these crucial problems,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.

Multisectoral group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) today told Malacanang to disclose its contingency plan for domestic water use in light of the El Nino phenomenon.

The group issued the statement following Mrs. Gloria Arroyo’s order Wednesday to reactivate the El Nino Task Force with a funding of P1.7 billion. However, the task force’s mandate only covers contingency measures for the agriculture sector.

Bayan pointed out that millions of households nationwide will certainly be affected by the drought, with 600,000 households in Metro Manila alone.

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today called on officials from the Department of Energy, National Power Corporation and the National Grid Corporation to assure adequate power supply during the May 2010 elections. The call came amid the rotating brownouts that hit Luzon yesterday and is expected to continue today.

The National Grid Corp. (NGCP) of the Philippines yesterday put the whole Luzon Grid on red alert due to a power generation deficiency on the island, following the outage at one of the Sual power plant's units.

“The scenario of having rotating brownouts or power outages should definitely be avoided. Our energy officials must ensure adequate power supply and back-up power as a contingency measure. It is bad enough that there are already many questions in the automated elections, we don’t need to have power outages further complicating the matter,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr.