Risa Hontiveros cannot get away with it.

Hontiveros, a former member of the negotiating panel of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines in talks with the National Democratic Front, and current Akbayan partylist representative, misportrays her liberal self as some “pro-Liberal Party Left” (read: Left in words but Right in deeds) and enjoys parroting Jovito Palparan baselessly and wildly attacking veteran leftists Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza and Jose Maria Sison.

Hontiveros is a senatorial candidate under the Liberal Party (LP), while Palparan is an independent (more like nuisance) candidate. But how they share their fiction-filled hatred of the Left makes them the senatorial tandem of choice to those who continue to massacre innocent civilians, assassinate activists and initiate all-out war against so-called insurgents.

In one of her recent statements, Hontiveros said a mouthful of lies and black propaganda about Ocampo, Maza and Sison. Come to think of it, Hontiveros has apparently agreed to echo Palparan, or to out-Palparan him in terms of repeating ad nauseam claims that had long been disproven in courts. Or maybe not – because long before Palparan came into the picture, Akbayan had always and gleefully spread bad words against Bayan Muna and its allied partylists as well as the CPP.

The chismosa (rumor-monger) Hontiveros claims Sison has supposedly endorsed the NP’s Manny Villar. Of course, Sison didn’t and Hontiveros knows it: What Sison told a Bulatlat.com interview was that Villar could be better than LP’s Noynoy Aquino. It is public knowledge that the CPP has its own people’s government to tend to and would have nothing to do with the political intramurals of senior traditional politicians (like the Aquinos) and junior ones (like Hontiveros).

One of my friends tried replacing Hontiveros’ name in that rabidly anti-Left statement with Palparan’s name and it sounded so naturally Palparan.  

For the benefit of Hontiveros and Palparan, and their fans, allow me to remind them of the following:

1. The state has repeatedly accused, tried and jailed Ocampo on supposed acts of rebellion or conspiracy to commit rebellion. First was during the time of Marcos, then under Aquino and then under Arroyo. In each of these cases where the state accused him of being a member or leader of the CPP, Ocampo walked away free. The state has absolutely nothing to prove its oft-repeated claims.

2. In 2007, in the middle of the last election campaign, President Arroyo’s inter-agency legal action group headed by Norberto Gonzales, initiated murder raps against Ocampo in connection with alleged mass killings of communist infiltrators in Leyte. They had Ocampo arrested and threatened with being whisked away at night time to far-flung and militarized Leyte. To cut the story short, the Supreme Court granted bail to Ocampo — proof that the evidence was weak.

3. Also in 2007, the Supreme Court dismissed the fabricated rebellion case against Ocampo, Maza and four other partylist representatives. The state accused them of being CPP leaders (just like what Hontiveros and Palparan both claim) and of being in cahoots with rightist elements to topple the Arroyo regime in a Left-Right conspiracy.

Hontiveros cannot get away with being the faint, bedroom voice echo of Palparan. They are perfect as a tandem:

Tambalang Hontiveros at Palparan: Pareho ang Laban. (Hontiveros and Palparan Tandem: One Same Fight).