Defend genuine youth representation! Junk trumped-up NTF-ELCAC case against Kabataan Partylist! Protect democratic spaces for youth participation!

We freedom-loving youth, students, concerned individuals and organizations, and advocates of the rights and future of young Filipinos, call on the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to dismiss the cancellation case filed by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) through the Office of the Solicitor General against Kabataan Partylist, the first, sole and only genuine youth representative in Congress. 

The Filipino youth comprise nearly a third of the country’s population and the majority of voters, making them a decisive voice in a political system where they are direly underrepresented. Despite many attempts of the tyrannical regime to limit the participation of young people in socio-civic affairs, they have persisted to prove that they deserve the title "pag-asa ng bayan" even amid the pandemic and calamities. Kabataan chapters and youth organizations conducted donation drives, supplemental learning sessions, community kitchens, pantries and other ways to provide relief to our fellow Filipinos.

With Kabataan Partylist in its twentieth (20th) year and having had five terms in Congress, we are witness to the stellar, consistent and invaluable public service it demonstrated. As one of the top 10 most productive members of the House of Representatives, Kabataan Partylist filed over 600 House Bills and Resolutions in 2019-2021 alone and is the principal author of laws such as the Free College Education Act, Free Public Wifi Law, Strengthened Occupational Health and Safety Standards Law, Mental Health Law, among others. Currently, Kabataan is working on legislative measures for student aid, economic relief, academic freedom and safe reopening of schools. It continues its consultations and dialogues with youth organizations, student councils and publications, Sangguniang Kabataan officials and many others to forward campaigns relevant to the Youth Agenda.

Because the state fears critical and proactive youth, it seeks to narrow the available democratic spaces for young people and other marginalized sectors by discrediting them through red-tagging. This baseless and deadly practice is used once again by government operatives in the cancellation case against Kabataan Partylist. The trumped-up case is the most recent attempt to harass Filipino youth who forward progressive policies even if it means banging heads with people in power. 

While genuine partylists are targets of state attacks, fake partylists operated and funded through taxpayer money by President Duterte’s NTF-ELCAC are aiming to infiltrate the legislative branch of government and amplify their relentless red-tagging campaign. This is a mockery of the partylist system and a clear sign of unfair, dirty politics ahead of the 2022 national elections. Creating fake partylists is a way for the Duterte regime to implant more puppets in Congress and hold tighter to power amid raging calls for accountability for its failed pandemic response, anti-poor policies, human rights violations, massive corruption schemes, and treasonous rule. 

On the part of Comelec, we ask why the cancellation case filed years ago against Duterte Youth -- clearly a fake representative -- has made no progress, yet a freshly rehashed case against genuine representatives like Kabataan have prospered in a matter of months upon the nudge of NTF-ELCAC. We challenge the COMELEC Commissioners to reject political pressure and do the right thing: junk the case against Kabataan and take action against state-backed fake partylists.

We call on Filipinos to defend genuine youth representation and to protect democratic spaces for the participation of young people! We unite to uphold free and fair elections against the maneuvering of NTF-ELCAC and its fake partylists! Junk the cancellation case against Kabataan Partylist!

#LabanKabataan #YOUthRepresent