Group urges Aurora residents to junk Angaras' poll bids

A group opposing the controversial Aurora Pacific Economic Zone and Freeport Authority (Apeco) on Monday appealed to voters and people of Aurora province to reject the electoral bids of the Angaras running for various elective posts in the May 2013 elections.

"We highly recommend to the people of Aurora the wholesale rejection of Angara dynasty in  the May 2013 elections. Their rejection at the electoral box-office next year is one way of achieving justice," Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France said.

France said Aurora residents should junk the senatorial ambition of Aurora Rep. Sonny Angara, the plan of Sen. Edgardo Angara to run for governor, and the political plan of Aurora governor Bella Angara Castillo to run for the lone district of the province.

Angara-Castillo is expected to run and replace her nephew as congressional district representative, France added.

"The rejection of the Angara clan is also the rejection of the Public Private Partnership inspired  free port zone project authored by President Benigno Aquino III,"he said. 

Last Saturday, Pamalakaya members  sent away "letters locked inside plastic bottles" containing demands to Malacanang, and two of these demands press President Aquino to scrap the Apeco project and veto the P 353-million budget approved by Congress for the freeport zone in 2013.

"We hope these messages containing the collective sentiment of the people in Aurora will reach President Aquino," they said.

The group said the Apeco project will detrimental to the livelihood and environment and natural resources once implemented.

Pamalakaya claimed the project will affect the stretch of land bordering the shorelines of saltwater fishing of Aurora and from the Southern tip of the peninsula of San Ildefonso going to Casiguran Bay to the opposite shore of the Casiguran.