FALSE: Zarate, Elago arrested during Labor Day protests
May 5, 2021 8:48 PM PHT
Rappler.com
At a glance
Claim: Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate and Kabataan Representative Sarah Elago were arrested for participating in Labor Day protests on May 1 and violating Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) protocols.
Rating: FALSE
The facts: Zarate and Elago participated in the Mayo Uno protest in Welcome Rotonda, Quezon City, but they were not arrested. However, protest organizers were arrested in Cebu City and Zambales.
Why we fact-checked this: Verified YouTube channel “Showbiz Fanaticz” posted a video on May 2 with this claim, and the video has reached over 9,276 views and 306 comments as of writing. The claim was posted on the Facebook group Fact-checking in the Philippines for verification.
Published April 27, 2021, 12:25 PM
Progressive lawmakers on Tuesday, April 27, slammed anew the Duterte administration for its supposed mismanagement of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the Philippines, with cases breaching the one million mark.
President Duterte (left) speaks to Health Secretary Francisco Duque III (right) during a meeting in Malacañang. (PCOO/ MANILA BULLETIN File photo)
House deputy minority leader and Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate said that the more than one million total COVID-19 cases recorded Monday, April 26, “is [a] clear evidence of the Duterte administration’s gross negligence in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, including its inadequate, inefficient and failed solutions.”
Published April 13, 2021, 6:38 PM
Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate on Tuesday, April 13, aired his party-list’s opposition to the reopening of the joint exercises of American and Filipino soldiers, saying the move would only heighten the tension between the United States and China, and in the West Philippines Sea (WPS).
Representative Carlos Zarate
The House deputy minority leader warned that the 36th Balikatan Exercises will place the Philippines “smack in the middle of two competing super powers”.
“It would be best for the Philippine government to assert its sovereignty on the WPS without playing one superpower against the other. If this competition for dominance escalate, we will surely be crushed in the middle of it all,” Zarate said in a statement.
Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate
(Bayan Muna Party list Facebook page / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
Zarate said China’s “saber-rattling” by threatening a “strong response” against the Philippine military and the evidence increase of military presence of western powers such as the April 4 entry of the US Navy’s Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (TRCSG) could escalate into a serious conflict.
“In this light, we are calling for a complete demilitarization of the South China Sea amid the ramping up of military and naval presence by China, US and other western powers in the disputed maritime region,” Zarate said.
“The recent aggressive and expansionist actions of China is now apparently being taken as a cue by western powers, particularly the US, France, etc., to increase its military and naval presence in the region,” the lawmaker stressed.
Published April 6, 2021, 3:32 PM
Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Zarate on Tuesday, April 6, called on the leaders of the House of Representatives to again set a hearing on the fees being charged by the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) amid the reimposition of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) in the “NCR Plus” bubble. (KJ ROSALES / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
The House deputy minority leader cited the House Resolution No. 879, which calls on the chamber’s Committee on Energy to probe the “big spike” in Meralco’s electricity rates.
The same committee already conducted last year a hearing on the sudden spike in the electric bills of consumers during