Satur Ocampo

Satur Ocampo
Member of the Philippine House of Representatives from Bayan Muna
In office
June 30, 2001 – June 30, 2010
Personal details
Born Saturnino Cunanan Ocampo
April 7, 1939
Santa Rita, Pampanga, Philippines
Nationality Filipino
Political party Bayan Muna
Communist Party of the Philippines
National Democratic Front (Philippines)
Other political
affiliations		 Guest candidate for Nacionalista Party for senator (2010)
Spouse(s) Carolina Malay
Profession Writer, journalist

Satur Ocampo (born April 7, 1939) is a Filipino leftist politician, journalist, and writer. As party president and first nominee, he led the party-list group Bayan Muna in three successful elections. He was a member of the House of Representatives, and Deputy Minority Leader in the 14th Congress of the Philippines. He has done work in human rights and other areas.

After his three terms as congressman, he ran for senator in the May 2010 elections; together with Representative Liza Maza of the women's partylist group GABRIELA, Ocampo became a guest senatorial candidate of the Nacionalista Party, a mainstream Philippine political party and supported its presidential standard bearer, Senator Manny Villar. After the elections, on Aug. 21, 2010, Ocampo started a weekly opinion column in the Philippine Star titled "At Ground Level".

Activism

President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972 and Ocampo, among others, went underground. In 1973, Ocampo co-founded the National Democratic Front, seeking to unite various anti-dictatorship forces.

In 1976, he was arrested and incarcerated as a political prisoner. For the next nine years he was severely tortured in various prison camps. At one point, he shared a cell with detained Philippine Collegian editor-in-chief Abraham Sarmiento, Jr. Though tried by a military court for rebellion, he was never found guilty. In 1985, while on pass to vote at the National Press Club annual elections, he escaped from the soldiers guarding him and rejoined the underground revolutionary movement.

After the dictatorship fell in 1986, and President Corazon Aquino called for peace talks and Ocampo headed the NDF peace negotiating panel. When the talks collapsed due to the killing of 18 farmers at a rally near the Malacañan Palace on January 22, 1987, Ocampo returned to the underground.

In 1989, he was rearrested together with his wife, Carolina Malay, Three years later in 1992, a year after his wife was released, he was freed. Neither was found guilty of any crime.

References

    External links