Abner Afuang, 77, is a seasoned public official who began his career as a decorated but controversial Makati cop in the 1970s, receiving a Most Outstanding Police Officer award for an infamous shootout in Magallanes, Makati with his former anti-crime colleague and then-Manila City Mayor Alfredo Lim.
Afuang joined the National Bureau of Investigation as an agent in the early 1990s before becoming a municipal Mayor of Pagsanjan, Laguna from 1998 to 2001. He also became a bounty hunter after his time in law enforcement, inspiring the 1988 film "Afuang: Bounty Hunter."
He made the headlines several more times, participating in a number of demonstrations, including the burning of the flags of foreign states, both to assert Philippine sovereignty and the rights of Filipinos both at home and abroad.
In his most high-profile protest, Afuang disrupted a May 2009 Senate hearing on a lewd scandal when he poured water on Dr. Hayden Kho, a compromise from his initial intent to throw a chair at Kho after Afuang was overcome by his emotions.. He was arrested, detained and charged for disturbance of proceedings but later released after the Pasay Regional Trial Court dismissed the charges upon recommendation by the prosecution’s office.
He wrote an opinion column in a national tabloid paper, “Hataw: Diyaryo ng Bayan”, from 2014 to 2016, commentating on various social and political issues such as drugs and criminality, various politicians, social justice and the West Philippine Sea dispute, among others.
Afuang in 2019 garnered only 559,001 votes and ranked 42 out of 62 Senate aspirants. On his second try for the Senate, he is advancing an anti-illegal drug and anti-China agenda.
Afuang has repeated the unproven claim that COVID-19 is a man-made disease. As of this writing, the origin of the virus causing COVID-19 has yet to be proven.
Find out this candidate's priorities. These are what this candidate will work on if elected to office.
Will fight against illegal drugs
In his 2019 Senate campaign, he was:
- In favor of the death penalty by firing squad
- Opposed to the Duterte administration's war on illegal drugs, but would support using the police’s anti-illegal drug operation “Oplan Tokhang” against evil, corrupt and narco-politicians to in Congress
- Against lowering the age of criminal responsibility, since it would make the youth collateral damage
Claims that he is running for Senate partly because the Philippines has become a province of China under the Duterte administration; he also claimed that “shabu” is a man-made product by China, and repeated the unverified hypothesis that COVID-19 is a man-made disease (this is contrary to the phase one report findings by WHO and China that the exact origin of COVID-19 is still unknown)
In his 2019 campaign, he said that he believed the claims of then-presidential candidate Rodrigo Duterte that he would be strong against China
Protested against Chinese aggression in the disputed areas in Ayungin and Panatag shoals and in the West Philippine Sea, including burning of Chinese flags
