CAGAYAN de Oro 1st District Rep. Rolando Uy’s chief legal counsel yesterday announced she would be running for congresswoman in the city’s 2nd District as an independent candidate in next year’s elections. The seat would be vacated by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez who has declared that he would be running for mayor next year. Rodriguez is constitutionally barred from seeking reelection. Lawyer Evangeline “Vangie” Tadlas-Carrasco said she would work on two bills if elected to Congress: a law wherein government would guarantee payment of the cash deposit required by hospitals in “emergency” cases for indigents, and a law providing for decent funeral cars and funeral homes for indigents instead of using dump trucks and roadsides as venue for the vigil. Carrasco said she would join hands with other legislators to pass a comprehensive urban and agrarian reform program. Carrasco’s husband Mariano is also a lawyer who defended the Kamakawan farmers in Gusa against Fil-Estate. Both of them were part of the protest movement against the excesses of the Marcos regime, and joined the causes of Bayan, Gabriela, Alliance of Concerned Teachers. At present, she and her husband are handling  the defense of several groups defending their farms, lands and homes at Indahag, Agora, Lapasan, Cugman and Bugo. Together with her husband, she joined in the defense of 300 hundred Ororama workers who went on a one-year strike in defense of their jobs and to demand increase in the wages years ago. If Carrasco pursues her plan, she would likely be running against Councilor Ramon Tabor of Padayon Pilipino and other known politicians. Carrasco served as the chief legal counsel of Rep. Uy who won the congessional seat against Padayon Pilipino’s Rep. Jose Benjamin Benaldo in 2013, and when Uy nearly unseated the then mayor Vicente Emano in 2010. Her group exposed the alleged dumping of election paraphernalia at the city landfill after some PCOS machines allegedly malfunctioned in 2010. She also lawyered for the groups Sulog, Bangon CDO, and other environmental groups that filed a Writ of Kalikasan petition with the Court of Appeals against the illegal mining along Iponan river. That writ or court order is now being used to stop other illegal mining activities in the area.