No red hit list — Palace

From the Manila Bulletin (May 7): No red hit list — Palace

The government does not have any hit list of suspected communist rebels to be hunted down and executed, Malacañang made clear yesterday.

Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda explained they only have a list of persons who face arrest warrants issued by the courts.

“There is no hit list. What we have is the list of those who have been issued warrants of arrest,” Lacierda said in a Palace press briefing.

Lacierda also brushed aside concerns that the government is hiding the list of persons wanted by authorities. “They are public. These are all public documents. A warrant of arrest is a public document issued by the courts,” he said.

Concerned human rights activists, including a lawmaker, have expressed concern over the existence of an alleged kill list containing 235 names of communist rebels.

The groups sought the scrapping of the list, which supposedly authorizes the security forces to eliminate the communists and other activists. They are worried that some members of legitimate party list groups and other organizations might have been included in the government’s order of battle.

Malacañang, meantime, denounced anew the latest attack launched by suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in a mining site compound in Negros Occidental, saying it highlighted their insincerity to pursue peace talks.

“They said they want to talk peace. But it seems that they never stopped attacking their own kababayans, our own citizens. They showed their insincerity when it comes to talking peace and wanting to come to the negotiating table,” Deputy Presidential Spokeswoman Abigail Valte said.

She also assured that the government security forces will continue to protect the citizenry from the NPA-led violence.

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