A ranking official of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC) scored Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairperson Jose Maria "Joma" Sison for continuing to live in the past and trying to force his long-dead communism ideology to a country and people who are clearly not supportive of it.
Major Gen. Antonio Parlade, Jr., who is also Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Deputy Chief-of-Staff for Civil-Military Operations, said the communist leader's views are so "ungrounded and jurassic" as the issues surrounding his calls for revolution are long gone.
"JMS (Jose Maria Sison) is so ungrounded and jurassic. He talks of conditions in (the) 60s to 80s (It's the 21st century and the ISMs (Imperialism, Feudalism and Capitalism), which are the basis for his communist revolution, are non-issues anymore. Communism is dead and those communist frameworks he copied have since turned to capitalism," he said in a statement Tuesday.
Stuck in the past
The issues in the 1960s and 1980s Parlade is referring to are rampant human rights abuses, martial law, a debt crisis, extreme poverty and severe underemployment among others.
He said the enemy that Sison and his cohorts have been trying to fight and defeat for so long have been replaced.
"The imperialist he was trying to fight has been replaced by another communist cum capitalist state. Sure we are still a feudalistic society but a lot has changed to the point that the mass supporters he is talking about have abandoned his cause. They have spoken last election and affirmed their support to PRRD (President Rodrigo R. Duterte) and his candidates. This scares Joma," Parlade added.
The NTF ELCAC official was referring to the massive defeat of the Makabayan bloc and its allies in the recently-concluded May 13 mid-term elections while a majority of candidates endorsed by the Chief Executive have managed to clinch significant victories in the polls.
Parlade attributed the defeat of the CPP and its political allies in the elections to ongoing government efforts to inform the public of the duplicitous and illegal activities of the communist rebels.
"The CPP got a heavy dose of the antidote for the propaganda they have been peddling for 50 years -- the truth. The truth (serum) shared by the government to the people was a bitter pill to swallow but worked. There is no way it won't because it’s the truth," he said.
Ugly truth
Despite the best efforts of the CPP to counter or suppress the government's information drive, with the help of their various allies, the ugly truth about the communist rebels still managed to reach the minds of the discerning public.
"No matter how much they attempted to suppress it through the echelons of their allies in the media, even the church, the bureaucracy, the international community and international organizations, the basic and peasant sectors, and even the professional sectors which include the lawyers and fake human rights advocates, the truth had a way of coming out. The people, especially the vulnerable sectors which the CPP has exploited are not stupid. Now they are awake," he said.
The CPP's credibility, he added, was also hard hit by its ongoing efforts to silence and kill Indigenous Peoples (IPs) resistance to their propaganda in Mindanao and continuing surrenders from their fighters and supporters who all made public various illegal activities being conducted by the communist rebels to get funding from here and abroad.
"What’s with the daily surrenders and the subsequent revelations that these former rebels are saying? What’s with all the defection that's happening from the CPP ranks which now expose how they manage to generate funding from foreign NGOs using bogus advocacies like Climate Change Initiative, Save our 'Communist' Schools, forced 'Bakwit', and selective human rights advocacies, which these defectors have clearly admitted to be fundraising activities for CPP-NPA-NDF (New People's Army-National Democratic Front) armed rebellion?" he said.
Parlade added that CPP-NPA efforts to tarnish and destroy the government with allegations of red-tagging, harassments and twist facts to suit their illegal means have clearly "boomeranged" as proven by an estimated 1.6 million supporters who dropped them like a hot rotten potato during the last elections.
"No matter how much their propagandists twist the facts, with their fabricated reports of drug-related killings, human rights abuses, harassment and intimidation, and even with their filing of writs of amparo and habeas data, to dramatize these perceived threats on their person, some 1.6 million former supporters junked them last election. The only CPP party-list who gained additional votes compared to last year was Bayan Muna, owing to the fact that it is listed as No. 1 among the choices. This is even hard to explain if a fair and transparent drawing of lots was followed. Even then, the result of the last election was a clear verdict that JMS is now worrying about," he added.
Creepy agenda
With the ranks of the communist rebels now badly decimated, Parlade finds it ludicrous that Sison and his supporters are pushing for the reopening of another round of peace talks with the government.
And yet, when the duly-elected government is asking questions on some aspects of their Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) like the demobilization of the AFP instead of the NPA; if and when the government will sign a final peace agreement; rescind existing laws like Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act of 1997; and the Agricultural Modernization Act, the communist rebels are largely silent.
"Many of their demands prove disastrous to our people and state and they are not transparent about it. Even their allies in the media are so afraid to see these issues in print. Who is afraid of the truth?" Parlade added.
The Filipino people, he said, deserve to know the real agenda of the CPP-NPA in pushing for peace talks especially those calling for the disbandment of the AFP should negotiations with the communist rebels go forward.
"Don't you think they should know about the disbandment of their armed forces should the peace talks succeed? How irrelevant is this issue for the media not to publish?" he added.
"So my question is not for JMS. It is for our media partners. Indeed, what has happened to balanced news? Will these not sell?" Parlade said.
He expressed doubts whether it is fair for the new and coming generations to be bombarded by another 50 years of lies and deceptions coming from the CPP-NPA, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Philippines.
"What about the freedom we are celebrating tomorrow? Do we want another 50 years of deception and conflict with these communist terrorists? And hope to see a more independent Philippines by promoting more lies and deception from the CPP? Let's ask our children if this is fair to them," he added.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1072061
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