Bello meeting with Joma ‘violated’ Duterte’s order

From the Manila Times (Nov 25, 2019): Bello meeting with Joma ‘violated’ Duterte’s order

ASIDE from his allegedly excessive travels abroad, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello 3rd is also being accused of violating Proclamation 360, which formally terminated peace talks between the Duterte administration and the communist rebels.

Bello’s critic, radio broadcaster Adolfo Paglinawan, said the Labor chief had skirted an International Labor Organization (ILO) conference in Geneva, Switzerland to meet with Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, who has been on a self-imposed exile in The Netherlands for decades.

“It happened in 2018. It was last year, not this year. Bello is mixing it up,” Paglinawan told The Manila Times on Sunday.

He added that the Labor secretary made it appear that his meeting with Sison had President Rodrigo Duterte’s blessings.

He challenged Bello to come up with proof that his meeting with Sison was permitted by the President, saying the latter would not violate his own proclamation.

“Even for the sake of argument, this assertion reeks first of incriminating the President in his serious dishonesty, not to mention treason, and second of disloyalty to the country’s Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief just to save his skin,” Paglinawan added.

But Rolly Francia, spokesman for the Department of Labor and Employment, in a phone interview told The Times that Paglinawan was lying through his teeth.

Francia said Bello did not travel to Geneva in 2018 for the ILO conclave.

“In his three years as Labor secretary, Secretary Bello only traveled to Geneva this year for the ILO event, and after that went to Berlin, Germany for the opening of the POLO (Philippine Overseas Labor Office) there,” he added.

“I was with Secretary Bello when he went to Geneva in June this year. I was a delegate to the ILO event,” Francia said.

Paglinawan filed criminal and administrative complaints against Bello before the Office of the Ombudsman and the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC) for the latter’s allegedly excessive travels abroad, which the complainant said caused undue injury to the government.

In a manifesto, senior Labor officials said a cursory review of the accusations against Bello found that most of the allegations were resurrected ones and reportedly dismissed already by the PACC.

“While the sinister attacks may be directed against Secretary Bello, we believe that his tormentors are willfully destroying the institution by maliciously implying that its officials merely kowtow to the secretary’s alleged ‘unauthorized’ acts in the performance of his duties,” the manifesto said.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/11/25/news/top-stories/bello-meeting-with-joma-violated-dutertes-order/658533/