COMMENTARY: Only a duck walks and talks like a duck

Posted to The Manila Times (Oct 30, 2020): COMMENTARY//Only a duck walks and talks like a duck (By Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr.)

LET me ask you, Rep. Ferdinand R. Gaite: Who started that red- baiting and red-tagging?

It was the communists — as a defense mechanism for people and organizations identified with reds, worked with the reds, pursued objectives of the reds, talked like the reds, and yet did not want to be labeled as red.

The late US Sen. Joseph McCarthy said that if you walk like a duck, talk like a duck, you must be a duck. McCarthyism was eventually defined as the act of accusing people or organizations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. Hence, the red-tagging. It has even been always the defense of these radicals every time we call them out for their involvement with Jose Ma. Sison and his Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The issue is evidence

Indeed, for the longest time it was difficult for us to understand the nature of the underground movement because it was underground. The ducks were quacking, but we see them in different forms and in different statuses.

The revolutionary dual tactics of the CPP entail that they operate aboveground, as legal front organizations, and underground as well.

So, what happens is we hear Representative Gaite quacking but we don’t see him as a duck? We hear him talk of legitimate issues but we don’t see him participate in subversive activities.

So, really evidence is important here and they have managed to evade the law with this duplicitous nature of the CPP.

Time to unmask them

It’s now time to unmask them. It’s time to present evidence to, once and for all, settle this issue of red-tagging. They won’t accept our challenge for debate in the open, for obvious reasons, so now let’s see if they are going to face us in the Senate inquiry.

But, oh, no, not again! These people are once more making excuses to evade participation in the Senate inquiry called by Sen. Panfilo Lacson. Representative Gaite reminds us that Senator Lacson is the main proponent of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Is he implying that the Senate inquiry will be biased? I think we know where this is going. Iwas-pusoy na naman ang mga ito.

Choose Your Court

Tell us what you want, Representative Gaite. We can have that same inquiry in your own court if you want. In the House of Representatives or in the Quezon City Sports Complex, if you want. Remember the forum you had on criminalizing dissent and weaponizing the law where you evicted me? Your duplicitous nature even convinced the federal government of Germany to support your platform to attack the government.

My intention in appearing in that forum was to answer any allegations you wanted to throw to the government with regard to its handling of human rights. I was alone, and yet you did not have the balls to face me.

There were a hundred of you there and were all quacking. You could in your hundreds have easily ganged up on me and done me in. But you didn’t and instead just chose to shoo me away. Why? Because you knew no matter how loudly you quacked, you would all crack at my own ferocious whack? Truth was all I had at the time.

Anyway, you wanted evidence, right? Let’s see you try finding out if indeed we have. So, will you see us at the Senate? Congress? Or even at the QC Sports Complex? I can come alone, again, if you want, with a truck driver to carry all our evidence.

Oh, well, maybe not all. The rest will be presented in court.

[The author is commander of the Armed Forces Southern Luzon Command and head of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac).]

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/10/30/opinion/analysis/only-a-duck-walks-and-talks-like-a-duck/788752/