Sinas orders revamp of police officials

From the Philippine News Agency (Nov 14, 2020): Sinas orders revamp of police officials (By Christopher Lloyd Caliwan)

Three days after assuming as chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Gen. Deblold Sinas ordered a reshuffle of police officials.

Sinas confirmed to the Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Saturday that Brig. Gen. Ildebrandi Usana has been reassigned to the Directorate for Police Community Relations and will be the new PNP spokesperson, replacing Col. Ysmael Yu.

Usana, a member of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) Class of 1988, has served as chief of the PNP Human Rights Affairs Office in Camp Crame and deputy regional director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) 7 (Central Visayas) before being assigned to his new post.

Based on PNP policy, the spokesperson is the official mouthpiece and publicist of the PNP on public information matters involving internal security and general peace and order, and the accomplishments of the PNP.

The PNP spokesperson is a personal staff officer of the PNP chief and concurrently heads the Public Information Office, the lead implementer of the PNP’s media relations policy at the national headquarters level.

Yu has been reassigned to the Personnel Holding and Accounting Unit (PHAU), Directorate for Personnel and Records Management (DPRM).

In the order obtained by PNA, dated November 13, Brig. Gen. Benjamin Casuga Acorda Jr. has also been reassigned to the PHAU, DPRM from the Integrity Monitoring and Enforcement Group (IMEG).

Replacing Acorda in IMEG is Col. Thomas Rojo Frias Jr. from the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).

Brig. Gen. Armando de Leon and Brig. Gen. Ronald Oliver Lee have switched positions.

De Leon has been reassigned to the Directorate for Human Resource Doctrine and Development, and Lee to the PNP Drug Enforcement Group.

Col. Noel Flores was moved to PRO-7 from the NCRPO, while Col. Randy Peralta was reassigned to the Civil Security Group from PRO-7.

Col. Ramil Labastida was reassigned to the Highway Patrol Group.

The reshuffle took effect Friday.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1121786

Opinion: Communist Party’s greatest trick: Shocking examples (Pt. 2

Opinion piece posted to the Manila Times (Nov 9, 2020):Communist Party’s greatest trick: Shocking examples (Pt. 2) (By Rigoberto D. Tiglao)

Last of 2 parts

I WROTE last Monday that, borrowing from the French poet Baudelaire’s aphorism referring to the devil, the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) greatest trick is to convince the world that it doesn’t exist.

By this I mean more precisely that it has succeeded exceedingly well in concealing its conspiracy, and have its cadres, or personalities supporting it, camouflaged as patriots, freedom fighters, human rights crusaders, and so on.

Here are examples.

For academics who have done intensive research on the communist insurgency, it is beyond doubt that the Yellow Cult’s martyr, the assassinated Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. played, next to the first chairman Jose Ma. Sison, the biggest role in the founding of the CPP, and especially the growth of its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA). Aquino’s motivation was that it was one way for him to both politically weaken his arch enemy Ferdinand Marcos and have an armed group he could command or at least give him succor.

One of these studies, a 2017 University of California Berkeley PhD dissertation by Joseph Scalice narrated:

“Aquino and [his mentor Tarlac] Congressman Jose Yap played a crucial role in connecting Sison with his guerrilla army under [NPA chieftain “Kumander”] Dante. Aquino allowed Dante to move freely throughout his Hacienda Luisita. Yap, on returning from a visit to China, had given Dante a copy of Mao’s Red Book. Dante provided Aquino with an armed base of popular opposition to Marcos.

Comrades: Aquino with NPA leaders Dante and Corpus in 1975 (top); his wife, Cory, releasing the top CPP leader in 1986 (below).

Connecting Dante with Sison presented Aquino the possibility of expanding his base of armed support to a national scale. In October 1968, Aquino and Sison met and discussed “how big a problem” Marcos was, and Yap, Aquino and Rodolfo Salas [the second party chairman, after Sison was captured] arranged a meeting between Sison and Dante. The meeting took place in late January 1969 in Dante’s hometown of Talimundoc, Capas. Aquino later reported to his friends that he personally drove Sison to this meeting.”

Kumander Pusa

Aquino was especially close to fellow Tarlaqueño Benjamin Sanguyo, or Kumander Pusa, who had gained notoriety as the Huks’ and then the NPA’s most deadly assassin in the late 1960s. Pusa was killed by the NPA itself in 1977 after he surrendered in 1973 and became a state witness against Aquino in his treason trial. It was Pusa who had helped then Army Lt. Victor Corpus raid the Philippine Military Academy armory in 1970. There were also reports that it was Pusa who warned Aquino to stay away from Plaza Miranda hours before it was bombed by special party operatives on Aug. 21, 1971.

The Yellow Cult — which ruled the country through three presidents — has of course upheld Ninoy’s spirit of collaboration with the CPP. Corazon Aquino freed Sison and Dante from prison while all anti-CPP initiatives were stopped during the rule of her son, Benigno 3rd’s administration. Have you heard any Yellow leader, or even their allies like Risa Hontiveros and Antonio Trillanes, ever condemn the CPP and the NPA?

Thanks to one of the communist cadres’ vanity-project books — accounts of their life in the party and the NPA — we have an eyewitness account of how close Pusa and another early NPA commander, Ben Tuason, was to Aquino.

Lualhati Abreu, an early party cadre and first head of its women’s bureau, and who was in the leading bodies of the NPA in Mindanao in the 1980s, wrote in her 2018 autobiography Dusking, Dawning — amazingly (for a particular reason I’ll disclose soon) published by the University of the Philippines Press:

“Ben let me tag along with him to a house of a young popular politician, a senator. Reaching the compound, we got through the back. He talked first to one of the maids before we entered. Pusa told a story once. ‘Noxi’ offered him Marlboro. He refused. Now he’s smoking Bowling Green. ‘Noxi’ is the alias of a senator among the NPAs dealing with him.” (‘Noxi’ was originally ‘No-Aqui,’ in keeping with the Filipino penchant of rearranging the syllables of a name. – RDT.)

Aquino

Abreu explains that the cigarette brands were their monickers for attractive starlets. In a footnote, she wrote: “The senator referred to is Benigno S. Aquino.”

What kind of country do we have? The CPP and the NPA, responsible for the killing of over 50,000 of our soldiers and policemen, and probably that same number of civilians, was a tool of an ambitious young politician, revered by a sector of Filipinos, for whom we even have a national holiday to honor, and after whom our international airport is named?

Why would the University of the Philippines Press publish a badly written autobiography of an ex-communist cadre who as an NPA member, probably participated in raids that killed the Republic’s soldiers?

It was academic Bienvenido Lumbera who sponsored it, who even glorified the communist insurgency when he wrote that it is the “biography of a woman who steadfastly lived her revolutionary resolve.”

Lumbera is another example of how the Communist Party has successfully concealed its cadres, in this case one who has helped very significantly in making the UP and even the Ateneo de Manila University a cultural base of sorts for the party.

Portrait

It is another book by an ex-cadre, this time a 2019 biography of the late Rolando Peña, titled Crossings: Portrait of a Revolutionary which disclosed Lumbera’s membership in the party.

Peña wrote: In 1971, “I was the deputy head of the [Communist Party’s] cultural bureau whose other members included… Bien Lumbera.” (I have redacted the names of other members. – RT) Peña, who was one of the country’s top mining geologists, was the amateurish navigator of the two vessels that at different times in the 1970s, tried smuggling, unsuccessfully, Chinese-manufactured M-14 rifles to the NPA.

Peña also relates that in a “Propaganda Conference” that the party organized in February 1992, presided over by its secretary general Jose Luneta, Lumbera participated actively as a member of its Cultural Bureau. Lumbera was captured in 1974 (and released that same year) together with other members of the party’s cultural and translation bureau.

Can you imagine that! Lumbera is well known to — why! even respected by — the country’s literati and awarded in 2006 as a National Artist for Literature, although there are critics who question why he was given such an award when his body of work has been mainly anthologies of works by other Filipino writers.

As a National Artist, Lumbera was awarded — out of taxpayers’ money — P200,000, given a P50,000 monthly pension, P750,000 medical and hospital benefits and a fund to publish a book annually. Imagine that, a member of a movement dedicated to overthrowing our government getting substantial funds from that government.

Magsaysay

It is also ironic that Lumbera was a Ramon Magsaysay Foundation awardee for 1993, yes, given by that foundation initially set up by the US Central Intelligence Agency to combat communism in Asia, and named after the Philippine president who wiped out the communist insurgency in the 1950s. The judges apparently had to stretch their criteria and awarded him mainly for “journalism,” even as he was never a media man, with his involvement in the press solely as editor of the stridently anti-Marcos UP publication, the Diliman Review.

But perhaps Lumbera was a communist only in his youth? I don’t think so. He was (or is) an officer and founding member of Red fronts Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Alliance of Concerned Citizens and Kodao Productions — which are all officially member organizations of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles that Sison organized, and inadvertently exposed as CPP front organizations.

Lumbera certainly had his literary accomplishments, but probably his really big accomplishment, together with a handful of literati and a number of UP and Ateneo academics, has been the creation of a pro-Communist Party culture in those two universities — the insurgency of which has led to thousands of tragic tales of gullible youths joining the NPA to be killed in some forgotten jungle.

There are others to blame though for these tragedies.

How could UP not have a pro-communist culture when Francisco Nemenzo, Jr. was its president for six years, UP Visayas chancellor for four years, College of Arts and Sciences Dean for six years. Nemenzo was Sison’s comrade in the old Partido Komunista’s “Youth Bureau,” and was with its central committee. While he did not join Sison’s party, he has remained a Marxist, and has never said a word, writing nothing against the CPP.

I have never known a case here and abroad of a major university — the transmitter of a nation’s culture and body of knowledge from one generation to the next — headed by a Marxist. His son Fidel — named after Fidel Castro of course — is now UP Diliman Chancellor. He was nearly killed by a police bullet that pierced his liver in a communist-led demonstration in 1983.

Operatives

Here’s another example of the CPP’s expertise in concealing its operatives, which I myself had not known until I read about it in another former CPP cadre’s book, this time by Norman Quimpo, a top CPP leader in Mindanao in the 1980s:

“I consulted [for the holding of the NDF’s first press conference] with the party’s media committee and with “Gabby,” who was not in the committee but in the media network. I had met Gabby two years before through some united front kasama. Gabby was not a typical kasama. Middle-aged and upper-class, she had been a freelance journalist before starting her own public relations firm. She serviced top Makati firms and did media work for the revolutionary movement.

We first met at her cozy apartment in Ermita. Someone must have told her my true identity… I often dropped by her office in Makati when I was in the area. One minute she would be briefing an executive from an office several floors above hers about the latest political developments. The next minute, she would be talking with a foreign news correspondent over the phone and, in coded language, arrange a visit for him to an NPA guerrilla zone. Then a UG kasama who was probably on the government’s ‘wanted’ list would pop in.”

I know of course who “Gabby” is, who is very well known in my generation of journalists. But I was certainly surprised by Quimpo’s revelation as I never suspected she was the “PR” of the CPP. I report here only those whose identities have already been publicly revealed, as in published books by former cadres. They, using the CPP’s term, red-tagged their own comrades, not the Duterte government and certainly not me.

Do you still wonder now, dear reader, why the communist insurgency has persisted for the past 50 years?

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/11/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/communist-partys-greatest-trick-shocking-examples/794505/

Opinion: The Communist Party and Sison’s greatest trick (Pt. 1)

Opinion piece posted to the Manila Times (Nov 9, 2020): The Communist Party and Sison’s greatest trick (Pt. 1) (By Rigoberto D. Tiglao)

First of 2 parts

“THE Greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world that he doesn’t exist.” That’s an often quoted aphorism from the French dark poet Baudelaire. That adage refers not just to the Christian Satan, though, but to the reality of evil in the world, often to organized crime.

It is exactly the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) — and its founder Jose Maria Sison’s — greatest trick. Its cadres are on an all-out, furious campaign to stop the government’s ongoing efforts to expose their front organizations as tools of the armed insurgency because for the first time ever,this trickery, which has been communists’ most effective shield, is being laid bare for the public to see.

The subterfuge has been so effective that, so to speak, it has been rare for a CPP official to have been arrested or killed, and then only its very top leaders.

Only for us, the newspaper-reading strata of Filipinos, does a Communist Party exist. In the countryside, the masses have known only the New People’s Army (NPA), with hardly an inkling that there is a Communist Party that commands it. The masses knew at the peak of their power in the 1990s only the Kilusang Mayo Uno and the Alex Boncayao Brigade; Bayan Muna and the party’s over a hundred front organizations for nearly all conceivable sectors, except strangely for the LGBTQ sector.

In The Manila Times editorial cartoon yesterday. But the cartoonist can’t even write ‘Communist Party,’ the only ‘armed group’ with legal fronts.

Satur Ocampo, who was (or is, I don’t know) a ranking party official, in his kilometric columns in the Philippine Star never mentions the CPP and its stand on many issues, only those of Bayan, the partly-list he headed, but controlled by the Party or by “progressive forces.”

Negotiator

When longtime Sison sidekick Fidel Agcaoili died recently, he was extolled in the front organizations’ publications as the National Democratic Front’s chief negotiator, even romanticized as an “internationalist revolutionary,” never for what he had been since the party’s founding in 1968: a member of its highest body, the executive committee of the central committee, and for many years in charge of its finances.

When Randall Echanis was killed in August in his apartment under very mysterious circumstances, CNN Philippines and Rappler.com identified him as a “peasant leader and agrarian reform advocate.” Anybody who’s been or is in the revolution knows he was a CPP central committee member, who had been in charge of its “Peasant Bureau“ for two decades.

The so-called “National Democratic Front (NDF)” has been simply the party’s mask mainly for its international audience, set up in the 1980s, when the possibility first emerged that the Marcos regime could fall.

As former ranking Communist Party official Nathan Quimpo narrated in his book, the NDF had only “two real organizations, the CPP and the NPA [which the CPP commanded],” with its other member organizations such as Kabataang Makabayan and Makibaka being directed by CPP cadres, if they existed that is, as several of them merely had a small staff to issue press statements.

It has certainly mattered for instance that media reports here and abroad narrate such developments as that “government in negotiations with NDF in Norway,” instead of “government in negotiations with Communist Party leaders.”

In the Party’s deception, there were no communist cadres killed or arrested during martial law: they were freedom fighters opposing the Marcos dictatorship. After martial law, they were “natdem” activists, peasant leaders, labor or urban poor leaders, human rights advocates, women’s rights advocates, party-list representatives, or my favorite of sorts, “peace talks consultants,” as the former party chairman Benito Tiamzon claimed he was when he was arrested.

Compensation

It was the party’s founder Jose Ma. Sison who was the master par excellence of such trickery: he fooled a US court and Congress that passed the Human Rights Victims Compensation Act of 2013 that he wasn’t a communist, much less the founder of the CPP, but merely opposed Marcos, so that he should be compensated for his incarceration.

It was Sison who was the architect of the human-rights abuses case against Marcos in the US, which eventually was tried in a Hawaii civil court, for which he and his wife got P2.5 million in compensation, one of the more than 11,000 alleged human-rights victims or their heirs who were given similar or lower amounts.

While many of these were indeed victims of soldiers abusing their newfound powers under martial law, more than 70 percent of these victims, my preliminary findings show, were actually either NPAs and communist cadres killed in battle with government or arrested during martial law.

Sison’s filing of the case was a display of his demonic genius. Who would have thought that the Communist Party founder who personally ordered the killing of so many of his own comrades on grounds, or suspicion, that they betrayed the organization, who directed the Plaza Miranda bombing, who helped organize the New People’s Army that killed over 50,000 soldiers and policemen, who oversaw an insurgency that worsened poverty in areas it operated, would claim in court that he was a victim of Marcos human rights abuses, that he was entitled to P2.5 million to compensate him for his suffering?

Indeed, many communist party members, including Satur Ocampo, were aghast at Sison’s move, and declared that they jointed the struggle against Marcos for the country’s sake and not for any monetary compensation.

Sison was one of the four original complainants in that human rights violations case. Sison even moved to get more money form the case by having as another complainant the heirs of his older brother, Francisco. His brother was a personal assistant of top Marcos technocrat Placido Mapa, the head of the Presidential Economic Staff. Francisco was killed in 1971 not by Marcos’ minions but by the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas he had just broken away from and which ordered him liquidated. The complaint, made under Sison’s directions, claimed that he was killed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ counterintelligence unit.

Prosecutors

As their “Exhibit A,” Sison was described by the prosecutors in the trial practically as the Philippine equivalent of South African leader Nelson Mandela: “Sison, a leading opponent of the Marcos regime, was arrested in 1977 and interrogated personally by Marcos. He was then interrogated by members of the military, who blindfolded and severely beat him while he was handcuffed and fettered; they also threatened him with death. When this round of interrogation ended, he was denied sleep and repeatedly threatened with death.”

Never was it mentioned in the trial that he was arrested because he led the Communist Party’s armed struggle initially to overthrow a democratic government and later Marcos’ one-man rule.

What the Red party-representatives are now protesting against, the government’s “red-tagging,” Sison and his comrades already did in the trial 30 years ago. Supporting the prosecutors’ demands, the notorious judge who heard the case, Manuel Real, prohibited the defense lawyers from alleging that the victims were communist cadres, or guerrillas engaged in an armed struggle to topple the civilian government and set up its own dictatorship. The judge even banned any mention of the word “communist” in the trial.

The Communist Party has been taking Filipinos for fools. Party-list representatives pretend to be outraged that they are being “red-tagged” when everyone knows these people — Carlos Zarate, Ferdinand Gaite, France Castro, Arlene Brosas and Sarah Elago — are such obscure personalities they cannot win even a barangay election. The only reason their party-lists got enough votes to put them in Congress is because the entire network of the party, especially in the countryside where they still operate, are ordered — threatened in many cases — every election to vote for these party-lists.

These Red party-lists don’t even have an organizational structure or officials. It is the Communist Party that tells these parties who their representatives will be in Congress.

Election

I know that for a fact. When I asked for a meeting with these party-list representatives in early 2004 to try to secure their support for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo election, I and my late deputy, Renato Velasco, went to the assigned meeting venue, a steakhouse in Quezon City.

We were surprised that it was Rafael Baylosis, whom Quimpo’s book mentioned above said was one of the two top leaders of the party’s highest body, the executive committee of the central committee, who met with us. A comrade from our University of the Philippines days, it was Baylosis we negotiated with us for the party-lists’ support for Arroyo (which we didn’t get).

In a separate table were Teodoro Casiño and two other party-list representatives; they said absolutely nothing at the meeting, they were focused only on the T-bone steaks they ordered. They were there to convince us that it was the party through Baylosis who called the shots.

Sison and his communist conspirators have been taking Filipinos for fools for five decades now. President Duterte has at long last decided to stop this blight on the land.

A witty writer Ken Ammi followed up Baudelaire’s devil’s-greatest-trick adage: “The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is he good guy.” That’s exactly what the Communist Party has been convincing our gullible youth of, even the UP and Ateneo community.

(To be continued on Wednesday)

Email: tiglao.manilatimes@gmail.com
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
Twitter: @bobitiglao
Book orders: www.rigobertotiglao.com/debunked

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/09/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/the-communist-party-and-sisons-greatest-trick/793690/

Top NPA leader killed in clash in Zamboanga del Norte – military

 From Rapper (Nov 14, 2020): Top NPA leader killed in clash in Zamboanga del Norte – military

Leonardo Nabong, the 1st deputy secretary of the Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee of the CPP-NPA, had a P6.15-million bounty on his head

A top leader of the New People's Army (NPA) in Western Mindanao was killed during a clash with government troops on Friday night, November 13.

Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) chief Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan Jr said in a statement on Saturday, November 14, that the fatality was identified as Leonardo Nabong, also known as Otik, Berto, or Bonie, is the 1st deputy secretary of the Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee (WMRPC) of the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA.

In a report to Westmincom, Brigadier General Leonel Nicolas said, "The identity of the killed NPA leader was confirmed by former rebels who are currently participating in our livelihood programs."

Vinluan Jr said troops of the 44th Infantry Battalion encountered around 10 members of the Guerilla Front Flex A, WMRPC at Purok 2, Barangay ZNAC, Tampilisan, Zamboanga del Norte at 6:15 pm on Friday.

He said the firefight lasted about 45 minutes, with the NPA withdrawing.

SEIZED. Rifles seized from communist rebels alongside the face-down corpse of Leonardo Nabong (left, blurred). Photo courtesy of Wesmincom

In his report to Westmincom, Nicolas said that Nabong has "existing warrants of arrest for multiple murder with quadruple frustrated murder and damage to government property, and rebellion issued by the Regional Trial Court 10th Judicial Region Branch 36 in Calamba, Misamis Occidental."

Authorities earlier put up a P6.15-million reward for information leading to his arrest.

Troops also recovered weapons and ammunition from the encounter site. – Richard Falcatan/Rappler.com

https://www.rappler.com/nation/zamboanga-del-norte-clash-kills-npa-leader-leonardo-nabong

Continuation of peace talks, not red-tagging, key to achieving peace – advocates

 Posted to the pro-CPP/NPA/NDF online propaganda publication Bulatlat (Nov 13, 2020): Continuation of peace talks, not red-tagging, key to achieving peace – advocates (By Justin Umali)

Groups assail red-tagging against progressives. (Bulatlat file photo)

Advocacy group Pilgrims for Peace declared that the state’s penchant for red and terror-tagging “not only further exacerbates the human rights crisis in the Philippines, but it worrisomely undermines peace efforts.”

SANTA ROSA, Laguna – Peace advocates from different sectors stressed the need to continue negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines while condemning the Duterte government’s vilification of advocates and organizations.

“Red-tagging, red-baiting, or anti-communist witch hunting; it doesn’t matter what you call it,” said NDFP Peace Consultant Rafael Baylosis.

“These aim to create conditions to suppress the legal democratic mass movement in the cities and demonize the CPP-NPA-NDFP [Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines] as terrorists, and to push their aims of further exploiting the Filipino people.”

In a statement, advocacy group Pilgrims for Peace declared that the state’s penchant for red and terror-tagging “not only further exacerbates the human rights crisis in the Philippines, but it worrisomely undermines peace efforts.”

Terror-tagging “directly hurts peace efforts”

Pilgrims for Peace stressed that red-tagging peace advocates and “even celebrities”, as well as accusations that the New People’s Army was a “terrorist group” did nothing to advance calls for peace.

“What is the problem [with red-tagging]? It closes doors,” said Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of People’s Lawyers. “It alienates people from participating. What kind of lawyer, or doctor, or economist would want to work with ‘terrorists’ as a consultant?”

In his capacity as legal consultant for the NDFP Negotiating Panel, Olalia has been the frequent target of red-tagging and accusations of being a member of the revolutionary Communist Party of the Philippines.

Rev. Christopher Ablon, national program coordinator for the Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and known for acting as mediator in talks between the New People’s Army and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Mindanao, shared the same sentiments.

“As it stands, with the peace process dead, and the NPA tagged as terrorists, there’s no room for talk on both sides,” he said. “There’s only violence without the hope of peace, or of saving lives on humanitarian grounds.”

Ablon pointed out that the Duterte government’s moves against peace negotiations not only “worsened the situation on the ground,” but its tactic of tagging advocates as communists also “sows fear and endangers peace workers.”

“It’s a shame that after [the Duterte government] killed the peace talks, they’re cementing the burial with red-tagging,” he said. The IFI recently commemorated the death of seven martyrs – six of whom were victims of extra-judicial killings after a period of red-tagging.

Terror-tagging counter to aims of peace process

Peace negotiations rely on mutual respect from both parties, something not apparent when the Armed Forces of the Philippines insists on using the term “communist terrorists.”

“It really doesn’t help the peace process,” Baylosis remarked. “If anything, the military derails and spoils the peace negotiations.”
Pilgrims for Peace also condemned in its statement the “labeling of the New People’s Army and Communist Party of the Philippines as ‘terrorist’” as “simultaneously false and folly.”

“The NPA-CPP-NDFP names themselves as a revolutionary and belligerent force engaged in civil war. As such, they have committed to uphold the Geneva Convention, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other international protocols of International Humanitarian Law,” the statement read. They also said that such labelling is “folly” because it only serves to “weaken the atmosphere for peacebuilding, undermining democratic space and efforts toward reforms that can help address the roots of the armed conflict in the country.”

Ablon and Baylosis emphasized the need to continue peace negotiations.

“The continuance of peace talks lowers the violence on the ground,” Ablon said, “and facilitates goodwill gestures like the release of prisoners of war.”

“But more importantly, it allows us to rethink how we should move forward as a society,” he added.

Baylosis also noted that the latest round of peace negotiations, which were indefinitely stalled in 2017, “could have been a huge opportunity for an interim peace agreement.”

He said that at the time, there were already “common drafts from the GRP and NDFP working committees for agrarian reform and national industrialization,” and were ready to be discussed on the level of the negotiating panel to “close out and form an agreement on socio-economic reforms.”

There were also talks for “coordinated unilateral ceasefires” in preparation for the next agenda on the peace negotiations, and negotiations to release all political prisoners “via a general amnesty proclamation.”

“But Duterte killed hopes for peace negotiations in 2018, and since then his regime made it difficult to talk peace,” Baylosis said.

The Duterte government made overtures to re-open peace negotiations in 2018, but formally closed them before the end of the year. In December, Duterte signed Executive Order 70, which created the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict, intensified military operations against the NPA, and instituted a “whole-of-nation” approach in dealing with the CPP’s almost-52 year armed revolution.

Since then, three NDFP consultants, Randy Malayao, Julius Giron, and most recently Randy Echanis, have been slain, while seven consultants – Rey Casambre, Adelberto Silva, Vicente Ladlad, Ferdinand Castillo, Frank Fernandez, Renante Gamara, and Esterlita Suaybaguio, are in jail on trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Baylosis himself was charged with the same case, but the charges were junked by courts for lack of evidence.

A ‘plot against international law’

Olalia stressed that red-tagging “contravenes all principles of international humanitarian law.”

“Red-tagging creates a chilling effect,” he said. “It closes legal avenues for productive discourse, and it allows the proliferation of false charges and extra-judicial kilings.”

Olalia also noted that the “terrorist” label runs counter to international law, stating that the “New People’s Army is part of a national liberation movement.”

Baylosis also stated that documents from the CPP-NPA-NDFP, such as founder Jose Maria Sison’s book Lipunan at Rebolusyong Pilipino, statements in its publication Ang Bayan, and joint statements from the GRP and NDFP over the course of the peace process reveal the “sincerity and positions of the CPP-NPA-NDFP.”

“They have long fought to advance righteous goals for the people – to achieve national liberation and democracy for the majority of our fellow Filipinos,” he said.

Pilgrims for Peace called on both parties to “remove obstacles to the building of a just and lasting peace and focus on addressing the roots of the armed conflict through peace negotiations.”

“The Filipino people want nothing more than peace based on social justice, freedom and democracy,” they stated. Other advocates likewise remain hopeful that peace negotiations can continue despite Duterte’s insistence.

“The biggest challenge now is the present regime itself,” Baylosis remarked. “It has less than two years left, but it’s entirely possible that peace talks will resume sooner. It all depends on the strength and solidarity of the people to call for the resumption of peace talks.”

https://www.bulatlat.com/2020/11/13/continuation-of-peace-talks-not-red-tagging-key-to-achieving-peace-advocates/

Opinion: Jose Maria Sison’s saunter down the marsh

Opinion piece posted to the Manila Times (Nov 14, 2020): Jose Maria Sison’s saunter down the marsh (ByMauro Gia Samonte)

I BELIEVE it was Philippines Graphic magazine managing editor Psyche Roxas-Mendoza who spoke to me thus: “Don’t walk in the marsh or your feet get buried deeper in mire with every step.”

I’m not sure if the words are the lady’s original, but they sure speak wisdom.

That’s how attackers of Armed Forces of the Philippines Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) chief Antonio Parlade Jr., concurrently spokesman of the National Task Force to End Communist Armed Conflict, have virtually done. The more they try to press the general against the corner on the issue of red-tagging of popular showbiz personalities, the more they admit that red, indeed, is evil.

In a recent Zoom interview by “Matters of Fact” on ANC, Jose Maria Sison, acknowledged head of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), sought to debunk assertions by Parlade that it was Sison who had actually red-tagged groups such as the League of Students of the Philippines, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, the Association of Concerned Teachers and the party-list groups that comprise the Makabayan bloc in the House, among many others in the organizational meeting sometime ago of what Sison termed as the International League of People’s Struggles; it is with this new grouping that Sison aspires now for leadership in the world socialist movement.

The gall of the guy — as if China’s Belt and Road Initiative hasn’t already rolled over two thirds of the world, and counting. To talk of people’s struggles is to ignore that armed struggle is passé and that people’s liberation has been crystallized as economic empowerment first of the masses onward to their exercise of political power approximating self-governance.

But precisely because from the very start the ostensible communist movement launched by Ninoy, Sison, Buscayno et al. in the late 1960s was leader-centric, it had been pushed solely as a means to install in power the top revolutionary clique. It was doomed from the start.

In the interview, Sison gloated in words to this effect: “The fact that our movement continues to this day proves that it has been correct.” That’s saying that mere fighting on and on is the measure of success of a people’s movement.

No, the measure of success is winning, and winning is over a short term. The Romanov Dynasty was overthrown by Lenin in just 10 days in 1917, leading to the establishment of the first socialist state in history, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It took just a year for Fidel Castro to bring down the government of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba in the 1950s. Though it took a longer period for the Communist Party of China to drive away the Kuomintang finally in 1949, this has to be understood in light of the Japanese aggression that the party had to initially contend with and the five-year Chinese civil war that ensued right after the end of the Second World War. In terms of duration of struggle, the Chinese revolution consumed a far shorter period than the half century now traversed by Sison’s protracted people’s war, and counting.

In the Zoom interview by ANC, Sison declared that what Parlade had alluded to him as admission of so-called progressive groups being allies of his ostensible communist struggle had been spliced with the original video of his speech in the “international people’s struggle” meet, actually denying that those whom Parlade exposed as red fronts are Sison’s allies.

Sison was a classic caricature of contradiction, now stammering, now fumbling in his assertions, but at any rate, by asserting that those whom Parlade had allegedly red-tagged are not red, he actually proclaimed the CPP/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front (CPP/NPA/NDF) triad as evil, for Simon pure not to be associated with.

If this terrorist conglomerate wants to be truly accepted by the people as noble and worthy of all support, why try ever distancing known militant groups from it?

For example, Sison proclaims the NDF as already the revolutionary government in the Philippines and as such has the legitimate prerogative to collect revolutionary taxes both from big business and the people at large. Well said, I would like to say. But then, must he not take pride in having groups upon groups of militants championing its cause. Why deny them?

In another interview, this time by “Teleradyo “of Angel Locsin, who also claims to have been red-tagged by Parlade, the actress speaks with a tremor in her voice, expressing fear, “Anumang oras pwede nila kaming damputin (Anytime, they can just pick us up).”

So, it would appear that Sison just wants to have his supporters in the legal front spared from being applied with the full force of the Anti-Terror Law, which explains his public disclaimer.

On this, Joma, let me just say, in DGs and teach-ins from the First Quarter Storm all the way to full immersion in the Communist Party of the Philippines, there was this constant reminder to comrades about watching out against the dangers of opportunism. What you are saying now that those whom Parlade had exposed as having been branded by you as reds are not reds actually constitutes what you had preached to us from the very beginning as right opportunism. And if we go by the IPO method of analysis you taught us, then you deserve being demoted from your high placement in the Netherlands ruling clique of Philippine revolutionary pretenders.

If I still believed in you as I did then, I would be extremely proud being red-tagged. It would be an honor to admit I was, in the strike at the Makabayan Publishing Corp. where we literally threw our bodies into the path of a truck to stop it from breaking the picket, the rubber of the tires squeezing our sides until, sensing our determination to die for the cause, the driver pulled back and we rejoiced, “Mabuhay ang uring manggagawa (Long live the working class)!”; in the People’s Congress at Plaza Miranda where we all had the balls to shout, “Mabuhay ang Bagong Hukbong Bayan (Long live the New People’s Army)!”; in the Congress massacre where I got an M16 slug slicing through a teeny top part of my shoulder as I dove to safety in the Sunken Garden. In my filmmaking days, when I developed camaraderie with and given assignments by NPA chief Rolando Kintanar, I had a reputation of being a bold director for making sex-oriented movies. To that I would raise my chin, “The greener I was, the redder I became.” The reputation made it easy for me to carry out tasks assigned by the NPA General Command.

Joma, ask your wife, Julie, if she had not come to my house in 1985 to listen to my presentation of a wooden replica of the Batasan Pambansa where, in the late 1980s, we were to carry out Kintanar’s strategy of city insurrection, which is anathema to your long-running “wave-by-wave encircling of the cities from the countryside.”

Ah, time was when it was such an honor to be an NPA that nobody minded being red-tagged. Why, Joma, do you slam General Parlade now for red-tagging your legal stooges?

Because, indeed, the CPP/NPA/NDF triad has finally reared its ugly head as degenerates priding itself in its terrorism and pure and simple banditry?

https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/14/opinion/columnists/jose-maria-sisons-saunter-down-the-marsh/796157/

NPA suspect with P2M bounty on his head arrested in Bukidnon

 From the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Nov 13, 2020): NPA suspect with P2M bounty on his head arrested in Bukidnon (By: Frances Mangosing)

Marcos Requina, suspected New People’s Army (NPA) guerrilla leader with a P2 million bounty on his head was arrested in his house in Bukidnon province on Thursday (Nov. 12). EASTMINCOM

MANILA, Philippines—A suspected New People’s Army (NPA) guerrilla leader with a P2 million bounty on his head was arrested in his house in Bukidnon province on Thursday (Nov. 12), according to the military.

Marcos Requina, aka Ali or Tomas, 60, was former head of intelligence and secretary of the Front Committee Kara of the guerrillas’ Western regional party committee, said Maj. Alex Mindalano, Eastern Mindanao Command spokesperson, in a statement.

Requina, said Mindalano, was arrested in an operation by police and military at the village of Sagundanon in Kitaokitao town.

The military said Requina was the 23rd most wanted guerrilla in an order crafted by the Department of National Defense and Department of Interior and Local Government listing rewards for the capture of NPA fighters.

Requina, the military said, was subject of a warrant of arrest for murder issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 18 in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur province.

Mindalano said Requina had been “on and off” with NPA but held several key positions in the underground rebel movement for years.

Requina had been “inactive” in NPA since 2015 but was with Platoon Medic of Guerrilla Front 53 of the rebels’ Southern Mindanao regional committee prior to that.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1360463/npa-suspect-with-p2m-bounty-on-his-head-arrested-in-bukidnon

Philippine Military Kills 7 Suspected Militants in 2 Southern Raids

From BenarNews (Nov 13, 2020): Philippine Military Kills 7 Suspected Militants in 2 Southern Raids (By Richel V. Umel)

Philippine soldiers, wounded in a clash with Abu Sayyaf militants, arrive at a military hospital in Jolo, Sulu province, March 3, 2017. AFP

Six Filipinos believed to be members of a local Islamic State branch were killed Friday in a gunbattle with government forces in the southern Philippines, while a seventh suspected militant died in another raid in the region, military officials said.

Arafat Bulacon (alias Maula) a top lieutenant of Dawlah Islamiyah – the Filipino term for Islamic State (IS) – was among the six suspects slain during the raid in Polomolok, a town in South Cotabato province, authorities said.

He was among those wanted for a 2018 bomb attack in General Santos city that injured eight people, they said. Earlier this month, troops killed a militant identified as Bulacon’s accomplice, Jazzer Nilong, in the nearby town of Esperanza.

“Two arrest warrants for murder (were) issued against the suspect at 5 in the morning,” said Maj. Gen. Juvymax Uy, commander of the military’s Joint Task Force Central. “However, Bulacon and five other cohorts tried to evade the arrest and engaged the troops in a shootout, which resulted in their instantaneous death.”

He said troops recovered an M4 rifle, two 12-gauge shotguns, two .38-caliber revolvers, an AR-15 pistol, an improvised bomb and an IS flag.

Elsewhere, military officials reported that a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant was killed Friday during a raid of a hideout in Basilan province, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency (PNA).

The suspect, identified as Hasid Salajim, was killed during the 5:30 a.m. raid, Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan of the Western Mindanao Command in Zamboanga told PNA.

Apart from the bombing attack in General Santos, Bulacon was wanted for crimes in South Cotabato, a mostly agricultural province in Mindanao Island where militants have been recruiting and training fighters over the past several years, Uy said.

“Terrorists have no place here in South-Central Mindanao, so it might be better for you to surrender to the government,” Uy said. “This successful operation can be notably credited to the strong cooperation of communities who are tired of this cycle of violence.”

Abu Sayyaf sub-commander caught

On Thursday, a mid-level Abu Sayyaf Group leader was captured in a mountainous area in Patikul, a town in the far southern Sulu Islands. Amah Ullah, an ASG sub-leader, was taken into custody after being injured in a clash with troops, who were searching for several Indonesians being held hostage by members of the IS-linked militant group, authorities said.

Ullah, who was treated at a military hospital in Jolo town, was to be questioned.

“According to the troops, Ullah refused to surrender and wanted to be killed, but the soldiers instead provided him with first aid,” Vinluan said.

The operations came shortly after the military killed seven members of a pro-IS faction of the Abu Sayyaf, including a militant being groomed to be its new leader, during a high-seas chase off Sulu province on Nov. 3.

Froilan Gallardo and a BenarNews correspondent contributed to this report from Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga, Philippines.

https://www.benarnews.org/english/news/philippine/militants-killed-11132020124457.html

WESTMINCOM: Military captures Abu Sayyaf Group sub-leader following a clash in Sulu

Posted to the Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM) Facebook Page (Nov 13, 2020): Military captures Abu Sayyaf Group sub-leader following a clash in Sulu

Camp Navarro, Calarian, Zamboanga City- November 13, 2020

Amid the conduct of the focused military operation, operating troops captured one Abu Sayyaf Group sub-leader following an encounter at Sitio Tubig Kawas, Barangay Latih, Patikul, Sulu at 4:30 p.m. Thursday (November 12), the WestMinCom Commander said.

Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, Jr. stated that while the troops of the 17th Special Forces Company, 6th Special Forces Battalion were scouring the area following the successful neutralization of the ASG/Kidnap for Ransom Group on November 3, they encountered more or less seven terrorists.

“A firefight ensued which lasted for ten minutes after which the enemies scampered to different directions living their wounded comrade behind,” said Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr.

“While in pursuit of the fleeing enemies, our troops captured one wounded militant who was then identified as ASG sub-leader Amah Ullah,” Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr. added.

The company commander of the 17SFC revealed that being an ace of the group, Ullah was determined to fight up to his last breath and urged the soldiers to just kill him but they instead applied first aid to the wounded personality.

Amah Ullah was then brought to Camp General Teodolfo Bautista Station Hospital for further medical attention.

“The said personality is the uncle and adviser of Basaron Arok, a group member who is an emerging ASG sub-leader,” said 6th Special Forces Battalion Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Rafael Caido.

Lt. Col. Caido said that Ullah will undergo custodial debriefing while recovering from the wound sustained at the calf of his left leg.

“The JTF-Sulu continues to abide by the rules of engagement and maintain professionalism in instances such as this. We make it a point that even captured enemies are treated humanely. We provide them medical treatment if they need it. Hopefully, Amah Ullah will come to his senses and cooperatively aid in our pursuit of peace here in Sulu,” said Maj. Gen. William Gonzales, Commander of the Joint Task Force Sulu.

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https://www.facebook.com/afpwestmincom/photos/pcb.1909703965838317/1909703859171661/?type=3&theater

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WESTMINCOM: Daulah Islamiyah sub-leader neutralized in South Cotabato

Posted to the Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM) Facebook Page (Nov 13, 2020): Daulah Islamiyah sub-leader neutralized in South Cotabato

Camp Navarro, Calarian, Zamboanga City- November 13, 2020

The Western Mindanao Command Chief Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, Jr. stated that a notorious sub-leader of the Daulah Islamiyah was killed after resisting arrest of the joint elements of the military and police at dawn today, November 13, 2020.

“Based on the report from the ground, Arafat Bulacon, a.k.a. Maula was neutralized after initiating a firefight with the operating troops of the 4th Special Action Battalion of the PNP Special Action Force and 5th Special Forces Battalion, who were serving his warrants of arrest for murder at Purok 6, Barangay Koronadal Proper, Polomolok, South Cotabato at around 5:00 a.m.,” said Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr.

The said encounter further resulted in the deaths of five more local terrorists and the wounding of two PNP-SAF personnel.

“Operating troops recovered one 5.56 M4 rifle, two 12 gauge shotgun (break open), two Cal. 38 revolver, one 5.56 pistol (break-open), one IED, and one ISIS flag,” said Lt. Col. Randy Banaag, Commanding Officer of the 5th SFBn.

Meanwhile, 601st Infantry Brigade Commander Brig. Gen. Roy Galido revealed that Arafat Bulacon was a sub-leader of the Daulah Islamiyah (Ansar Khalifa Philippines-Maguid Remnants).

“He was one of the perpetrators of the General Santos City bombing last 2018 and he was also involved in different criminal activities in the area of South Cotabato,” Brig. Gen. Galido added.

Maj. Gen. Juvymax Uy, Commander of the Joint Task Force Central said that the unit endeavors to continuously conduct law enforcement support operations to assist the police and other law enforcement agencies in expediting the arrest of notorious terrorists and lawless elements in central Mindanao.

“I would like to commend our intelligence operatives, the local leaders, and the communities for their continued support and for consistently reporting the whereabouts of the lawless elements to the competent authorities,” Maj. Gen. Uy added.

Operating troops immediately coordinated with the PNP-Scene of the Crime Operatives for the processing of the crime scene.

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This photo may show violent or graphic content.

https://www.facebook.com/afpwestmincom/photos/a.1253339768141410/1909906622484718/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/afpwestmincom/

WESTMINCOM: Abu Sayyaf Group member killed in intensified military operations in Basilan

Posted to the Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM) Facebook Page (Nov 13, 2020): Abu Sayyaf Group member killed in intensified military operations in Basilan

Camp Navarro, Calarian, Zamboanga City- November 13, 2020

A member of the Abu Sayyaf Group was killed in the intensified operations launched by the military in Basilan early morning, Friday, November 13, 2020.

Western Mindanao Command Chief Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, Jr. said that composite forces of the intelligence and operations units and the 64th Infantry Battalion under the Joint Task Force Basilan conducted a raid operation targeting Hasid Salajim, a.k.a. Boyron/Pilay in Barangay Etub-Etub, Sumisip, Basilan Province.

“Upon reaching the area, the subject immediately fired upon our dismounting troops. Our soldiers were forced to return fire which resulted in the death of Salajim,” said Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr.

Recovered from the said personality’s possession was one M16 rifle.

JTF Basilan Commander Col. Domingo Gobway said that Hasid Salajim is a member of the ASG under sub-leader Pasil Bayali, a.k.a. Kera.

“He is the 7th ASG member killed during an encounter within the year. Since January 2020 to date, our unit has neutralized a total of 37 Abu Sayyaf Group members wherein seven were killed, 28 surrendered, and two were apprehended,” Col. Gobway said.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr. lauded the troops of the Joint Task Force Basilan for the successful operation.

“This success would not be possible if not for the swift reaction of the troops and the help of the intelligence operatives and the community,” Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr, added.

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https://www.facebook.com/afpwestmincom/photos/a.1253339768141410/1909974085811305/?type=3&theater

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WESTMINCOM: Top NPA leader killed, war materiel seized in the most recent clash in Zambo Norte

Posted to the Western Mindanao Command (WESTMINCOM) Facebook Page (Nov 13, 2020): Top NPA leader killed, war materiel seized in the most recent clash in Zambo Norte

Camp Navarro, Calarian, Zamboanga City- November 13, 2020

Based on the report submitted by 102nd Infantry Brigade Commander Brig. Gen. Leonel Nicolas to WestMinCom Commander Lt. Gen. Corleto Vinluan, Jr., a former secretary of the communist NPA terrorist group was killed in an encounter with the government forces in the early evening of November 13, 2020.

Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr. said, “Operating troops of the 44th Infantry Battalion were conducting combat operations when they encountered more or less 10 armed fighters of the Guerilla Front Flex A, Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee (WMRPC) at Purok 2, Barangay ZNAC, Tampilisan, Zamboanga del Norte at 6:15 p.m.”

“An exchange of gunfire ensued for 45 minutes after which the militants withdrew,” Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr. added.

Said encounter resulted in the death of one enemy which was identified as Leonardo Nabong, a.k.a. Otik/Berto/Bonie, the former secretary and the current 1st Deputy Secretary of the WMRPC.

“Nabong was also an Executive Committee member of the Komisyon Mindanao (KOMMID) who has existing warrants of arrest for multiple murder with quadruple frustrated murder and damage to government property, and rebellion issued by the Regional Trial Court 10th Judicial Region Branch 36 in Calamba, Misamis Occidental with a reward of PHP 6,150,000.00,” said Brig. Gen. Nicolas.

While scouring the encounter site, troops recovered the remains of Nabong and war materiel including one M14 rifle, four M16A1 Elisco, one M203 Grenade Launcher, ten long and four short magazines for M16 rifle, six rounds live ammunition of 40mm.

“The identity of the killed NPA leader was confirmed by former rebels who are currently participating in our livelihood programs,” Brig. Gen. Nicolas added.

As of this report, pursuit and blockade are being conducted by the operating troops to thwart the extrication of the militants.

“We will continue to conduct focused military operations and maximize intelligence monitoring to disallow the menaces of society to thrive in the communities in our area of operation,” said Maj. Gen. Generoso Ponio, JTF ZamPeLan Commander.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Vinluan, Jr. said that this is a positive result of the military’s continued engagements with the local government units and the communities.

“Let us continue to work together to win over any threat that hinders peace and progress in the communities,” the commander added.

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NDF/Borjal: From Red to Red-baiter

Posted to the National Democratic Front Philippines (NDFP or NDF) Website (Nov 12, 2020): From Red to Red-baiter

Rigoberto Tiglao was a former red now turned red-baiter. He has joined Gary Olivar and this tragi-comic character called Jeffry Celiz in the chorus together with Duterte's running-dogs who having failed to defeat the revolutionary movement militarily have now turned their guns on legal patriotic and democratic organizations, their leaders and sympathizers in on orgy of red-tagging and red-baiting.

Dan Borjal
NDFP Political Consultant on Political and Constitutional Reforms

Ever since he made a 180-degree turn and embraced the rotten system that he used to condemn when he was a young student activist with high ideals and noble principles, Tiglao has become a pesky nuisance to the revolutionary movement using his column in the Manila Times to spread garbage.

I write this as a rejoinder to his recent diatribe against the movement in his column, “The Communist Party and Sison’s greatest trick.”

I know a little bit about Tiglao. He was a leader of the patriotic organization Kabataang Makabayan at the Ateneo de Manila University in the early seventies. KM was very effective in arousing the masses and making them aware of the ills of Philippine society and their roots in imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. Tiglao used to know these things by heart.

When Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972, the Kabataang Makabayan was outlawed forcing its leaders and members to go underground in order to be able to continue the struggle against the exploitative and oppressive ruling system. Some headquarters of Kabataang Makabayan were raided even before the people came to know on September 23 that Marcos had assumed dictatorial powers and had signed Proclamation 1081 on September 21 declaring the whole Philippines under Martial Law.

Tiglao was one of the KM activists who went underground. Next thing I knew, he was the head of the Manila-Rizal Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines. A short while later I learned that he was arrested. Then a long time passed and the next thing I knew he was the GRP ambassador to Greece. And he was now singing a different tune. Wow, what a great transformation!

In his recent diatribe, he complains that the Communist Party is invisible to many people. And in a snobbish tone says, “Only for us, the newspaper-reading strata of Filipinos, does a Communist Party exist.” Tiglao knows the reason why but he feigns ignorance. He himself tried to make himself invisible to the state’s forces when he went underground after Marcos declared Martial Law.

The Communist Party does not hide the fact that it is a clandestine Party. It is a way to defend itself from its enemy because it knows fully well that its enemy is a vicious enemy determined to defeat it not in civilized debate but to exterminate it physically through murder, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, etc. The Party has to do this especially because the enemy is many times more powerful — armed with weapons that kill, prisons that isolate and huge financial resources to fund its counter-revolutionary operations including paying snitches like Jeffrey Celiz. His experience of being arrested even while he was in the underground should have convinced Tiglao of the sinister efficiency of the state’s repressive apparatus.

One of the recent victims of this blood-thirsty enemy is Randall Echanis who was working in the open as a devoted leader and fighter of the peasant movement. He was also a member of the Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms and participated in all the five sessions of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations until these were stopped by Duterte. That is one of the dangers of revolutionary cadres working in the open. They expose themselves to the murderous enemy.

And what does Tiglao say about this cowardly murder by government agents? “When Randall Echanis was killed in August in his apartment under very mysterious circumstances…” Tiglao brags about being among the select few of the “newspaper-reading strata of Filipinos.” Well, details about Randall’s cold-blooded murder was all over the newspapers and they point to government hitmen as responsible. And Tiglao dismisses all this with his “under very mysterious circumstances”! He absolves the government and its henchmen and hints at the military psywar experts’claim of an internal purge. To what depths this scum has sunk is unbelievable!

The blood-thirsty psywar experts claim in their posters that the dastardly killing of Randy Malayao (another NDFP consultant in the peace negotiations)while sleeping alone inside a bus is the result of an internal purge. Was that also a killing “under very mysterious circumstances”, Rigoberto Tiglao?

Posing like an expert Tiglao says,” In the countryside, the masses have known only the New People’s Army (NPA), with hardly an inkling that there is a Communist Party that commands it.” Tiglao, who never worked in the countryside, pretends to be knowledgeable about revolutionary work in the countryside.

The Party is visible to the masses through the fine work of its self-sacrificing and hard-working cadres, activists and members. They do not announce themselves as communists to gain praise and honor. By their actions the masses know them.

There are instances when the Party comes out in the open. One such instance is the celebration of the Party anniversary in December 2012 somewhere in Compostella Valley attended by peasant masses that Duterte also attended when he was vice-mayor of Davao City. Duterte made a grand entrance coming down in a helicopter to attend the event. According to a news report, he turned over an unspecified amount to the NPA for the victims of typhoon Pablo.

Nevertheless, even in the countryside relatively far from the reach of the repressive machinery of the state, peasant associations have to go about their work semi-open and semi-clandestine because there are bad elements in the barrios paid by the military to spy on them. The peasant masses call them “demonyo” because they are traitors to their own kind. These bad elements are usually those who belong to gangs of cattle rustlers often protected by the military.

In Bicol, “Dose Pares” is such a gang protected and armed by soldiers and engaged in stealing carabaos, chickens, etc. They also write letters to businessmen posing as NPA and demanding money. Their criminal activities are combined with dirty counter-insurgency work under the protection and direction of their military handlers. Duterte alluded to the presence of these “demonyos” in his speech at the celebration of the Party anniversary mentioned above, “For spies who are here right now, do not worry because this is for the masses. This is to restart the circulation of money because right now the people has (sic) no money.”

By the way, in some regions, the masses call government soldiers “hapon” because elderly peasants are reminded of the cruelty of the Japanese soldiers during the Japanese occupation by the criminal behavior of the present government soldiers that beat up and kill peasants suspected of being Party members or members of peasant associations and steal chickens and other belongings of the peasants.

Let’s cut the bullshit, Tiglao. What you really want is for the Party to expose its cadres and members so as to render them as sitting ducks for easy picking by the military hitmen as shown in the cold-blooded murder of Randall Echanis who was 72 years old and no match to the brutes that killed him. These murdering beasts are trained and brainwashed in the American idea that “The only good communist is a dead communist.” ###

https://ndfp.org/from-red-to-red-baiter/

CPP/IB: Duterte regime is accountable for severe impact of devastation

Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Nov 13, 2020): Duterte regime is accountable for severe impact of devastation

INFORMATION BUREAU

COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE PHILIPPINES

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today said that devastation of the millions of Filipino lives and livelihood is not solely caused by the successive storms but also by the reactionary state’s failure to sufficiently prepare for and respond to the calamities.

The Party urged the people to hold the Duterte regime accountable for its neglect to undertake disaster preparedness efforts to mitigate the impact of natural calamities.

Typhoon Ulysses lashed at Luzon yesterday and caused severe flooding in Metro Manila especially in Marikina City, as well as in scores of provinces across Luzon. A total of 1,262 barangays were affected by the typhoon, 1,006 of which experienced flooding. As of today, the death toll has already risen to 14 while three individuals remain missing. Yesterday’s typhoon was the fifth in a span of less than three weeks.

CPP Chief Information Officer Marco L. Valbuena stressed that disaster preparedness and response has never been Duterte’s priority. “Government agencies are grossly underfunded and facilities and rescue equipment for preemptive evacuation of large communities are extremely limited,” he said.

Under the Duterte regime, allocations for disaster preparedness have been cut by 60% from P39 billion in 2016 to a measly P15.7 billion this year. Local government units are similarly underfunded and incapable of carrying out efficient local disaster response efforts.

Duterte’s contempt for disaster preparedness was exposed as early as 2017 when he cut funding for the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazard (NOAH) project of the Department of Science and Technology which undertakes mapping of hazard risks. Project NOAH has since been absorbed by the University of the Philippines.

Valbuena also pointed out that massive floods, landslides and mudflows affecting low-lying areas are also “a result of denudation of forested mountains and oversiltation of rivers.”

Conservative estimates put the rate of destruction of Philippine forest cover at 47,000 hectares annually. This includes closed and open forests as well as mangroves which help in preventing erosion, floods and storm surges.

Instead of implementing environmental rehabilitation efforts, Duterte’s economic agenda is focused on promoting destructive mining and logging operations, as well as infrastructure projects and other artificial beautification programs such as the controversial dumping of dolomite sand at a portion of Manila Bay.

He described Duterte’s clamor for climate justice as a “sham” pointing out to how logging and mining corporations are allowed to freely operate in the countryside and plunder the environment with impunity.

He added that urban decay is being further aggravated by Duterte’s chaotic commercial infrastructure building binge, poor waste management and the continuing influx of rural migrants in city centers due to lack of economic opportunities in the countryside.

On top of this, he also emphasized that mass poverty makes the majority of Filipinos vulnerable to disasters. Millions of people are living in poor housing in both cities and countryside that are prone to floods and landslides. They have meager resources for self-evacuation.

The backward and crisis-ridden economic system prevents country from raising its capacity to prevent, prepare and overcome disasters which bring devastating impact on people’s livelihood, especially agriculture. Damage to agriculture by typhoons Quinta and Rolly is estimated at P8.4 billion. Typhoon Rolly alone caused P12.8 billion in damages in infrastructure. This estimate is bound to further climb in the coming days as damages wrought by succeeding typhoons are still being calculated.

Because of meager and lowered wages, as well as income losses due to reduction in buying prices of agricultural produce, the people are set to face grave difficulties in overcoming the destruction of their properties. Millions have yet to receive any aid and compensation from the Duterte regime.

https://cpp.ph/statements/duterte-regime-is-accountable-for-severe-impact-of-devastation/

CPP/CPDF-KM-DATAKO: Luwagan ang lahat ng Usaping Akademiko sa Panahon ng Pandemya’t Sakuna, Idiin ang CHED at Rehimeng Duterte sa kanilang Pagka-inutil!

Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Nov 13, 2020): Luwagan ang lahat ng Usaping Akademiko sa Panahon ng Pandemya’t Sakuna, Idiin ang CHED at Rehimeng Duterte sa kanilang Pagka-inutil!

KIDAWA DAYAWEN

SPOKESPERSON

KABATAANG MAKABAYAN – DEMOKRATIKO A TIGNAYAN KADAGITI AGTUTUBO ITI KORDILYERA (KM-DATAKO)

CORDILLERA PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC FRONT

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT OF THE PHILIPPINES

NOVEMBER 13, 2020

Sa loob lamang ng tatlong linggo, nakaranas ang bansa ng sunud-sunod na bagyo na may magkakaibang lakas at intensidad.

Noon pa mang bagyong Quinta, nagsimula nang tumaas ang lebel ng tubig sa ilang parte ng Gitnang Luzon, Lambak Cagayan at Kordilyera. Maliban sa mga nasirang mga bukid at hanapbuhay, lumubog din sa baha ang kanilang mga tirahan. Sinalanta naman at halos mawala sa mapa ang Bikol, Timog Katagalugan at ilang parte ng Bisayas dahil sa Super Typhoon Rolly. Malalawakan at matagal ang blackout sa kanilang mga lugar, habang ang mga residente nama’y kasalukuyang nagsisiksikan sa mga evacuation centers habang pinagkakasya ang kakaunting ayuda.

Walang makain at matitirhan ang karamihan ng mamamayan. Naging dagdag pa ito sa pang-ekonomikong krisis na nararanasan ng mamamayan dahil sa COVID-19. Samantala, ang Timog Katagalugan, maliban pa sa pandemya, ay nakaranas din ng pinsala sa kabuhayan dahil sa pagputok ng Bulkang Taal noong unang bahagi ng taon. Halos hindi pa nakakabangon ang buong Luzon sa bagyo nang sinalanta naman ito ng Ulysses, na siyang nagbuhos ng ulan at baha sa Metro Manila.

Sa Kordilyera, malala rin ang mga natamong pinsala ng mamamayan dahil sa bagyo. Tumaas na rin ang lebel ng tubig sa Ilog Chico, na dumaraan sa Kalinga at bukana ng Bontoc. Samantala, maraming mga garden sa Benguet (partikular sa La Trinidad, Buguias at Atok) ang nasira dahil sa malakas na hangin at malakas na daloy ng tubig. Lubog din sa baha ang mga daan at palayan sa Conner, Apayao at Tabuk, Kalinga na siya sanang pagkukunan ng pagkain para sa mga susunod na buwan. Nasira naman ang tulay ng Achuwaron sa Natonin, Mountain Province habang nasira naman ang mga electrical wires sa kalakhan ng syudad ng Baguio. Sa Ifugao naman, hindi man lang naka-ani ang mga magsasaka ng kanilang tanim na palay at mais dahil walang dumadapong sinag ng araw simula pa noong bagyong Rolly. Nagkaroon naman ng mga landslide sa Atok (Benguet), Tabuk (Kalinga) at Lacub (Abra), kung saan may mga naiulat na namatay sa unang dalawa.

Lubog sa tubig at kalunus-lunos ang mga pagkasira sa buong Pilipinas.

Sa kabila ng ganitong kalagayan ng mga probinsya, ni hindi tumigil sa pagpapapasa ng mga requirements ang mga iskwelahan sa Kordilyera laluna ang mga pampribadong unibersidad. Sa Saint Louis University, ang pinakamalaking eskuwelahan sa buong Hilagang Luzon na may mga estudyante sa iba’t ibang parte ng Pilipinas, may mga ulat na tuloy pa rin ang ilang mga klase habang hindi pa ina-adjust ang pasahan ng mga requirements. Ganito rin ang galaw sa mga mayor na iskwelahan sa buong rehiyon tulad ng University of the Cordilleras, Benguet State University, University of Baguio, University of the Philippines Baguio, at Baguio Central University. Lubog na nga sa baha, lubog pa sa requirements. Paano na ang mga estudyanteng nasalanta ng bagyo, laluna ang mga estudyante sa mga liblib na lugar ng rehiyon? Paano pa kaya ang mga estudyante sa mga lokal na eskwelahan sa mga probinsya ng Kordilyera, tulad ng Mt Province State Polytechnic College, Abra State Institute for Science and Technology, Kalinga State University, Apayao State College at Ifugao State University? Paano ang mga gurong nasalanta ring ng bagyo, at hirap din sa pagtuturo dahil sa pandemya at sakuna?

Dahil sa kasalukuyang estado ng buong bansa, nararapat lamang na magpanawagan ang lahat ng mga kabataan-estudyante at mga guro ng pagluluwag ng lahat ng usaping pang-akademiko. Maaaring magtagal ito pansamantala, o mas pangmatagalan depende sa kakayahan ng mga estudyante at guro na makasabay sa agos ng gawain sa eskwelahan. Sa panahon ng pagluluwag, nararapat lamang na ipanawagan ang pagpapaliban ng lahat ng mga pasahan at hindi pagtatakda ng mga gawain sa panahon ng sakuna.

Sa mga balangay ng Kabataang Makabayan – DATAKO, maaaring ilapat ang ating panawagan sa konkretong kalagayan ng mga eskwelahang kinikilusan at gumawa ng karampatang partikularidad. Magandang maliban sa mga estudyante, magandang mag-organisa at isama rin sa ating panawagan ang mga guro at mga magulang para sa isang nagkakaisang prente para sa usaping edukasyon, pandemya at sakuna. Itaas at ikabit lagi ang ating mga kampanya sa edukasyon sa anti-pasista, anti-imperyalista at anti-pyudal nating pakikibaka.

Nararapat lang din na idiin ang Commission on Higher Education at ang rehimeng Duterte dahil sa kanilang pagkainutil. Mula pa lang noong unang bahagi ng pandemya, wala nang naipamalas ang CHED (sa ilalim ng rehimeng Duterte) ni hindi magawa ang kaniyang mandato. Sa kasalukuyan, binibigyang laya ng CHED ang mga pampribadong unibersidad patungkol sa pasukan at pagpapasa ng mga requirements. Ni walang ginawang tulong ang CHED sa panahon na nangangailangan ang mga estudyante dahil sa pandemya hanggang ngayong bagyong Ulysses. Samantala, wala man lang magandang nabanggit ang pangulo (ni kahit magandang pangako) sa sektor ng edukasyon–pagpapatunay na walang pakialam ang pangulo sa kasalukuyang kalagayan ng edukasyon sa bansa.

Isabay din dito ang mga panawagan para sa pagpapababa ng badyet sa militar at National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict dahil mas kailangan ng mas mataas na badyet sa edukasyon, kalusugan at pang-kalamidad. Hindi nakakatulong ang badyet ng militar at NTF-ELCAC sa kasalukuyang danas ng mamamayan, bagkus ay lalo lang nitong nilalayo ang mamamayan sa mga tulong na dapat nilang matamasa.

Tuwing panahon ng krisis, lalo lamang lumalabas ang kawalang interes ng estado na pagsilbihan ang mamamayan. Nararapat lamang na idiin ang rehimeng Duterte sa kanilang kriminal na pagpapabaya.

Sa huli’t huli, wala talagang maaasahan sa ganitong klase ng sistema. Ang pagpapalaya lamang ng sambayanan ang makakasagot sa pagtatapos ng kahirapan. Tanging sa demokratikong rebolusyong bayan na may sosyalistang perspektiba at pinamumunuan ng uring proletaryado lamang ang ating pag-asa! ###

https://cpp.ph/statements/luwagan-ang-lahat-ng-usaping-akademiko-sa-panahon-ng-pandemyat-sakuna-idiin-ang-ched-at-rehimeng-duterte-sa-kanilang-pagka-inutil/

CPP/CPDF-KM-DATAKO: Malulunod sa Hagupit ng Galit ng Mamamayan ang Rehimeng Duterte

Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Nov 12, 2020): Malulunod sa Hagupit ng Galit ng Mamamayan ang Rehimeng Duterte

KIDAWA DAYAWEN

SPOKESPERSON

KABATAANG MAKABAYAN – DEMOKRATIKO A TIGNAYAN KADAGITI AGTUTUBO ITI KORDILYERA (KM-DATAKO)

CORDILLERA PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC FRONT

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT OF THE PHILIPPINES

NOVEMBER 12, 2020

Nagpamalas na naman ng walang kakuwentahan ang rehimeng Duterte.

Mula sa kanilang mabagal na pagresponde sa mga unang buwan ng pandemya hanggang sa kasalukuyang pananalanta ng bagyong Ulysses, hindi na mapagkakaila ang kapalpakan ng rehimen. Kitang-kita at hindi na maitatanggi pa ito ng mga kasapakat niya kahit ilang beses nilang itago o ibaling sa iba ang tingin ng publiko. Walang kalatuy-latoy ang mga sinabi ni Duterte sa kaniyang press conference kanina at walang kahit ni anumang solidong tulong ang napaabot niya sa mga nasalanta ng kasalukuyan at mga nakaraang bagyo.

Oktubre pa lamang, nagsimula nang manalasa ang mga magkakasunod na bagyo. Sa loob ng labing siyam na araw, nakaranas ng limang bagyo ang Pilipinas–mula sa bagyong Quinta, Rolly, Siony, Tonyo at, ngayon, Ulysses. Maraming mga lugar sa bansa ang sunud-sunod na tinamaan at ilang milyon na ring halaga ng hanapbuhay ng mamamayan ang nasira. Ang ilang mga lugar sa Gitnang Luzon, Lambak Kagayan at Kordilyera ay binabaha na simula pa lamang ng bagyong Quinta. Lubog sa baha ang mga pananim ng mga magsasaka, at kaunti o halos wala man lang silang nasalba sa kanilang mga pananim. Halos mawala naman sa mapa ang Catanduanes, Bikol, Timog Katagulugan at ilang parte ng Bisayas dahil sa bagyong Rolly. Tatlong daan na mga bahay at anim na mga residente ang natabunan ng malalaking bungkos ng putik, bato at lahar sa Guinobatan, Albay dahil sa isang pinayagang quarrying operations ng Department of Environment and Natural Resources at ng local government unit sa may Bulkang Mayon. Hindi pa man nakakabangon ang karamihan nang nasalanta, hinagupit naman sila agad ng bagyong Ulysses.

Limang bagyo na ang nakakaraan ngayon lamang Oktubre hanggang Nobyembre, pero walang inatupag ang rehimeng Duterte kundi ang kanilang sariling interes at pagpapahirap sa mamamayan. Hanggang sa kasalukuyan, walang kahit anong nilabas ang Commission on Education at hinayaan pa ang mga pampribadong mga eskwelaha’t unibersidad para sa pagpapatigil ng pasok. Tuluy-tuloy din naman ang pagpapawalang halaga ng gobyerno sa mga pagsisikap ng LGUs at mga progresibong organisasyon sa pagtulong sa mga nasalanta. Sa halip, ibinabaling pa nila ang sisi sa mga LGU at mamamayan kung bakit marami ang nahagupit ng bagyo, habang nire-redtag naman ang mga aktibistang organisasyon sa gitna ng kanilang walang ampat na pagtulong. Samantala, pinahihintulutan pa rin ng gobyerno ang pagpapatayo ng Kaliwa Dam sa kabundukan ng Sierra Madre kahit na alam nilang makakasira ito at makakaapekto sa natural na kakayahan ng kabundukan na bahagyang pahinain ang mga nagdaraang bagyo sa bansa.

Wala rin namang pagpapahalaga ang gobyerno sa sakuna kahit na madalas ang bansa na hagupitin ng mga bagyo, na siyang pinapatunayan ng apat na bilyon (4 billion) na tapyas sa badyet ng calamity funds sa pambansang badyet ngayong 2020. Samantala, mananatili sa 19 bilyong piso pa rin ang gustong italagang badyet ng Senado sa National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) sa darating na taong 2021. Anong gustong ipakain ng gobyerno sa mamamayan lalo sa panahon ng sakuna? Mga bala? Baka kung sakaling tawagin nilang “komunista” ang bagyo ay bumilis naman ang kanilang pagresponde.

Ang pag-iinisyatiba ng mga progresibong organisasyon at ng mga sosyo-sibikong mga organisasyon ay pagpapatunay na walang maaasahan ang mamamayan sa rehimeng Duterte. Sa kanayunan, ni walang kahit anong tulong mula sa gobyerno ang mamamayan at tanging ang mga rebolusyonaryong puwersa ng Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, Bagong Hukbong Bayan at mga rebolusyonaryong pang-masang organisasyon ang nag-iinisyatiba na tumulong sa mga komunidad. Kaya hindi na dapat magtaka kung bakit umuulan ng batikos ngayon sa social media laban sa gobyerno, at sa ibang mga organisasyon nakaasa ang mamamayan. Ang gobyerno mismo ang dahilan ng kanilang pagkagalit.

Kaninang press conference ni Duterte, sinabi niya raw na gusto niyang languyin ang baha para “magligtas” ng tao. Pinipigilan lang daw siya ng kaniyang mga adviser at ng Presidential Security Guards (PSG). Kung gustong lumangoy ni Duterte para suungin ang baha, malulunod lang siya sa hagupit ng galit ng mamamayan! ###

https://cpp.ph/statements/malulunod-sa-hagupit-ng-galit-ng-mamamayan-ang-rehimeng-duterte/