Nothing irregular with termination of DND-UP deal: Badoy

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 19, 2021): Nothing irregular with termination of DND-UP deal: Badoy (By Priam Nepomuceno)

Communications UndersecretaryLorraine Marie Badoy, spokesperson of the National Task Force To End Local Communist Armed Conflict (PNA File photo)

MANILA – An official of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC) on Tuesday said there is nothing irregular with the decision of the Department of National Defense (DND) to terminate its agreement with the University of the Philippines (AFP) that prohibits military and police units from entering its campuses without prior notice.

"There is nothing irregular about the unilateral termination of this 1989 agreement because it can be terminated at will," NTF ELCAC spokesperson Lorraine Marie Badoy said in a statement forwarded to the Philippine News Agency (PNA).

She added that this agreement was a "mere courtesy extended to UP in 1989 by the DND when the country was still unaware of the university being the center of gravity of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) – an organization that was recently declared a terrorist organization by the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC).

"And that inside its walls is the outrage of the continuous churning of communist propaganda to bring this country down and the deceptive recruitment of our children into this terrorist organization," said Badoy, who is also Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) undersecretary.

Filipinos, she said, will be judged as a people by the way we took care of the most helpless in our midst and for an unbearable period of time.

"We were the kind of people who would have been judged severely by the way we did nothing while our children—the most helpless—died by the wayside," she added.

Badoy was referring to the past 50 years where thousands of minors and children were seduced by the front groups of the CPP-NPA-National Democratic Front (NDF) deeply embedded in the UP System.

These front groups include Gabriela, League of Filipino Students, Anakbayan, College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL), and Katribu, among others.

"This is the shame of UP – that its administration and its teachers look away as UP student upon UP student have fallen into the terrorist lair and died. And how they’ve continuously reneged on their responsibility towards our children by cloaking their cowardly collusion with terrorists in robes of nobility by invoking their perverted sense of academic freedom," she added.

She said these organizations systematically laid a trap for these minors with the methodical planting of seeds of hate towards the government to the point where they turned away from their promising futures to become violent extremists of the NPA out to overthrow the government, destroy the country's democratic way of life and install an inhumane communist ideology in its stead.

Communism hotbed

"Ang Iskolar Ng Bayan na dapat sana ay maasahang magsilbi sa bayang nag-paaral sa kanya ang naging berdugong tagabigay ng hirap at pasakit at ang kumitil ng kapwa Pilipino. At ito ay dahil mula sa pinakasimula ng paghubog ng CPP-NPA-NDF, ang UP ay tinarget ng CPP-NPA-NDF bilang hotbed ng komunismo at ground zero ng mapalinlang na rekrutment ng ating mga anak (The country's scholars, who are supposed to help the country that provided them with their education is now acting as executioners who are now torturing, inflicting pain and killing fellow Filipinos. And this is because of the molding done by the CPP-NPA-NDF, UP was targeted by the CPP-NPA-NDF as the hotbed of communism and ground zero of the deceitful recruitment of our sons and daughters)," she added.

Badoy said the ending of the DND-UP agreement has nothing to do with academic freedom and everything to do with the protection of the country's children and the defense of the Philippines.

"UP will continue to breathe the air of unabated academic freedom where faculty members are free to choose their curriculum and course content without interference from the state and in whatever conduct of the scholarly inquiry and discussion they choose," she said.

UP students, she said, can continue to speak their minds, have rallies all they want, and discuss issues without restrictions or interference from the government and to disagree with the government — vehemently even if they so wish.

"And it would be no skin off our noses," she added.

But this time, Badoy said, the government will be able to have some degree of control over the communist terrorists who are attempting to steal and harm our children.

UP is not being "red-tagged", she said, adding that such claims are only the "mythical creation" of the CPP-NPA-NDF.

"We are merely saying what is true: that UP has been targeted by the CPP-NPA-NDF from its inception and that our children who study there are in grave danger," Badoy said.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

"But this time, government agencies constitutionally mandated to defend and protect them --the AFP and the PNP— will be able to do their jobs," she added.

Badoy also slammed the poison crafted by the CPP founding chair Jose Maria "Joma" Sjson that explicitly states that "It is important to rely on the youth in a protracted revolutionary struggle. The mobilization of the youth ensures the continuous flow of successors in the revolutionary movement."

"And thus, UP had become the well upon which the terrorist CPP-NPA-NDF drew fresh blood — of which an unbearable number of them have died violent deaths fighting government troops—but not first without bringing pain and grief to their families and to the Filipino people," she added.

Lost lives

Badoy also cited the case of UP student Joanne Lapira, who joined the CPP-NPA-NDF by way of Gabriela, was 21 when she died fighting government troops; John Carlo Capistrano Alberto joined by way of Anakbayan and died when he as 21; Marvin Christian Cruz joined the communist terrorists through the League of Filipino Students (LFS) and Ibon and was dead when he was 21.

"Reca Noelle joined the CPP-NPA-NDF by way of Gabriela. By 22, she was dead. Tanya Domingo was 21. Ian Dorado in his early 20s. Christine Puche, LFS. Rendell Cagula, in early 20s, Wendell Gumban, LFS, Rona Jane Manalo, Gabriela (and) Lorena Barros," she added.

Badoy said this "unbearable list" of UP students who have died as violent extremists goes on and on.

"The obscenity of terrorists extolling them as heroes and martyrs to goad even more UP students to fall into a trap and join the CPP-NPA-NDF — used not just to the end of their lives but even beyond death — well, this obscenity will end now," she said.

Filipinos, she added, are no longer the people who will accept what is unacceptable and will no longer look away as our children as eaten whole by the communist terrorists.

"There is no mountain we will not climb, no river we will not cross, no fire we will not go through for our children," she said, adding that Filipinos are now ready to reclaim their children and country from the communist terrorists.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1127893