Opinion/Parlade: In flagrante

Opinion piece posted in the Manila Times (Oct 8, 2021): In flagrante (By (Ret.) Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr.)

THIS week we saw the usual hypocrites troop to Hotel Sofitel to register their intention to run and participate in the May 2022 national elections. I am of course referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) party-list groups led by Gabriela party-list Arlene Brosas; ACT party-list Antonio Tinio and France Castro; Kabataan party-list Raul Manuel, who is replacing Sarah Elago; Bayan Muna's Teddy Casiño and Neri Colmenares; and Anakpawis' Rafael Mariano. Are these people for real? These communists are taking us for a ride. They want to participate in a democratic process while pursuing their agenda for a communist takeover.

The party-list system, which is enshrined in our Constitution, was designed to encourage participation and representation of marginalized sectors in the electoral process. It is an adjunct to the peace process where the government was enjoining the left and the Communist Party to participate, after it was legalized with the repeal of Republic Act 1700. This was to pave the way for this terrorist organization to abandon the armed struggle and for them to take the legal and parliamentary track instead.

Perfect plan and strategy. But in truth?

The CPP never abandoned its armed struggle. It deceived us all into believing that it will pursue with the government the call for a peaceful resolution to its decades-old problems of social injustice brought about by the "isms" of democracy: feudalism, bureaucrat-capitalism, US imperialism. With that deception followed the release by the Cory Aquino government of the founders of the CPP Jose Ma Sison et al., New People's Army's (NPA) Dante Buscayno, and many more "political prisoners" cum criminals. While in exile, Sison had the luxury of creating a broad alliance from the youth, women, peasant and labor sectors under the umbrella of the CPP-National Democratic Front.

Today these CPP-led and CPP-created groups — KMU, ACT, Gabriela, KM, KMP, LFS, etc. — have evolved into party-list groups fronting for the CPP-NPA right in the halls of Congress and now proudly call themselves the Makabayan bloc.

Makabayan, my foot!

What's nationalistic about fronting for a communist terrorist group whose one single accomplishment is sowing violence and chaos that has brought about the utter retrogression of the country's economy over the past 53 years?

Today these same CPP party-list groups called the Kamatayan bloc are shamelessly parading themselves at the Comelec registration booth as if they have nothing to do with the thousands of children they have conned and recruited into the NPA, many of whom have perished in skirmishes with government forces. For sure many have long been buried in shallow graves, without their parents even knowing how much suffering they have gone through, not in the hands of their government captors, but from their vicious comrades who rape and exploit them. Many of them would literally just drop dead from hunger, exhaustion, or simply disappear after being obliterated by government projectile.

Indeed, the better to call these communist cohorts Kamatayan bloc. Their conscious connivance with the CPP-NPA makes them all responsible for the debt of blood the communist terrorist group must pay.

Gruesome, yes, and this is the story of NPA survivors.

Daniel Luis Santos of Anakbayan and Kabataan UP Manila, who became political officer of Guerrilla Front 55 and secretary of Front 2. This is the story of Kurt Russel Sosa @Ugnay of Kabataang Makabayan PUP and deputy secretary of sub regional committee 4. Together with @Virgo, they all trooped together not to the Comelec Manila but to the Department of Justice (DoJ), to shed light on the circumstances behind the recruitment of minor Louvaine Erica Espina of Anakbayan and how she ended up being abused in various manner by her recruiter, her political officer and her commanding officer in the NPA. The latter three would be witnesses on the criminal cases of child abuse, trafficking in person and expanded human trafficking against Jose Ma Sison, Sarah Elago, Vincer Crisostomo and four others of the CPP-NPA-NDF. With the bevy of former CPP-NPA cadres who have direct knowledge about the case now as witnesses to Louvaine @Pam's recruitment to the NPA, I wonder how the DoJ, as in various instances, can again have the chutzpah to dismiss the case.

Lack of merit? Let's see. Recycled? Oh no, Elago.

To confirm its direction toward the violent overthrow of our democratic government, the CPP-NPA-NDF has reaffirmed this in so many recent documents recovered by the government, including the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio Economic Reforms (Caser). Here it asserts the necessity for the continuance of the NPA as an armed component (Art VII) should they succeed in the peace talks, and calls for the demobilization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines instead (Section 1, Art VIII).

Further, the CPP Constitution Plans and Programs version 2016, includes in very clear terms the continuity of their strategy to wage armed revolution, while they participate in the parliamentary struggle. Five decades after its creation the CPP has not abandoned its thirst for power via violent means. That's 50,000 lives wasted and still counting. Jose Ma Sison has been raring to take over the reins of government by all means and many of our politicians are playing fire with him. That's until the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) was created and the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020 passed.

Today it is a totally different ball game.

With a resilient NTF-Elcac driving a whole-of-government campaign, this time we have no less than the House of Representatives doing its part to avert another disaster hatched by the CPP in Congress. Recall that last week, the lower house passed HB 10171, or the "UP Security Act," on its third and final reading. It was almost a done deal until the senior deputy majority leader Boying Remulla, Rep. Martin Romualdez, and Speaker Lord Allan Velasco moved to strike it down for many reasons.

According to Remulla, the presence of the security sector inside UP campuses had nothing to do with academic freedom and freedom to teach. True. In fact students and teachers are able to exercise their rights more freely, if they are secured in the campuses by the presence of security officers.

The Kamatayan bloc was caught "smuggling" the bill with a hundred or so House representatives signing, many in absentia, without understanding the merits of the measure.

First they trafficked our children; now they are smuggling terrorist bills in Congress. Just their luck, the Kamatayan bloc was caught red-handed, in flagrante delicto.

It is time we cut the crap.

https://www.manilatimes.net/2021/10/08/opinion/columns/in-flagrante/1817520