Presidential Communications Operation Office Undersecretary for New Media Lorraine Marie T. Badoy (RTVM screengrab)
MANILA – President Rodrigo R. Duterte's desire to forge a lasting peace cannot be doubted or sneered at as he is willing to negotiate with hardcore communist rebels and their allies despite the numerous atrocities carried out by the New People's Army (NPA).
This, according to Presidential Communications Operation Office Undersecretary for New Media Lorraine Marie T. Badoy who is also one of the executives of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC).
"This is where you see the deepest longing of our President for peace: that he bends himself over backward to try, YET AGAIN, to reason with a coward and a dyed in the wool terrorist," Badoy said in a statement sent to PNA Friday.
This desire for peace, she added, is the reason why the Chief Executive is not using everything in its authority to arrest and bring the leaders of these terrorist groups for a trial at a court of law despite their innumerable atrocities committed against the Filipino people.
"Instead of dragging Joma Sison (Communist Party of the Philippine founding chair Jose Maria Sison) by the hair and into a court of law --- like he rightfully deserves --- to make him answer for the innumerable crimes he has committed against the Filipino people and for the untold death and destruction, he and his band of terrorists have wrought on our country for over five decades, the President is saying, 'Come. Let us be reasonable men. Let us end this war where there are no winners and let us usher in a new era in our country's history where Filipinos will stop killing fellow Filipinos,' " she said.
Rallies by parents of missing kids
Badoy said she is incensed when Bayan General Secretary Renato Reyes condemned the NTF ELCAC for allegedly conducting anti-CPP-NPA-National Democratic Front rallies last December 26, which incidentally is the CPP's 51st founding anniversary.
Reyes called these protest actions as "attempts of peace spoilers" to impede the peace talks between the Philippine government and the communist rebels.
"I saw the tweet of one of their ranking party members, Renato Reyes, who takes the NTF ELCAC to task for conducting anti-CPP-NPA-NDF rallies and because he suspects we don't want those peace talks to happen," she added.
Badoy clarified that the various rallies were organized by parents who lost their children to the communist terrorist groups, of which Reyes is a spokesperson.
"A group that has, at its crosshairs, our children. Our children whom they have stolen from us by radicalizing them so they harbor deep hate and mistrust against the very government that tries its best to protect and defend them from these terrorists," she said.
She added these minors, whom the communist rebels and their allies recruited, were sent to deaths in the front-lines and buried in shallow graves.
"Children whom their parents will forever search for to the ends of the earth but will never find because they had deeply miscalculated and laid their hearts open to the biggest, most duplicitous liars on the face of the earth," she said.
These are children, whom upon NPA recruitment and deployment, are given new names thus, making it impossible for worried and grieving parents to locate.
"Children they will never find because they no longer bear the names their parents lovingly gave them at birth," she said.
To add insult to injury, she said these names will be recycled to new recruits unluckily enough to be recruited by the CPP-NPA when their bearers get killed battling with government troops.
"When they die fighting this grievous war, the names given to them by these bastards will be recycled and given to another child warrior they have lured into their trap," Badoy said."So see, these parents will search the ends of the earth and they will never again find their children because the bastard, Renato Reyes and his terrorist group, have swallowed them whole and used our children like disposable trash.”
Although not directly involved in Thursday's series of rallies against the communist rebels, Badoy said there is no reason for NTF ELCAC not to support these parents' quest to locate and reunite with their missing children.
"Tell me again, Mr. Reyes, WHY would the NTF ELCAC not support these parents when they go out on the streets to fight for their children?" she added.
Peace talks used to regroup
Badoy admitted that Reyes' claim that NTF ELCAC is not interested in pursuing talks with the communist rebels is true as this is being used by the CPP-NPA in replenishing their depleted numbers and furthering their armed struggle.
"For once, this bastard is correctamundo. Yes, sir, you got that RIGHT," she said, adding that the day the President said he was going to resume peace talks with the communist terrorists is the day noted for where they all looked at each other with the hollowest of expressions on their faces.
She added that it is quite clear now that international peace talks are nothing but a tool used by the duplicitous bastard, Joma Sison and his gang of terrorists to further their armed struggle.
“Historically, the body count on the side of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and PNP (Philippine National Police) is highest during ceasefires. Their recruitment skyrockets as well," she added.
With these factors, Badoy said the biggest lesson to the government is not to deal with terrorists especially those belonging to the CPP-NPA-NDF "who must be the biggest bunch of liars this side of the galaxy".
"So yes, Nato Reyes, the NTF ELCAC abhors the idea of international peace talks -- to be differentiated from local peace talks which is highly effective and highly successful with over 12,000 coming back into the fold of the law and leading productive lives," she said.
Peace talks not for murderous terrorists
She added that the entire NTF ELCAC abhors peace talks with the CPP-NPA as the group is nothing but plain terrorists.
"Terrorists. Nothing more. Nothing less. Not progressives. Not leftists. Not socialists. Not even communists. But terrorists," she said.
Being good soldiers and supporters of the President, however, Badoy said they just follow the lead of the Chief Executive who stayed their hand.
"And who has asked us to hold our peace as he, once again, makes the monumental effort of healing our land and bringing peace that has eluded us forever," she said.
The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1089637
Indonesians Maharudin Lunani, 48, (second from right) and Samiun Maneu, 27, (right) posing for photographs in Jakarta on Dec 26, 2019. They were abducted by militants off Malaysian waters in September and were rescued by Philippine troops on Dec 22, 2019. With them are Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi (second from left) and Indonesian ambassador to the Philippines Sinyo Harry Sarundajang. (Photo: Kiki Siregar)
