Confronting terrorism should not be taken lightly
QUEZON City mayor, Joy Belmonte, daughter of the illustrious former newsman and former House Speaker, Feliciano ‘Sonny’ Belmonte, committed a booboo—again.
In an interview that appeared last Friday, December 11, 2020, at the Phil. Daily Inquirer, Belmonte, averred that she “never said” that her city had declared the Communist Party of the Philippines, its terrorist arm, the New People’s Army and its “legal arm,” the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) as ‘persona-non-grata’ (PNG), similar to the stand taken already by 1,546 local government units (LGUs) nationwide.
And she added, the report further said: “I make it clear every time that we are an inclusive city, where people are free to express their views, so long as we all follow the rule of law and behave ourselves accordingly.”
Unfortunately for Mayor Joy, the records of her own Sangguniang Panglungsod (Quezon City Council) revealed otherwise.
They showed that as far back as March 16, 2020, during its 25th regular session, the QC council passed and approved Resolution No. 8189, which is “A Resolution Strongly Condemning All Forms of Atrocities and Acts of Violence in Support of Executive Order No. 70, s. 2018.”
Unless Mayor Joy is clueless as to what resolution she is signing on and just to be kind to her, it may be better to leave the faux pas to her being overwhelmed by the problems brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
But, the cartoon that accompanied this editorial amply described what she had made of herself: a laughing stock, hihihi!
Better still, Mayor Joy should listen to the “friendly reminder” of DILG undersecretary, Jonathan Malaya, that when an LGU passed a resolution condemning and rejecting communist aggression and terrorism, it logically follows that it is “closing its doors” to further communist incursion.
Gets mo ba, yorme?
Now, this brings us to another, serious point.
That when an LGU decides to issue a resolution to denounce the CPP-NPA and its front organizations, it should always remember that it not just another piece of paper the content of which is not worth remembering or seriously taken into consideration.
LGUs and Mayor Joy in particular, should put it into their brains that this is a festering 50-plus year armed insurrection by a band of misguided and thus fully-radicalized elements directed against the duly constituted government, theirs included.
And unless everyone, the LGUs in particular, join hands with the national government in its ‘whole of nation’ (WON) approach to finally end this menace to our democracy and our society, we’ll continue to play hostage to a situation where armed enemies of the state are allowed to roam free in our midst because our LGUs are either lazy, dumb, uncaring or all of the above in helping solve this problem.
