LAST August 30, 2022, in a privilege speech whose message continues to reverberate across the country, Sen. Loren Legarda, now among the most powerful of our senators in her capacity as Senate Pro Tempore, the second highest post in the 24-member chamber, had no qualms exposing herself as “working” and “not ashamed” of it too (her own words) with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) thru its National Democratic Front (NDF).
Had she decided to prance around in the Senate Gallery fully naked, or had she confessed to being drunk or not in her right self during her speech, the shock would have been the same.
For why not? This would be the first time in our recent memory that we have a sitting senator and with a vote of more than 24 million, during the May 9, 2022 elections, the second highest to be elected, mind you, to openly proclaim her support for terrorist groups that are the CPP, NDF and their armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).
Indeed, the number of Filipinos who voted for her and her being included in the ‘Unity’ ticket of both PBBM and Vice President Sara Duterte, are ‘indicators’ of how well respected and admired she is by Filipinos—on the false belief, as it now turned out, that she is a part of the government.
And given her level of political maturity and experience, we find it hard to believe that Sen. Legarda does not yet know—as she claimed—that the CPP has not yet been declared as a terrorist organization after the repeal of RA 1700 (Anti-Subversion Law) during the Ramos administration (1992-1998).
Maybe she is so enamored with the ‘romanticized’ image of the CPP or, was she just plain lazy to read that as far back as 2002, her “friend,” CPP founder Jose Maria Sison and the CPP itself, have been in the US terrorist list up to now?
And here, the CPP-NPA-NDF along with their top leadership have been declared as terrorist groups and terrorist leaders based on the provisions of RA 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. If she does not know all of these, that is truly shocking.
Too, her revelation that she actually did not vote in favor of the anti-terrorism law during her time in Congress and that she now wants it to be reviewed, also caught a lot of people off-guard as they realized this tells a lot about her character.
She is a political opportunist of a few equal—on the one hand, mouthing praises for the works of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and on the other hand, making sure that the task force’s sole target, the CPP and its apparatus, continues to function with the aid of her now immense power as senator of the Republic and the power of the privilege speech to influence the Executive Branch into reviving the already dead peace talks with the communists.
But here’s hoping that Sen. Legarda would soon be in her right senses, that is, knowing her statements have turned her into a political pariah in most quarters.
For us, the next best thing she can do is to again stand before the Senate gallery and denounce the CPP-NPA-NDF; if she wants redemption, Filipinos first want her to make a complete break with these terrorist groups. In case she does not know it yet, the future of her political career is now clearly on the line.