THE National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said it is awash with ‘proofs’ against the members of the so-called ‘Makabayan Bloc’ (MB) in Congress should a public hearing is conducted on the issue of ‘red-tagging’ being hurled by the group against it and the task force’s counter-charge that the MB is a front for anti-government propaganda and a recruitment center by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).
NTF-ELCAC spokesperson, Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy, said they are “ready to present witnesses” and produce other pieces of evidence in any congressional inquiry, most of them based on the testimony of former cadres and fighters of the CPP-NPA.
“What we learned recently is that their bullying tactics against government officials and agencies are nothing but hot air.
“This can be gleaned from their futile efforts to suppress the NTF-ELCAC by delaying the approval of the budgets of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and even the Defense department,” Badoy said.
Despite the noise created by the MB however, Congress last week decided to approve the 2021 budgets of the above agencies during the plenary debate of the proposed P4.5 trillion national budget for next year.
“In the end, our budgets were approved by the plenary,” the official noted.
“What did the Makabayan Bloc prove? Nothing, except that they are duplicitous cowards hiding behind the cloak of their congressional immunity.”
She also assailed MB for “using” Rep. Benny Abante (Manila), a leader of the Minority Bloc, “for their grandstanding.”
Badoy, who attended the plenary hearing on the proposed budget of the PCOO last October 15, 2020 that lasted till the early hours of the following day, said it was “unfortunate” that Abante has unfairly taken a beating on social media for voicing the position of the MB, adding that “this is not the intent of the NTF-ELCAC.”
The budget hearing of the PCOO had been deferred a number of times due to the Makabayan Bloc’s position that Badoy should resign for “red-tagging” them.
However, the confirmation that the Makababayan Bloc members—Bayan/Bayan Muna, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Kabataan/League of Filipino Students, Alliance of Concerned Teachers and GABRIELA—are CPP-created mass organizations was made by CPP founder, Jose Maria Sison.
Sison named the above as the CPP’s “legal democratic forces” in the Philippines at a speech he made in Europe in 1987, after he was freed from prison in the aftermath of the so-called ‘EDSA People Power Revolution.’
Badoy also pointed out that even the court cases filed by the group against government officials like her over the issue of red-tagging have been dismissed for lack of legal basis, citing previous rulings by the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.
“There is no evidence of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, malicious prosecutions and defamations,” the CA said in a ruling rendered last June 28, 2020, on the Writ of Amparo filed by Karapatan, Gabriela and the Rural Missionaries Mission of the Philippines, against top government officials.
“Verily, the petitioners’ bare allegations are not facts and do not have probative value to justify the issuance of the extraordinary writs.
“The broad generalizations of alleged threats and violations border on the contemptuous and do not deserve any judicial action,” the CA decision also said in part.
Congressional Hearing on CPP-NPA recruitment
Despite the failed effort by the Makabayan Bloc to derail passage of the budgets of agencies under the NTF-ELCAC last week, the confrontation between Badoy and the MB may yet happen in the coming days after the Duterte Youth partylist, filed House Resolution 1293 last October 15, 2020.
The resolution seeks to investigate, in aid of legislation, on how the NPA, the armed wing of the CPP, has managed to recruit fighters into its ranks despite having “no visible recruitment centers” in any part of the country.
“It is not the purpose of this measure to investigate organizations that are simply opposing or criticizing the government.
“The patriotic intention of this investigation is for the Philippine Congress and the Filipino people to finally find out which front organizations are recruiting for the New People’s Army, for clearly, the NPA has no visible recruitment centers in cities and schools and are just using non-NPA named organizations to recruit for them,” the resolution explained.
Principal target of the resolution for investigation is the CPP-NPA’s ongoing recruitment in the youth sector. Many of these recruits ended up dead after a firefight with the police or the military.