VICE President and concurrent Secretary of Education Sara Duterte, is using her immense popularity and positions in government to take the fight directly against terrorist groups, particularly, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), an initiative that has received warm response and support from within and outside the government.
Duterte, it is now clear, has started her “personal mission” immediately, during the first ‘State of the Nation Address’ (SONA) by President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr., by wearing the traditional dress of the Bagobo Tagawa, one of the indigenous peoples in the Davao region, her hometown.
As it turned out, Duterte was actually laying a ‘trap’ for the CPP front organizations in Congress, the Makabayan Bloc, whom she expects to criticize her over her dress, a criticism that was not long in coming.
With the Makabayan Bloc stupidly criticizing her dress, the remarks provided the Vice President with an excuse to openly call its members as CTGs (communist terrorist groups) while rejecting their worn-out claim that she and other government officials and parents’ organizations are resorting to ‘red-tagging’ and ‘terror-tagging’ that has resulted to gross violations of human rights in the country.
In a statement right after the SONA, Duterte said, “Makabayan Bloc, with member partylist groups suffering the tragedy of losing during in the election last May — and this is something that speaks volumes of their relevance today and could, even more, speak volumes of their contribution to nation building, or the apparent lack of it — now attempts to make the Filipino public believe that their intentions are noble when they curiously started this tit-for-tat with a criticism of that Bagobo Tagabawa dress I wore to the SONA.
“But make no mistake. Makabayan Bloc cannot be trusted. And no self-respecting Filipino should fall for its drama,” Duterte said.
Duterte upped the tempo of her attack last August 1, 2022, saying in a statement that Filipinos know about the bloc’s “love affair” with the NPA, the NDFP and the CPP, taunting further that she “always have time” for the Makabayan bloc as it is her way “to de-stress from all the challenges the Department of Education and the government need to address.”
“Marami na ang naloko ng Makabayan bloc. Magaling sila sa propaganda at sanay sila sa pagsisinungaling.
“Sa loob ng maraming panahon, walang naglakas-loob na ilabas ang katotohanan tungkol sa kanila. Gagawin natin ito ngayon,” Duterte said further.
She also dismissed the red-tagging bogey of the Makabayan bloc to evade their being accused as members of the CPP saying, “Ang pagsasabi ng katotohanan tungkol sa relasyon ng Makabayan bloc at sa teroristang NPA, CPP, at NDFP ay hindi red-tagging o terror-tagging — ito ay pagsasabi lamang ng katotohanan.”
Duterte’s openly accusing the Makabayan Bloc of having close ties with the CPP is in contrast to the ambivalent position taken by National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos, who had cautioned the national security cluster, including the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) not to resort to red-tagging, an advise that dismayed parents organizations whose children fell victims to CPP recruitment in various university and school campuses all over the country (see also Pinoy Exposé, July 18, 2022).
The Dutertes have a history of long association with the CPP, especially in their political bailiwick of Davao City.
In return, the CPP, during the 2016 elections, actively campaigned for the election of then Davao City mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, whom Sara succeeded to the position after he won as president.
However, by 2017, President Duterte has had enough of talking peace with the CTGs by officially stopping the peace talks and abrogating all agreements with the CPP.
The next year, in 2018, President Duterte signed Executive Order 70 that created the NTF-ELCAC, a decision that proved crucial in hastening the weakening of the CPP’s political and armed influence all over the country.