ACCORDING to National Security Council (NSC) Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya, the agency is against the abolition of National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) because it has no basis.
He said the leftist groups may just not want the government to succeed in its fight against the terrorist group Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).
“These appeals are really unfounded and uncalled for,” according to Jonathan Malaya, Assistant Director General, NSC.
“So, these people who want to abolish the NTF-ELCAC, it is very obvious that what they want is for the government not to succeed. They want the NPA to continue. They still want our barangays to be chaotic,” Malaya added.
Malaya further stated that those calling for the dissolution of the NTF-ELCAC are only giving useless ideas of anti-peace and anti-development.
The NSC official shared that the said task force is a big help in weakening the guerilla fronts.
Malaya emphasized that the NTF-ELCAC has been instrumental and a “game changer” in the successful campaign against the NPA and their allies and front organizations.
Malaya also revealed that President Bongbong Marcos will never scrap a task force that he leads and has proven successful in bringing peace and prosperity to remote areas in the country.
The calls to abolish the task force were made by the Karapatan group, Gabriela, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and other known allies of the communist movement after the Supreme Court’s decision stating that “red-tagging” is a threat to life, liberty and security of the people.
In this regard, Malaya pointed out that nowhere in the 39-page decision of the Supreme Court, which granted a writ of amparo to former Bayan Muna party-list lawmaker Siegfred Deduro, does it state that the NTF-ELCAC is responsible for the red-tagging.
He said the SC decision had nothing to do with NTF-ELCAC.
“There is a decision issued by the Supreme Court on this case,” Malaya stated.
“In that case, there was a petition of the writ of amparo and the Supreme Court said that it was wrong for the regional trial court to immediately dismiss the case without giving the state or the government to respond,” he added.
Never did the Supreme Court link or relate red-tagging to NTF-ELCAC.
“Never did the Supreme Court link or relate red-tagging to NTF-ELCAC. So that’s clear. It is only these left-wing groups that’s forcefully insisting, linking the NTF-ELCAC to red-tagging,” he stressed.
On the other hand, the former spokesperson of NTF-ELCAC, Dr. Lorraine Badoy expressed disappointment on the decision of the Supreme Court.
“The worst! It goes beyond the pale and this decision, in my opinion, endangers the lives, the liberties, and security of the Filipino people because what we are up against is the 15th deadliest terrorist organization in the world,” according to Dr. Lorraine Badoy Former NTF-ELCAC, Spokesperson.
The Supreme Court favored former Bayan Muna Congressman Deduro, who was identified by former cadres as a ranking officer of the CPP-NPA-NDF.
The Supreme Court overturned the decision of the Iloilo Regional Trial Court against Deduro and granted his petition for writ of amparo after allegedly being a victim of red-tagging.
It was the founder of the CPP-NPA-NDF, Joma Sison, who identified Bayan Muna as the legal front of the government’s opponents.
Sison insisted that Bayan Muna, which is now a party-list organization together with ACT-Teachers, Gabriela and Kabataan, was deliberately formed to enter the government legally.
In December 2018, former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed Executive Order 70 creating the NTF-ELCAC which aims to end the more than five decades old insurgency involving the CPP-NPA-NDF.
The Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) has also declared the CPP-NPA-NDF as terrorist alongside other terrorist groups such as Islamic State East Asia, Maute Group and Dawla Islamiya.
