Parlade ignorant to parley

For all intents and purposes, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has objective-specific mission. Created under Executive Order (EO) 74 signed on Dec. 4, 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte instituted his administration’s “Whole-Nation-Approach” that set an ambitious goal to write finis to our several decades-old communist insurgency menace.

But the vociferous spokespersons for this inter-agency NTF-ELCAC have unnecessarily been stirring it to more conflicts than eliciting support and cooperation of the entire Filipino nation. Thanks to the tandem of designated spokespersons of the NTF-ELCAC, namely, Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) undersecretary Lorraine Badoy and Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

At one time, it was all about Badoy. But for most of the time, the NTF-ELCAC has become all about Parlade.

The NTF-ELCAC is chaired no less by President Duterte as the country’s Commander-in-chief. As the National Security Adviser (NSA), Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr. is the vice chairman. Concurrently, Esperon is also the vice chairman of the newly created Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), with Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea as its designated chairman. This is not to mention, Esperon is also the vice chairman of President Duterte in the National Task Force on West Philippine Sea (NTF-WPS).

All three hats of Esperon have always brought him to national limelight, in good news and in bad as well. But to his credit, Esperon has gingerly stirred himself from needless conflict with opposing views. This he does well even while multi-tasking in the three NTFs under his supervision.

During our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last week, Esperon forthrightly explained the NTF-ELCAC’s interest to check into the frenzied “red-tagging” claims that followed organizers of community pantries in their neighborhoods.

“We’ll also look into the organizers, especially if they advertise their organizations that would be traced to be front organizations of the CPP-NPA,” Esperon pointed out. As vice chairman of the ATC, Esperon referred to the terror-tagged Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).

“We would also like to look into the possible participation of personalities that may have other agenda, that may turn these projects into some for political and agitation purposes,” Esperon cited as most probably taking place with the advent of the forthcoming May, 2022 presidential elections.

With his candid demeanor and intelligent discussions of the issues thrown at him, Esperon should just assume the role of NTF-ELCAC spokesperson.

Without any government assistance or funding, the community pantry is an all-private sector effort that  Anna Patricia Non started and others followed suit to assist pandemic-impacted Filipinos. In fact, presidential spokesman Harry Roque welcomed this private sector-led assistance to the needy Filipinos. Speaking for the President, Roque encouraged other well-meaning groups to do the same. In an attempt to clean up Parlade’s “red-tagging” mess, Roque even paraphrased the late communist leader Mao Tse-tung: “Let a thousand community pantries bloom.”

Without specifying names, Parlade again messed up when he practically called out all the Senators as “stupid” during a radio interview last week.

It was a knee-jerk reaction to Senator Joel Villanueva’s initiative “to defund” the NTF-ELCAC. In his @senatorjoelv Twitter post last week, he started the calls “to defund” the NTF-ELCAC. It was to punish Parlade’s biblical commentary on the community pantry that was started last week by Non in her neighborhood at Maginhawa St. in Quezon City.

Parlade obviously got Villanueva all riled up when the NTF-ELCAC spokesman likened Non’s community pantry to biblical narrative of the Genesis when Satan tempted Eve with an apple. Likened to an apple – as the forbidden fruit in Genesis – Parlade amateurishly heckled Non for crying out loud when she was allegedly “red-tagged” by a Quezon City cop.

This naturally irked the Senator who – like his father, CIBAC party list Congressman and one of the 32 House deputy speakers Bro. Eddie Villanueva – preaches bible teachings before their congregation at the Jesus is Lord Movement.

Fellow Senators Nancy Binay, Sherwin Gatchalian, Grace Poe and Ralph Recto co-signed Villanueva’s Senate Resolution No. 07 seeking to “conduct a review, in aid of legislation” on the performance of the NTF-ELCAC, purportedly to determine “whether NTF-ELCAC is effective in fulfilling its mandate and efficient in its budget utilization.”

The Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives followed suit and filed Resolution 1728 directing the Committee on Public Accounts to conduct a public hearing to scrutinize the P19-billion budget this year of the NTF-ELCAC’s barangay development program (BDF). The Makabayan lawmakers earlier decried their being also “red-tagged” by the NTF-ELCAC.

Esperon clarified the NTF-ELCAC does not administer the BDF under the Congress-approved 2021 budget. He cited the BDF comes from specific allocations of national agencies downloaded directly to provincial governments.

But the “stupid” remark of Parlade against the Senators was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

Last Monday, more than 14 Senators led by Senate president Vicente Sotto III signed another Resolution calling for the unequivocal removal of Parlade as NTF-ELCAC spokesperson. The same Senators, who voted the three-star promotion of Parlade last year when he was already the NTF-ELCAC spokesman, reiterated their objection to his assuming a civilian position at the same time.

Sotto has been supportive of the NTF-ELCAC and has, in fact, objected “to defund” it just because of Parlade’s overbearing attitude. By signing this newest Resolution, the Senate president clearly shows he won’t allow Parlade to get away with his latest “stupid” antics.

Parlade is without a doubt ignorant how to parley with enemies of the state, much more with lawmakers.