Duterte tags militant party list groups as ‘Red fronts’

MANILA: President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte tagged militant party list groups in the House of Representatives as “legal fronts” of communist rebels engaged in a “grand conspiracy” for a violent takeover of the government for more than 50 years, considered the longest in Asia and the Pacific.

“These legal fronts of the communists, all of them Makabayan (Pro-nation), Bayan (Country) — they are all legal fronts. Gabriela,” Duterte said in a mix of Filipino and English in his nationwide televised address aired late on Monday night.

“We are not Red-tagging you,” Duterte said, “we are identifying you as members in a grand conspiracy comprising all the legal fronts that they have organised headed by the NDF and the New People’s Army, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP-NPA).”

NDF stands for the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the CPP-NPA that launched the Maoist-style insurgency against the government for more than 50 years, and which represented them in the aborted peace talks with the government hosted by Norway in its capital of Oslo.

He added: “The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is very correct. You are being identified as members of the communist so we know. That’s the truth.”

Earlier, Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana cited the killing of Jevilyn Cullamat, tagged as an NPA medic, in a clash with government forces in Surigao del Sur province on Nov.28 in Mindanao as the “basis” to justify the military’s Red-tagging of militant and Let-leaning House party list groups.

Jevilyn was the daughter of Congresswoman Eufemia Cullamat, who belongs to the Manobo tribe in Mindanao, and a member of the party list “Bayan Muna” (Country First). Under a law, party list groups are allowed to participate for elections in the House to represent underrepresented sectors of society in the chamber like retired teachers and policemen, small businessmen as well as indigenous peoples.

Cullamat condemned the “desecration” of her daughter’s body calling as “vultures” the soldiers who made a “trophy” out of her bloodied corpse by having their pictures taken, along with a captured heavy firearm.