Lorenzana cautions Parlade on red-tagging

DEFENSE Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Friday cautioned Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. against linking actress Liza Soberano to the communist movement without presenting hard evidence to back his claim.

“Dapat may ebidensya tayo at‘ wag basta sabihin na leftist ‘yan, NPA ‘yan. Dapat may ebidensya tayo; otherwise just keep quiet (We should have evidence and not indiscriminately accuse people of being a leftist or an NPA. Otherwise, just keep quiet),” Lorenzana said.

The NPA or New People’s Army is the communist armed group that the

government considers a terrorist organization.

Lorenzana said he would call Parlade to a meeting of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac).

“There should be a talk due to such brouhaha,” he said.

In a recent television interview, Parlade, the spokesman for NTFElcac, said Soberano and Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray should be careful not to be exploited by the Gabriela Youth, which he described as a front organization of the Communist Party of the Philippines and NPA.

The Gabriela Youth is being run by an underground group called Makibaka, Parlade said, adding, “It is a fact, and they can’t deny it.”

“These are extreme leftist; these are violent people ... espousing armed revolution against the government,” he said.

Parlade said it was the duty and responsibility of the NTF- Elcac to expose how the communists operate.

Former Philippine National Police chief Edgar Aglipay, the current president of the Philippine Military Academy Alumni Association Inc., said Parlade was merely giving Soberano “advice.”

“We hope Ms. Soberano will take the advice and together with other advice, and I think she’s old enough to decide for herself what is good,” Aglipay said.

Last Thursday, Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said it was alright for Soberano and Gray to take up an advocacy as long as they do not play into the communists’ hands.

Roque defended Parlade, saying he only wanted to protect the two from communist groups.

Soberano and Gray have been vocal in supporting women’s rights, and in protesting the anti-terror law and the closure of ABS-CBN.