Leftist Cabinet members stay — Palace
Presidential appointees from the left-leaning Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) may remain in their posts as long as they still have the trust and confidence of President Duterte.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque assured them as much, even after the President scrapped peace talks with the CPP last weekend.
“For as long as they are remaining in their posts, they enjoy the trust and confidence of the President. When they go, then obviously the President has ceased to have trust and confidence in them,” Roque told in a press briefing in Davao City yesterday.
“All presidential appointees hold office at the pleasure of the President,” he added.
The Commission on Appointments had earlier rejected the appointments of former social welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo and former agrarian reform secretary Rafael Mariano.
Incumbent left-leaning members in the Cabinet are Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod, National AntiPoverty Commission Secretary Liza Maza and Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor chairman Terry Ridon.
Meanwhile, the National Democratic Front (NDF) yesterday said the administration’s tagging of the political left as terrorist was an instrument of aggression and meant to pave the way for widespread martial law.
“Tagging revolutionaries and progressives as terrorists is a ploy to widen the road for imperialist aggression, repression and exploitation, and create conditions for the nationwide imposition of martial law,” the CPP-NDF said in a statement.
NDF-Far South Mindanao Region spokesman Efren Aksa- sato said President Duterte has now fulfilled the US imperialistic objective to ruin the peace negotiations. He added that the President has guaranteed the escalation of US military intervention and domination of the country.
In his statement posted on the NDF website, Aksasato said while Duterte detests the revolutionary struggle that he branded an act of terrorism, the President is imprudent and quiet on the transgressions of the US "imperialists" who are the real and most powerful terrorists.
“The US incessantly carries out wars of aggression and exploits billions of people of the Third World and other parts of the globe,” Aksasato said.
He said imputing the democratic mass movement, militant organizations and social activists to acts of terrorism is a key policy of the US war on terror and anti-terrorist laws by which Duterte has to abide.
He claimed that with martial law, the reactionary ruling class will be more flagrant in employing the military and police forces to suppress the struggles of the Filipino people for land, fair wages and better living conditions.
He said since the declaration of martial law in Mindanao, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have launched vicious all-out attacks against the people and their revolutionary forces.
“In (Southern) Mindanao, huge multinationals… employ the AFP and PNP to ensure their unrelenting land-grab. Military operations are also intensified in lumad and peasant communities opposing largescale mining. The bourgeois comprador-landlords… also employ military and paramilitary forces to secure their properties and big businesses,” Aksasato said.