SC asked: Probe judges dismissing cases vs Reds

MANILA – Rather than looking into the actions of a Quezon City Regional Trial Court judge who issued a search warrants for the offices and homes of activists in Bacolod and Escalante cities, a ranking official of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC) appealed to the Supreme Court (SC) to instead investigate judges who have been dismissing cases against communist terrorists.

This, according to Major General Antonio Parlade, Jr., in response to militant Bayan Muna’s call to review the action of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Cecilyn Burgos-Villavert who issued seven warrants to allow police to conduct searches on the offices of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Kilusang Mayo Uno, Anakpawis, Gabriela, and National Federation of Sugar Workers, and the house of Kadamay members in Manila last week.

“These communist front groups have been harassing and threatening not only judges of the courts but also fiscals and state prosecutors in the past. These Kamatayan (Makabayan) bloc uses their armed goons, the NPA (New People’s Army) to threaten the families of fiscals and judges with death if only to force them to decide in favor of arrested CTGs (communist terrorist groups). This is why they are called terrorists for terrorizing people who stand in their way,” he said in a statement to the Philippine News Agency Sunday. “They label these uncooperative magistrates as ‘counter-revolutionary’.”

Parlade, however, said these bullying and intimidation tactics of the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), is now a thing of the past as the government is using “the rule of law” to neutralize the perpetrators of such tactics.

“That bullying strategy is over. The rule of law is here to catch with you. So Bayan Muna should start respecting the decisions of the magistrate. Their bullying will not work this time when people already understand their duplicitous and deceptive nature. Let us refresh these hypocrites and liars of what their own NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippine)-Panay spokesperson (Concha Araneta) said on their 46th NDFP Anniversary last 24 April 2019,” said Parlade, who is also Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Deputy Chief-of-Staff for Civil-Military Operations.