CHR urged: Act vs atrocities of Reds

MANILA – A ranking military official called on the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) anew to take action against atrocities of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

“Weeks after the NPA killed several surrenderers in Sorsogon and other places, CHR has not taken any action but instead proposed the abolition of the NTF ELCAC (National Tas Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) for allegedly using the NTF as a tool to harass people. Is CHR really blind of what’s happening around?” said Lt. General Antonio G. Parlade, Jr., Southern Luzon Command chief.

Aside from being mum on the issue of communist atrocities, Parlade said CHR has not lifted a finger to denounce the lies being propagated by human rights group Karapatan Caraga in its Facebook account.

“Karapatan has accused the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines), particularly the 3rd Special Forces Battalion (3SFBn), 36th IB and 75th Infantry Battalion of firing at a civilian community and throwing a grenade at the house of a certain Naldo Calipay in Diatogon, Lianga town, Surigao Del Sur,” he said.

The incident left a 5-year-old son of Calipay wound and two other women age 19 and 55.

“How can CHR allow this to pass public scrutiny especially since the victims themselves executed statements that it was the NPA’s M203 grenade launcher that maimed them,” he said, adding that it was military personnel from the 9th Special Forces who gave first aid to the victims and brought them to Lianga District Hospital for medical treatment.

Parlade said Karapatan Caraga’s statement is indeed proof that it, together with CHR, are protectors of the NPA by concealing the violent tracks of the CPP-NPA and National Democratic Front (NDF) yet accuses the government of red-tagging.

“The killings and the lies continue. Last February 10, two NPA hitmen shot to death Adonis Alagadno Shu, resident of Sitio Iraan, Barangay Magara, Roxas, Palawan. The motive of the killing was Shu’s decision to lielow as a CTG (communist terrorist group) sympathizer,” he said.

What was more appalling was that on the day of Shu’s killing, the NPA’s Bienvenido Vallever Command in Palawan released a statement through social media and claimed that the military killed the victim for refusing to cooperate with them. Consistent lies “To illustrate how consistent they are in their lies, these CPP-front organizations recently organized a forum with FilComs (Filipino Communities) in Australia last February 22. It was jointly sponsored by BAYAN Australia, Gabriela Australia, KMU. The objective was clearly to make sure that they will be able to counter the forum which the NTF ELCAC conducted last January,” Parlade said.

While a few Gabriela and Migrante members were present in the NTF ELCAC forum, he said, these individuals paid no attention to the government’s presentation especially those concerning the contentious provisions of the NDF’s version of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social Economic Reforms (CASER).

“They had the chance to respond to the issues discussed but instead patronized themselves by declaring how many people Migrante and Gabriela have been helping,” he said.

And looking back at the video clip of the forum, Parlade said these CPP-front organization members were very consistent in their lies even as they appear soft-spoken to the audience as if they were saints.

“KMU’s Elmer Labog did not answer the specific deleterious issues raised by the NTF ELCAC, like the ‘confiscation of all capitalist, multinational, compradors in the country’ should CASER be signed and the national Peace talks with NDF Utrecht pushes through. They have no valid argument to this, except to say that capitalism has made our people poorer,” he added.

“Labog discussed on CARHRIHL (Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law) but cannot contest the zero human rights records of the AFP for the last six years. Yet he continues with the lies by announcing that 27,000 ‘workers’ were killed during the drug war of PRRD(President Rodrigo R. Duterte) Does DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment) know about these workers killed? Maybe Secretary (Silvestre) Bello can make a comment on this, even as this figure cannot be explained where it was plucked,” he added.