CPP's forte: Lies, half-truths, deception

By Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. / The Manila Times

A FRIEND of mine asked me to write a rejoinder to an article being written by Marites Vitug with the title: "Seeing Red: In counterinsurgency, Philippine military shifts from hearts to minds campaign to disinformation." Immediately I said yes, with pleasure, especially since I find her thesis unacceptable. I have no way of knowing how Ms. Vitug will argue in her dissertation but definitely to say that we are in the business of disinformation is totally detestable.

I must admit though that I wouldn't know where to start. Is it about the alleged disinformation on this Alcadev and Save our School network issue on Chad Booc and the rescued Indigenous Peoples children in the University of San Carlos-Talamban, Cebu? Is it about Philippine Daily Inquirer's Tech Tupas report on the two Aetas whom she alleged were forced to eat human feces by soldiers? Is it the "Bloody Sunday" and the killing of alleged farmers? Is it the "Baras Five" who they alleged to be farmers? Or the three alleged Surigao farmers? I really wouldn't know.

I am reminded of an article written by Glenda Gloria who argued that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) today is too engrossed with counter-propaganda, as if we fear that the New Peoples' Army (NPA) is already at the doorsteps of Malacañang. What she was saying is that the military should instead focus on our core competency of finishing off the enemy, rather than red-tagging people and organizations, without presenting evidence. She asks why the sudden interest of the AFP and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) in neutralizing the propaganda machinery of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The more I hear of media people making comments like these, the more I am convinced they are hurt by the direct approach we are using in dealing with Jose Ma Sison's propagandists or "kakolektiba," either in Congress (Kamatayan bloc) or among the other cadres in other infiltrated sectors of our society. Reading through several articles on the University of the Philippines Commune and how they are now well-entrenched in the fourth estate, from the time of UP President Dodong Nemenzo, or even much earlier when the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) had not yet expelled Sison and his Kabataang Makabayan and Lapian ng Manggagawa, I am mesmerized by how they have established this massive network of "regressive" thinkers, while past administrations sat so relaxed watching them destroy the cultural and political fabric of our nation.