On landmark Supreme Court action assuming jurisdiction and issuing Show Cause Order against Elago
For far too many years, Filipino parents watched in horrified silence as what was most precious to them was stolen from right under their noses---their children--by the deceitful radicalization of their minds so that right before their very eyes, children they birthed and raised became strangers who started to see them not as parents they loved but as enemies they had to lie and hide from.
And then there are thousands upon thousands of parents all through these decades, who have had to carry the lifeless bodies of their children who died fighting a senseless and selfish war the hypocritical cowards of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front (CPP NPA NDF) leadership had goaded them to fight but that they themselves would not dirty their hands with.
All across this country--scattered in the hinterlands where battles are fought-- lie bodies of our children who were deceived into joining legal fronts of the violent extremist group, CPP NPA NDF--Anakbayan, League of Filipino Students (LFS), College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), Kabataan, and GABRIELA YOUTH.
And for far too many years there was nothing Filipinos could do.
On 19 May 2020 though, the Supreme Court acknowledged the desperate search of one couple—the Lucenas—for their lost child.
In an En Banc Resolution, the Court acted favorably on two combined writs filed by the Lucena Couple: a Writ of Amparo and a Writ of Habeas Corpus. It required the respondents—Sarah Elago, Kabataan Party-List Representative; Alex Danday, National Spokesperson of Anakbayan; Chary Delos Reyes, Bianca Gacos, and Jayroven Ballais Villafuente, members and recruiters for Anakbayan; and Atty. Maria Kristina Conti—to explain why the writs should not be issued against them.
A laudable first in Philippine history.
The Supreme Court’s En Banc Resolution is as much an opening victory for the Lucena couple as it is a recognition of government efforts to stamp out the communist rebellion and all those who hide behind its mask.
Together with the NTF ELCAC and the linking of arms of the entire government bureaucracy with the Filipino people, the message is loud and clear: the day of reckoning of this terrorist organization has finally arrived.
It is our hope that this case will open the floodgates of lawsuits filed against these terrorists whose recruitment pattern specifically targets women, children and the most vulnerable sectors of society. A pattern followed by other terrorist groups like the ISIS and the Abu Sayyaf.
This case clearly marks too, in powerful and unprecedented ways, the start of the end of this terrorist group that has caused our country so much grief and destruction.
We are going to be judged as a nation by the way we took care of the most helpless in our midst--our children. And until recently, we were going to be judged severely.
We are no longer there.
More and more, we are becoming the kind of people we were meant to be: fierce in its protection of its young.
Mabuhay ang Inang Pilipinas!
Undersecretary Lorraine Marie T. Badoy NTF ELCAC Spokesperson
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