Statement of the NTFELCAC regarding the 2nd Senate Hearing on Red Tagging

Last Tuesday’s Senate Hearing on Red-tagging was a clear and unequivocal victory for the Filipino people.

While it is true that the august halls of Senate were blackened by the galling lies told by the high ranking party members of the CPP NPA NDF Central Committee: Sarah Elago, Teddy Casiño, Carlos Zarate, Neri Colmenares and their cohorts who were present online, those lies were easily smashed by the powerful testimonies of our former rebels and present-day heroes and heroines: Jeffrey Celiz, Noel Legaspi, Joy James Saguino, Ivy Corpin, Christian Sabado and Ka Lolit.

Only the willfully blind and deaf will deny that this victory indeed happened—or that the Filipino people have expressed so clearly their disgust and outrage of this violent ideology being forced on us by the CPP NPA NDF represented by the Makabayan Bloc (KOALISYONG MAKABAYAN) and have clearly rejected it for quite awhile now.

It was also no small moral victory to have given the authors of Grief and Destruction present in the Halls of Senate that day: COLMENARES, ZARATE, CASINO, ELAGO--no choice but to sit through testimony after powerful testimony of our former rebels who not only unmasked the liars of the Makabayan Bloc but stripped them naked and poured caustic oil on their wounds until the only thing left standing was the Truth, sparkling in its Clarity.

The words of Sarah Elago proved prophetic when she said at the start of the hearing that that was going to be a day when debts would be settled.

It hasn’t been settled fully— nor by a long shot, but we are grateful for this symbolic win for our country that has long labored under the inhumanity of the CPP NPA NDF and its fronts.

And although there can never be a price tag to what it is they owe the Filipino people,

And although we will never stop until Justice is fully served, last Tuesday’s moral victory is something the Filipino people savor because it has been a long time coming.

The unbearable burden remains to be borne by us however—and we still don’t truly know what the real numbers are.

In all those 52 years, how many of our indigenous brothers and sisters were exploited by the CPP NPA NDF so that anywhere from 60-90% of NPAs come from their ranks?

How many tribal leaders who refused to join them were assassinated by these murderers?

How many were murdered in cold blood?

How many of their children were trained to be child warriors, taught to kill fellow Filipinos?

How many children from our indigenous tribes were raped and sexually molested by these terrorists?

How many of our children dropped out of schools, turned away from their dreams and promising futures because of the lies whispered to them by ANAKBAYAN, LFS, GABRIELA, CEGP, IBON, KARAPATAN, ACT, BAYAN MUNA, NUPL, NUSP, NUJP etc?

How many of them have died while fighting government forces thinking they had given their lives to something noble?

How many of our men and women in uniform have fallen, fighting a senseless and needless war?

How many of our children lie buried in shallow graves across the land, never to be found by their grieving parents?

What is the price tag to the miseducation of our youth?

What is the cost to our country of the purposive and methodical economic sabotage of the CPP NPA NDF?

The truth is we don’t know yet.

We only know that when the numbers come, the answers to all that will be unbearable.

And we only know that this journey that we started with the creation of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict must continue until our people are truly freed from the shackles of these communist scourge that has torn the very fabric of our society and has caused our people untold pain and suffering.

We are grateful for the moral courage and fortitude of Senator Panfilo Lacson for taking on an issue, “red-tagging” a word the violent extremists made up, that has been used by the CPP NPA NDF and its fronts to silence those who speak the truth about them and thus, the abuse of the Filipino people continued for 52 years.

Together with our Senate President, Senator Vicente Sotto III who was physically present in both hearings, they brought to the table gravitas and the full weight of their Office and the full weight of the Senate of the Philippines and therefore the full weight of the government of the Republic of the Philippines.

They have told our people, in no uncertain terms, that our government, despite its imperfections, remains faithful to the people it has sworn to serve. That rivers will be crossed, mountains will be climbed and lives willingly offered and that we will go through the fire to defend and protect our people and our Country.

The ball has now been passed to the House of Representatives who harbor, within their walls, enemies of the state—the MAKABAYAN BLOC: CARLOS ZARATE, SARAH ELAGO, ARLENE BROSAS, EUFEMIA CULLAMAT, FERDINAND GAITE, FRANCE CASTRO—ALL high-ranking party members of the CPP NPA NDF Central Committee directly responsible for the grievous harm done on the most defenseless among us and who have forged on, with deadly focus, on meeting the CPP NPA NDF goals of destroying government from within and the installation of a most brutal and inhumane ideology: COMMUNISM—that has fallen by the wayside of history precisely because of its inhumanity.

It is our prayer that the TRUE Representatives of the Filipino people-- men and women of the 18th Congress --bring to this fight for country the moral courage and the full weight of their Office and be what it is they truly are: our people’s defenders and protectors and not allow themselves to be used as cover by those who have brought so much pain and suffering to our People--the CPP NPA NDF's MAKABAYAN BLOC.

Undersecretary Lorraine Marie T. Badoy

Spokesperson, NTFELCAC