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The gods of Padre Faura decided last week that red tagging – the strange creature of paranoia that has wormed and lived its way in the minds of Philippine Communists both young and old and a handful of feeble-minded and weak-willed beings – is a threat to life, liberty and property in the case of Siegfred Deduro, a former Bayan Muna congressman, who was once deployed to Negros island when I was still a Communist urban operative in the 1990s and then youngest member of the Regional Urban/White Area Committee.
I left fulltime Party tasks shortly after his arrival from Panay and went back to being a part-timer doing Party work in a local radio station.
I dare not question the sacred decision of the High Tribunal that holds in high regard the rights of those who want not only the government destroyed, they who wish ill on all presidents whose surnames automatically become prefixes to the phrase “Rehimeng US-…” but also detest our way of life as we know it.
For the past half a century.
Rather, I would like to point out a few things that I, a simple probinsyano reporter, might get into trouble because of the decision of our Padre Faura gods in imperial Manila.
The decision on the case of Deduro clearly demonstrates, above all, the truth that the fight against Communist insurgency remains to be a task borne largely by State security forces, particularly the Army, even if then President Duterte’s whole of nation, whole of government approach was intended to bring the entire bureaucracy and the entire nation to bear against the Communist terrorists.
It is important to point out that the CPP’s twisted idea of people empowerment has practically placed their forces on war footing since more than 50 years ago not only against legitimately-installed governments but also against the State and our entire way of life.
The SC decision clearly shows that the civilian bureaucracy has not agreeed on the nature, and with it, the strategy, tactics, and methods of the scourge that has bedevilled us for more than half century.
First, those in government cannot agree until now on the nature of the terrorists, some see them as plain extortionists with ideological pretensions while others see them as “necessary evil” who provide “balance of terror,” and worst, some see them as partners in development who can come in handy during the polls.
In short, there are those who would jump at the chance of sleeping or rolling in the hay with them.
