By Gigie Arcilla/Philippine News Agency
MANILA – It is ironic for groups that claim to be human rights defenders harping on a call for the United Nations Human Rights Commission probe into alleged extra-judicial killings in the Philippines, to condemn only the killing of a lawyer and ignore the execution of four policemen in Negros Oriental.
This, according to Major General Antonio Parlade, Jr., of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC), who said he cannot help but wonder why Karapatan and National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) are mum when the 4 policemen were brutally killed but have been creating noise with the slay of lawyer Anthony Trinidad, who was shot dead by motorcycle-riding gunmen on July 23.
“It is time you come clean of your biases. If you say you are not what we say you are, communist thugs that is, denounce the CPP NPA now,” he said. “You are not even sure who hit them but you are already blaming the government,” Parlade said in a statement on Thursday.
He added that Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay should raise a howl before the United Nations since they profess to fight for the rights of individuals whose right to life have been brutally violated.
“As we averred before, your advocacy is fake and selective. You need to justify the funds you have been scamming the European organizations, and now is the time to prove Joma (Communist Party of the Philippines founding chair Jose Maria Sison) wrong for red-tagging your organization,” he said, adding that it was Joma himself who named the communist legal front organizations.
He also urged NUPL to do the same as they are so self-righteous with their claim of defending those who are aggrieved.
“How can you let this gruesome incident pass in silence? Carlos Conde of Human Rights Watch has already condemned the summary execution as a serious violation of International Humanitarian Law. Who else can provide the right legal perspective of this barbarism of the NPAs but the distinguished lawyers amongst your rank,” he said.
Parlade, who is also Armed Forces of the Philippines Deputy Chief of Staff for Civil-Military Operations, renewed his earlier warning against the brutality of CPP-NPA, which had been declared a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
“They could target you and blame the government. It’s part of their ploy. In their CPP Anniversary Statements published in the CPP website last year, they admitted to torturing and killing their own cadres, thousands of them during the purge,” he added. “Until today those killings are attributed to the government. They continue to appear in the list of the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappeared (WGEID), a list which Karapatan has been trying not to be cleared, or they lose relevance to their foreign donors.”
It is the government, he said, who can protect the people and not organizations espousing communist ideology.
“If the government ordered those killings, then why are you still standing Ms. Cristina Palabay? The government has nothing to gain doing that. Our trust rating is up to the ceiling and we don’t want that demolished,” Parlade said.
Own red-tagging
The CPP, he said, red-tagged its own comrades who ended up dead in their purging operations — Oplan Ahos, Oplan Kadena de Amor, Oplan Olympia, Oplan Missing Link, Oplan Zombie, and Oplan VD in Inopacan Leyte.
“Let us not forget the Plaza Miranda bombing, where Joma Sison ordered its execution so people will blame the Marcos government,” he added.
Parlade invited human rights groups to watch the video of Fr Balweg, rebel priest who was killed by comrades in the NPA, as he admitted to killing ordinary members of the community while clad in military uniform, in order to put blame on the government.
“It’s all over the social media. Let’s learn our lessons from these barbaric NPAs and stop defending them,” he added.
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