Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy and Southern Luzon Command Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade will remain the spokespersons of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
In a statement issued on Sunday (April 25), Badoy clarified that there is no gag order against them. National Security Adviser Secretary Hermogenes Esperon only ordered them to avoid commenting on the issue of community pantries.
“There is no gag order by the National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon on me and Lt. Gen Parlade. He has not silenced us. A gag order means that we have been asked to stop issuing public statements… The clear guidance was to simply cease making comments about the community pantry now that we both got our message to the Filipino people across and done our duty.”
However, she asserted that they will not stop “speaking the truth” about the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA NDF).
“We will both continue to speak the truth about the communist terrorist group, the CPP-NPA NDF, so that their deceptions and their pretensions and lies may be known by our people,” she said.
“And we will continue to speak about the healing and redemptive truth of a government that serves the Filipino people faithfully and courageously. A government that will stop at nothing to defend and protect the people it has sworn to defend,” she added.
Meanwhile, Esperon said his order is only temporary, and that it “just meant to call off things” because the public thinks that the NTF-ELCAC is against the community pantries, which they are not.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque has also said that he has talked with Esperon and he told him that he has already asked the two officials to be careful about what they say.
Report from Bea Bernardo/NGS-jlo
