‘Red-tagging should be the least of worries for the CPP because they themselves boast that they are “Red” and it is even in their official name.’
OF all the presidential candidates, perhaps only Panfilo Lacson and Leody de Guzman have had direct, palpable experience with the communist insurgency: the former as an adversary, and the latter as an ally or supporter.
When Lacson and De Guzman open their mouths to discuss the communist rebellion, we can rest assured that they are speaking from experience. The others — Bongbong Marcos, Leni Robredo, Manny Pacquiao and Isko Moreno — now only have a textbook knowledge of the communist IPO, or Joma’s Protracted People’s War, or Marx and Lenin’s Dialectical Materialism.
So when Senator Lacson cautioned Vice President Leni Robredo that her active support from, and solidarity with, forces with alleged ties with the communist party might lead to a coalition government in case she wins, the senator was just airing a personal sentiment drawn from his experience as a police commander in Isabela, then a stronghold of the New People’s Army, and much later as the chief PNP of President Joseph Estrada, trying to strike a peace accord with a breakaway faction of the NPA.
Lacson explained that Leni Robredo’s camp was overreacting when it branded his statement as red-tagging, which is really far from his well-intentioned reminder. He had seen the folly of Estrada’s kid-glove treatment of the communists, and the greater mistake of President Duterte’s naming to his Cabinet nominees from the National Democratic Front early in his term. Lacson, the Partido Reporma standard bearer, will have none of this, as he recalled he once figured in an ambush perpetrated by communist rebels, which resulted in the death of a young lieutenant under his command.
The statement released online by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) reveals where its political support lies. The CPP said, “Lacson’s red-tagging against the camp of presidential candidate Leni Robredo is serving the tyrant Duterte’s scenario-building to justify the possibility of imposing martial law as a last resort option to secure power. The presidential candidate Lacson who surely is aware that he has no chances of winning, is using his campaign as platform to serve as Duterte’s attack dog against the Robredo camp.’’
Actually it was not Lacson, but another Caviteño, Congressman Boying Remulla, who categorically claimed in their DZRH radio program that a leftist organizer, a member of the Cavite provincial board, was behind the controversial huge political rally of the Robredo camp in General Trias, Cavite recently. Remulla said the crowd was just 17,000 persons, many of whom were not Caviteños and were paid to attend, but the organizers boasted an attendance of 47,000. The Cavite congressman sees this as a manifestation of CPP-NDF tactics. The sad part, Remulla claimed, is that this figure has been used by their political opponents to disparage their campaign for Marcos.
It is only the CPP and the so-called Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives who see red-tagging in even the slightest criticism of the Left. Red-tagging should be the least of worries for the CPP because they themselves boast that they are “Red” and it is even in their official name.
As regards Philippine elections, twisting of facts and applying spins are commonplace strategies that the public just have to live with.
