The CPP-NPA is a tricky lot. They have been waging a rebellion for 52 years, they have managed sneak into the Senate, and now they have done something even more clever. They have opened up community pantries to feed the poor. We should all shudder at the horror of such a thing.
 |
| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/784398/ntf-elcac-checking-background-of-community-pantry-organizers-parlade-admits/story/ |
Government anti-insurgency task force spokesperson Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr. on Tuesday admitted that they are checking the background of the organizers of community pantries.
Interviewed on Super Radyo dzBB, Parlade claimed that some leftist groups are copying the community pantry activities from well-meaning individuals to push their propaganda.
"We're just checking itong background ng mga 'to. Yes, tsini-check 'yan [We're just checking their background. Yes, they are being checked],” said Parlade, spokesperson for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
(They're spreading propaganda while at the community pantry. They are saying that the people are hungry because of government failure, among other propaganda.)
Parlade, who is also the military's Southern Luzon Command commander, denied they were red-tagging the organizers of the community pantries. He said they would issue a statement on the matter within the day.
Asked about the social media post of NTF-ELCAC supposedly “red-tagging” the organizers of community pantries, Parlade told GMA News Online that only the media used the term "red-tagging."
In statement, NTF-ELCAC spokesperson Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy said the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was duping the public.
(“Red-tagging was only made up by the CPP-NPA-NDF to achieve their rotten agenda to weaken the government and to ask donations here in the Philippines and abroad.”)
Badoy also said that the slogan started by the Maginhawa Community Pantry, “Magbigay batay sa kakayahan, kumuha batay sa pangangailangan (From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs)” was a philosophy of the “Father of Communism,” Karl Marx.
Cleary the NTF-ELCAC has red-tagged these pantries. Their denial that they have done so, because red-tagging is essentially a fake term made up by the CPP and used by the media, is ridiculous. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet. In the very last paragraph Lorraine Badoy directly links the Maginhawa Community Pantry to Karl Marx and thus the CPP because she alleges the pantry uses a Marxist phrase.
 |
| https://news.abs-cbn.com/life/04/15/21/unguarded-maginhawa-pan-tree-helps-community-share-free-groceries-with-needy |
Unless one were looking for it, this bamboo kart near an intersection of Maginhawa Street in Teacher’s Village, Quezon City might not easily attract attention.
The unguarded stall, perched beside a lamppost and tree, is identified only by a small cardboard inscribed with “Maginhawa Community Pantry.”
But its stock of fruits and vegetables from the nearby produce stand (and previously, rice and canned goods) are a blessing in disguise to some passersby — often ordinary workers or homeless people worrying about their next meal.
There is an accompanying reminder written on another piece of cardboard: “Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha ayon sa kailangan (Give according to ability, take according to need).”
Based on the first 2 days of the stall, Non found that many ordinary Filipinos do not always conform to others’ expectations of them.
(Online they would always say ‘If that happened in our place, people would just take’, ‘That won’t fit here among Filipinos’, ‘Other Filipinos will no longer work and just rely on that.)
Instead, she saw sweeper-moms who take home just a head of cabbage for the day’s meal, or the labandera who needed rice when she saw the cart.
(They will only get what they need. So people need to get rid of the idea that simple citizens are greedy. Let’s trust the masses more.)
Her signboard, after all, reflects the Marxist slogan “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Both ABS-CBN and Badoy, as well as others, link the phrase, “Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha ayon sa kailangan (Give according to ability, take according to need)”, to Karl Marx. But Patricia Non does not say that is where the phrase comes from or the ideology she wishes to emulate. That is merely their interpretation. Even if it were directly lifted and adapted from Marx, rather than being a commonsense policy to write down, that is no indication that one is a full blown dyed-in-the-wool communist. It's really all about honesty. Take what you need and if you have anything to donate then please do so.
Remember the "honesty store" the PNP opened a 2018 and closed less than a year later? This situation is not that much different. The PNP opened a store at MPD Headquarters in Batanes where all items were left unattended and customers, PNP officers mostly, were to simply drop their payment in the provided receptacle. Too many did not and thus the store folded.
Parsing over the phrase, “Magbigay ayon sa kakayahan, kumuha ayon sa kailangan (Give according to ability, take according to need)” in an attempt to find a Communist boogeyman is ridiculous. What if someone called for Filipinos to unite during this time of pandemic? Oh wait, that is exactly what the "Bayanihan to Heal as One Act" is!
On their Facebook page the NTF-ELCAC directly links these pantries to the CPP-NPA.
 |
| https://www.facebook.com/ntfelcac/posts/479723820132674 |
The text in the picture translates to:
The Community Pantry is for the town, do not use for self-interest! "Tulong Kabataan" is an organization created by the CPP-NPA-NDF to raise funds and recruit young people.
Even the Quezon City police accused this pantry of being a communist front.
 |
| https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=2883887728535591&set=pcb.2883888128535551 |
The PNP says they are looking into cases of cops' red-tagging these pantries because apparently that is not PNP policy. It's those dastardly "Rogue Cops©" again for sure.
 |
| https://news.abs-cbn.com/video/news/04/21/21/pnp-to-probe-cops-red-tagging-of-community-pantries |
The Philippine National Police on Wednesday said it would investigate its units' alleged red tagging of community pantries, a public initiative to provide food and other necessities to Filipinos struggling with the country's over yearlong COVID-19 lockdown.
PNP chief Gen. Debold Sinas ordered the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Anti-Cybercrime Group, and regional offices to look into reports that some units allegedly linked community pantries to the communist movement, said PNP spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronaldo Olay.
The investigation will also cover officers who reportedly sought personal information from community pantry organizers, he said in a public briefing.
 |
| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137985 |
Community pantry organizers should not fear police officers asking for some information, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said on Monday.
"There is no reason for you not to give your name if policemen approach you," Año told reporters in an interview.
Año said it is just normal for policemen to get this information from the organizers as a reference in case an untoward incident happens during these activities.
Año, however, said there is a limit on the kind of information police officers must get from community pantry organizers.
"Name, contact number, and a little background are enough if this is an organization giving assistance to our fellowmen," he said.
 |
| https://www.facebook.com/PatrengNon |
That photo should be enough to convict her in the eyes of the NTF-ELCAC as a dyed-in-the-wool communist. They have repeatedly linked GABRIELA to the CPP and Joma Sison has even mentioned them as being part of the CPP's legal fronts. So why not just say that? Why tiptoe around the issue and deny linking her to leftist groups when they clearly have and when they have the circumstantial evidence to do so? But there is more "evidence."
 |
| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137726 |
A former rebel bared the links of a community pantry organizer to communist terrorist groups (CTGs).
Shane Valdez, in a phone interview Thursday, told the Philippine News Agency that Maginhawa, Quezon City community pantry organizer Ana Patricia Non was affiliated with Kabataang Artista Para sa Tunay na Kalayaan (Karatula).
“(This AP Non who started the community pantry, she was a former member of Karatula),” said Valdez, who is a former cadre of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) for more than seven years.
Valdez, who admitted she was recruited into joining the Youth Communist League in Angeles City, Pampanga in 2011 when she was only 14 years old and later became the spokesperson of Anakbayan Central Luzon before becoming a full-pledged CPP-NPA member, said Non’s father was also a supporter of the movement.
When she heard about Non, her name sounded familiar.
“(I did my research and then I confirmed that she was the daughter of our supporter in Angeles City. He’s her father. I already knew back then that he has an activist daughter, a party member after all),” Valdez said in a Facebook video.
She added that when she heard of Non and the community pantry, she already knew it has a hidden agenda.
“(These are confirmed communist moves. They have a hidden agenda on why they are doing this. They change the meaning of bayanihan because if you really want to help then just help, don’t politicize it, don’t make hidden agenda. You’re using it to recruit and destroy the government),” said Valdez, who denounced her CPP-NPA membership in 2018.
Non earlier denied involvement with communist groups, even branding a reporter’s question about it as inappropriate.
“(I have no links with the Communist Party. I’m sorry but that’s really an inappropriate question),” Non said during an online press conference on Tuesday.
“(I just want to set up a pantry to help feed the people),” she added.
Valdez said she already expected Non would deny her affiliations as it is the first thing the communist movement teaches its members.
“(Because these are underground organizations, meaning they are illegal, members are oriented to deny, to not admit anything, even if it may cost your life so as not to endanger the whole organization. That is why we already expected that she will deny that),” Valdez said.
Take that testimony with a grain of salt. For one thing it is not illegal to be member of the CPP or GABRIELA, or any other of the groups allegedly connected to the CPP.
 |
| https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/12/04/18/red-membership-not-a-crime-lawyer-reminds-military |
Military chief General Carlito Galvez earlier claimed that former lawmaker Satur Ocampo and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, who were both arrested last week for alleged kidnapping, were "active" members of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Even if this were true, there is no law prohibiting membership in the CPP, human rights lawyer and former Supreme Court spokesperson Theodore Te said in a chance interview.
The Anti-Subversion Act, which outlaws CPP membership, was repealed under the presidency of Fidel Ramos, he noted.
(Subversion is no longer an offense, it was repealed. Because it is no longer a crime, it cannot be used as basis for any legal action.)
 |
| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1137652 |
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has ordered its Civil-Military Operations Office (J7) to support community pantries and other similar activities.
"So, in fact, we are looking for funds for this purpose and (I'm) even contemplating of convincing the members of the Armed Forces to donate one day of our subsistence allowance so with that we will be able to accumulate a substantial amount to support the community pantry or other similar humanitarian undertakings," AFP chief-of-staff, Gen. Cirilito Sobejana said in a virtual presser on Thursday.
Regardless of what these are called, Sobejana said what is important is that the planned effort will be able to help feed people who lost their livelihood due to lockdowns.
"(We will identify areas that are under locked down, we will go to them at deliver to them food and other necessities they might need)," he added.
What a twist!
No comments:
Post a Comment