The spokespersons of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTC-ELCAC) were ordered to shut up, after they stirred up a hornet's nest and triggered calls to defund the agency by accusing organizers of charitable community pantries of being communists.
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., chairman of the NTC-ELCAC, said Sunday that Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. and Lorrine Badoy have been directed to stop making comments about community pantries in the meantime.
Esperon said the "gag order" was to avoid giving the impression that they were against the concept of bayanihan (community sharing), which is the basis for the community pantries.
But Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, one of those who called to defund NTC-ELCAC, said he would continue to scrutinize the agency's P19 billion budget.
"We will proceed with our proposal to defund this agency. My foremost reason for this – we lost our trust in its leadership, especially General Parlade," Gatchlian said.
He said the budget allocation that they gave for the operation of the NTF-ELCAC was not small.
"It's not million, but billion, what we gave them. And we're hoping that their leaders like General Parlade will properly spend it and not use them for harassment,” Gatchalian said,
He described Esperon's gag order as a welcome development because Parlade and Badoy were causing divisiveness.
Senator Nancy Binay also welcomed the gag order, saying their rhetoric would worsen the situation.
At one point, Parlade had said senators who wanted to defund his agency were “stupid.”
Binay, however, said she would still support defunding the agency.
"This is not about us. It's protecting the institution," she said.
Quezon City Rep. Precious Hipolito Castelo on Sunday said it is high time to evaluate the people running the NTF-ELCAC.
“It is erroneous to classify everyone helping during the pandemic as communist without vetting. You do not deserve to be in the government service if you can’t differentiate charity from armed struggle,” she said in a text message to the Manila Standard.
Vice President Leni Robredo on Sunday hit the NTF-ELCAC for red-tagging and profiling organizers of community pantries, calling their actions irresponsible.
She said local government units must protect pantry organizers from harassment.
Esperon, meanwhile, defended the task force's Barangay Development Program (BDP), saying it was in the best interest of underserved barangays that communist groups would be denied the opportunity to take back control in these areas.
Esperon appealed to lawmakers to support the BDP, noting that many communities have long waited for these sustainable development initiatives since the start of the Duterte administration in 2016.
“Now that we have successfully liberated them from the clutches of the CPP-NPA-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front), is it not our moral obligation to see to it that they are not at risk for recapture? Is it not our duty as public officials to guarantee that the CPP-NPA-NDF will no longer return to these communities to exploit their vulnerability?” he said.