On the other hand, Parlade tagged NUPL as the aboveground group of the CPP-linked Lumaban or Lupon ng mga Mananaggal ng Bayan.

Bare pate for a liar Parent of a missing child supected to have been recruited by communist rebels had his hair cut to demand the repatriation of Communist Party of the Philippines head Jose Maria Sison. YUMMIE DINGDING

A ranking military official and spokesman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) yesterday lashed back at militant organizations being linked to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) for booting him out of a forum “to cover their duplicitous” ways.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) deputy chief of staff for civil military operations and NTF-ELCAC spokesman, said he went to the forum to answer allegations by members of the so-called Makabayan bloc, which he calls the “Kamatayan bloc,” about criminalizing dissent.

However, Carol Araullo of the militant Bayan threw him out of the venue even after being recognized by Mae Paner, alias Juana Change.

Parlade accused the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and the Movement Against Tyranny (MAT), organizers of the forum held last Wednesday, of covering up for the CPP-NPA.

In 2018, Parlade bared the CPP-backed “Red October” designed to oust President Rodrigo Duterte and linked MAT to the clandestine plot.

On the other hand, he tagged NUPL as the aboveground group of the CPP-linked Lumaban or Lupon ng mga Mananaggal ng Bayan.

He said he went to “unmask” the deception of the CPP-NPA to prospective victims at the forum, dubbed “Weaponizing the Law, Criminalizing Dissent.”

“So, who is hiding and suppressing the truth? The person who walks in a forum to explain to future CPP recruits their methods? Or the forum organizers who do not want a lone attendee to be heard, sends him out for them to be able to continue their agitation and propaganda?” Parlade asked.

“That’s duplicity. That’s your ‘Revolutionary Dual Tactics,’ and you didn’t want this truth understood by your victims in the forum so you threw me out,” he added.

The NUPL, along with the militant group Karapatan, has filed writs of amparo against Parlade and the AFP for alleged harassment and red-tagging.

“I went to present to them the reality that the forum is being exploited by CPP groups to agitate those who attended,” Parlade told Daily Tribune.

“To answer questions on their alleged criminalizing dissent by government, which is not true. And to clarify that government is not pursuing dissenters, but violent criminals bordering on terrorism,” he added.

The official hit at the “CPP minions” in the House of Representatives for turning “blind” on the continuing recruitment of minors by the NPA.

“They talk of the government trying to weaponize the law to criminalize dissent. The CPP and their minions in Congress have been hijacking development, creating chaos and disorder all over the country, clipping the powers of the state to pursue criminals and terrorists, threatening state forces of human rights cases, and other harassment cases,” Parlade stressed.

“They are talking of truth? What an irony. So, tell me Kamatayan bloc. Why can’t you answer the issue on child warriors? Planted ba ang mga bata dun sa (Were the children planted in the) Bacolod raid? Sa Escalante? Sa Samar encounter? Surigao, Bicol, Northern Luzon?” he asked.

He was referring to the series of raids launched by combined police and military operatives in the cities of Escalante and Bacolod last month that resulted in the arrest of 57 suspected NPA members, 15 of whom were minors.

He said 21 of those arrested were about to be deployed as NPA fighters when rescued from underground safehouses.