Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla exposes the Reds for what they really are — troublemakers, liars, and opportunists.
Speaking before the United Nations Human Rights Council in New York City, Remulla announced the truth about the human rights situation in the Philippines and belied the false information disseminated by the local communists to the international community.
Remulla stated that the rule of law remains in force in the Philippines, and that marginal deaths are legal consequences of armed resistance to law enforcement agencies implementing the law.
He cited the Philippine government's all-out war on the narcotics trade since the administration of ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, which necessarily became bloody because drug lords fought government forces tooth and nail just to protect their illegal trade. He said as in any war, there are casualties, but that doesn't make that war illegal, particularly when public interest is involved.
Local communists, their front organizations, and their sympathizers bloated the figures of casualties and exploited controversial situations to put the Philippine government in a bad light internationally, he added.
Remulla is right. The sources of figures being peddled to make the Philippine government look bad in the eyes of the international community are either communist front organizations, or partisan groups out to discredit the government, with strategic alliances with the Reds.
One particular "foundation" is notorious for the manipulated figures it cites whenever it criticizes the government and its policies.
It will be recalled that the Liberal Party's candidates for president and vice president in the May 2022 elections were supported by the local communists. Fortunately, that unholy alliance failed to trick the electorate into voting for the LP candidates.
The communists are also quick to criticize the government, but turn a blind eye to the incompetence or manipulations by radical elements, politicians from the political opposition, or to red sympathizers.
For example, the communists often cite in their political propaganda marginal casualties in the government's campaign against narcotics, but they are conveniently silent about the mass killings within their own ranks, done in the name of purifying the rebel movement.
Remulla added that it is not the policy of the administration of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to allow the elimination of journalists in the country. Press freedom, Remulla maintains, remains a cornerstone in the current administration's policies.
Communists and their allies have conveniently blamed the deaths of journalists on the state, but they do not have evidence to implicate the government. They also conveniently overlook the possibility that certain journalists may have been killed by criminal elements for private reasons which have nothing to do with press freedom.
Propaganda disseminated by the communists and their sympathizers lists alleged abuses committed by the government, but they say nothing about the practice of communist cadres in the countryside who extort "revolutionary taxes" from businesses and industries there. Those who do not yield to communist extortion find their businesses sabotaged.
In fact, their usual mantras about the administration of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. are all proven false.
For instance, their tale that the late strongman was responsible for the bombing of the Liberal Party proclamation rally at Plaza Miranda in 1971 has long been discredited by former cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines themselves.
Almost two decades after the bombing incident took place, the cadres revealed that CPP leader Jose Maria Sison masterminded that carnage, in anticipation that the public will blame the late President Marcos for it.
Sison himself is enjoying a life of capitalistic luxury while in exile in Utrecht, in the Netherlands. Amidst all the wine and pleasure that go with life in Holland, and his supposed disapproval of capitalism, the aging Sison still manages to dupe his CPP cadres into extorting more money from Filipinos at home, just to finance his luxurious lifestyle in Europe.
As Remulla succinctly put it, communism is a big lie.