Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Thursday ordered the immediate relief of the intelligence chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) following the release of an erroneous list of New People’s Army (NPA) communist terrorists killed by the military.
“I am relieving Maj. Gen. Alex Luna from his post as deputy chief-of-staff for intelligence, J-2, effective today (28 Jan 2021),” Lorenzana said in a statement sent to reporters.
He said the publication of an erroneous list of NPA rebels killed in military operations that came from Luna’s office was an unforgivable lapse.
“His negligence only shows a lackadaisical attitude towards his job resulting in confusion and damage to reputation. We do not take these offenses lightly and I want to hold the people involved accountable,” Lorenzana said.
Asked why he gave such a stinging rebuke to Luna, Lorenzana replied: “That language is needed to jolt the whole organization into taking their jobs seriously. There is an investigation going on but I based my decision under the principle of command responsibility: a commander is responsible for whatever his unit does or fails to do. They all know that.”
The military earlier apologized to those who were inadvertently named in the list of students who joined the NPA and allegedly died or were captured.
The list was posted in the AFP Information Exchange Facebook account and has since been immediately taken down or deleted from its social media accounts.
“The Office of the J-7 (Civil-Military Operations) AFP is already conducting an internal investigation as to how the list got published. Personnel who are responsible will be held to account,” the AFP earlier said.
The Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives welcomed Luna’s relief.
But ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro, a member of the bloc, said his relief should go hand in hand with the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, which she blamed for the red-tagging of human rights activists, teachers, lawyers, lawmakers and ordinary citizens voicing their dissent over the Duterte administration’s policies.
“Red-tagging must end. The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) must be defunded and abolished and the Anti-Terror Law must be junked,” Castro said.
She said the Defense Department and the AFP should be reminded that there is a real and active threat to the country’s sovereignty.
“They should focus on defending our territories, our fisherfolk and the people from these threats from China and stop these baseless, false and dangerous terrorist tagging of the people they are supposed to protect,” she said.
Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite echoed Castro’s call for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC.
“Their spokesperson (Antonio) Parlade has been repeatedly making such blunders. He’s been wrongly accusing anyone including activists, church leaders, celebrities and other personalities, and several academic institutions. He even wants to go after minors. He should have been fired a long time ago,” he said.
“If they really want to stop this reckless campaign of disinformation, lies, and lousy intelligence then they must altogether stop the campaign of red-tagging, of attacks against critics of the administration and the opposition as a whole, and they must ultimately disband NTF-ELCAC,” Gaite added.
“We also reiterate our call for a special audit of the AFP’s intelligence and confidential funds. Their series of errors makes it necessary,” Gaite added.
A lawyer of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), who was among those included in the erroneous AFP list welcomed Luna’s sacking.
“I appreciate the pockets of relative sanity that persist within the security sector, that are apparently more sensitive to such principles as professionalism and accountability,” lawyer Rafael Aquino, an alumnus of the University of the Philippines (UP), said in a statement.
Aquino was among those tagged in the Facebook post of the AFP Information Exchange as among those UP students who became New People’s Army (NPA) members and died or were captured.
He said even though Luna was sacked, he and his family still lived in fear because of his inclusion in the AFP list.
“Not only is red-tagging a breach of international humanitarian laws and a direct threat to our right to security, it is also fatal to the free expression underpinning our democracy,” he said.
Meanwhile, UP students and faculty members called on the Board of Regents to “uphold and fortify” the three-decade UP-Department of National Defense agreement that kept military and police out of the campus.
Lorenzana had abrogated the agreement unilaterally, saying UP had become a venue for recruitment by communist rebels—a charge UP has denied.
The students and faculty members flocked to the Diliman campus in Quezon City in front of the Administration Building to dramatize their fight for academic freedom in the middle of a Board of Regents meeting.
“Given the worsening harassment, threats and intimidation to members of the UP since the abrogation of the UP-DND accord, the UP Office of the Student Regent, Office of the Faculty Regent, and Office of the Staff Regent have taken the initiative to pen a resolution to be submitted to the Board of Regents meeting tomorrow (Thursday) for adoption,” the group said in a statement.
“The resolution primarily aims to uphold and fortify the UP-DND accord against police and military forces entering UP campuses and to ensure that acts that will impede upon and violate the academic freedom, human rights, and civil liberties of the UP community are not permitted.”
The resolution was officially endorsed by Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo, Los Baños Chancellor Jose Camacho Jr., Manila Chancellor Carmencita Padilla, Baguio Chancellor Raymundo Rovillos, Open University Chancellor Melinda Bandalaria, Visayas Chancellor Clement Camposano, Cebu Chancellor Liza Corro and Mindanao Chancellor Larry Digal.
