"Maybe the NDF is actually just made up of zombies."
Last week was a bumper crop of inanity and illogic issuing from the opposition, especially the Red variety.
Consider, for example, the accusation by Makabayan party-listers in Congress that the administration was “Red-tagging” them. In reply, anti-terrorism spokesman PCOO Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy offered to resign her post if those party-listers would do a couple of simple things: denounce communist violence and work with the rest of government to peaceably address its roots.
These are things any ordinary citizen should be willing to do, let alone elected legislators. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Makabayan to agree to this.
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In fact, the term “Red-tagging” dredges up old memories. In the late sixties, there was a House committee assigned to root out subversives masquerading as legal activists. They came up with the catchy slogan, “If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it must be a duck!”
The young firebrands of the Left had a field day making fun of this. But it turned out to be spot on. The big leftist youth groups did prove to be creations of the CPP. Those groups did become fertile recruitment grounds for the NPA. And when they bombed the LP rally in 1971 at Plaza Miranda to provoke martial law, the armed Left did serve notice that they bloody well meant bloody business.
Today the same Left is well represented in Congress itself by the Makabayan folks, although they remain unmoved by this undeserved concession of democratic space. In no other conflict country I know about are members of an active rebellion allowed to participate in the business of government without first giving up their guns.
By alleging “Red-tagging”, these party-listers are disclaiming any connections to the CPP-NPA-NDF. But on the other hand, Jose Maria Sison continues to boast about the size and growth of the NDF. Both of them can’t be telling the truth at the same time.
Either the Makabayan or Mr. Sison is lying. Either the NDF is alive and well, or it’s not. Or perhaps we’re being asked to believe that the NDF is actually populated by zombies, the undead.
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Just as noisy was the yellow-led uproar over the DENR’s decision to pour tons of white dolomite sand onto stretches of the Manila Bay shoreline. Even Congress has been inveigled into launching a probe.
The DOH has already assured the public that we have nothing to fear from dolomite, either in its bulk state or granulated into beach sand. It’s also being used in other beaches all over the world. And if you’re dumb enough to inhale large amounts of sand, it really doesn’t matter whether it’s dolomite or not.
The DILG spokesman, Undersecretary Jon Malaya, also clarified that the total cost for the sand was actually less than P30 million, not the P389 million being alleged. So where did the rest of the pesos come from? Well, probably from the same folks who also took the actual police number of 3,000-plus unexplained deaths in the war on drugs, and then inflated that number to thirty, forty, now fifty thousand….and still counting.
You can count on the opposition to put anything out of context. As a matter of fact, aside from the beach sanding, the DENR is also spending money on related programs like cleaning up the waterways that empty into Manila Bay, just as they first had to clear the bayfront of tons of garbage before bringing in the sand. But don’t expect the critics to praise them for that.
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Today the Church honors Our Lady of Sorrows. In one Gospel reading (Lk 2: 33-35), the blind seer Simeon warns Mary that the fulfilment of her unborn Child’s mission will be like a sword piercing her heart. In the other reading (Jn 19:25-27), her heart is indeed pierced as she watches His death from the foot of the Cross.
Our Lady’s sorrows do not cease. My friend Baby Nebrida, film producer and homegrown visionary, recently conveyed to the President—in a private letter that’s gone viral— a Marian appeal for him to lead in consecrating the country to Our Lady and her Son, on pains of suffering “the Big One”, the long-feared earthquake along the Marikina fault that could hit 8.5 on the Richter. Baby subsequently confided to me that similar visions had also been received by others like her, with the Virgin Mary crying tears of blood.
It’s been amply documented in the past that such visions presaged great disasters if unheeded, but turned defeats into victories if heeded. It might be a good time for the Church hierarchy—with whom Duterte shares a deep mutual dislike—to take the first conciliatory steps towards convincing him to heed this latest Marian appeal.
Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.