The Manila Times

Why the NTF-Elcac is undefundable

MAURO GIA SAMONTE äSamonteA6

FROM his retirement, Maj. Gen. Alexander Balutan makes himself heard in the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) defunding controversy.

It could have been just a tongue-in-cheek utterance of a coterie smarting from having been branded “stupid” by NTF-Elcac spokesman Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. As young Australian columnist Danita Maddie, writing for tabloid Pwersa, terms it: “Stupid Senate? Not wrong!” How so foolish indeed, it should seem, for a bunch of legislators threatening to quash funds intended for bettering the livelihood of the people.

Everything was regular about those funds from the very beginning. The Duterte administration had finally struck the correct handling of the Sisonite communist terrorist insurgency, which in a television discussion with Mentong Laurel in his Talk News TV over Global News Network I had occasion to express thus: Draw a line between the mass membership of the New People’s Army (NPA) and its leadership.

“Iyang mga NPA mabubuting tao ‘yan. Hindi mag-i-NPA ang mga iyan kung masasama sila. Ang masasama ang iyung mga namumuno sa kanila (Those NPA [rebels] are nice people. They would not turn [rebels] if they are bad. Those leading them are the ones who are bad). So I would propose, toward the mass membership of the NPA, be all-benevolent. Yakapin sila, akitin na magbalik-loob sa batas (Let’s embrace them, urge them to return to the fold of the law). But against the leadership, [let it] be all-out-war. Tapusin na ang mga iyan. Burahin na. Pulbusin na. Pagpapatayin na (Be done with them. Erase them. Pulverize them. Kill all of them).”

By then I had developed a degree of camaraderie with Maj. Gen. Alexander Balutan (retired, Philippine Marines), whose exploits against the secessionist movement of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao was central to the theme of Mandirigma, the book I was writing at the time he sat as general manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. By some stroke of fate, General Balutan got to view the above discussions, had them recorded in his mobile phone and circulated them to his mistahs in the Philippine Military Academy Class of

Opinion

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2021-05-09T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-09T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://manilatimes.pressreader.com/article/281651077981727

The Manila Times