Vice President Inday Sara Duterte
“Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”
— Jacques Mallet du Pan (1749-1800), political journalist and propagandist of Geneva, then a satellite of France
WHEN INDAY SARA dared a noisy party-list to condemn the atrocities of the New People’s Army, nary a whimper can be heard from that group claiming to represent the teachers’ sector.
It seems that the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) — which describes itself as a “progressive and militant” national democratic mass organization of teachers, academics, and other education workers in the Philippines — has suddenly not heard of news reports that face-to-face classes have been suspended in elementary and secondary schools in four towns of Masbate province due to ongoing clashes between government forces and NPA rebels.
They seem to conveniently ignore that on March 20, a soldier was killed while four law enforcers and one civilian were wounded during the armed clash between government forces and insurgents.
We can’t help but wonder why these ND groups can’t see the human rights abuses of the armed, extreme left.
Still, ACT and other groups espousing the national democratic political line, both “legal” and underground, want to resume peace talks between the Maoist-indoctrinated rebels who have been waging “armed struggle” for more than 52 long years and the democratically-installed government.
“No, the Masbate violence does not highlight the need for the resumption of the peace talks. It highlights the need for our collective effort as a nation to protect our learners from threats brought by groups like the NPA,” Inday Sara said.
For me, the Vice President who also serves as Education Secretary is right in standing firm against the resumption of peace talks.
With the death of Joma Sison in The Netherlands where he fled and lived comfortably since 1987 after being freed from detention by then-President Cory Aquino, I believe that it is only a matter of time before the communist insurgency will die a natural death.
Many of their top leaders have already been captured and an undetermined number of NPA guerillas, apparently realizing the futility of their cause, have surrendered and reintegrated into mainstream society.
It is only sad to think that there are still young people who had been hoodwinked by a godless and violent ideology.
Their idealism is exploited and many young lives have been wasted on the battlefield while the top brass of the CPP lives comfortably both here and abroad.
On the other hand, some of the former hardliners are now political operators of traditional politicians.
Starving for temporal material gains, they allow themselves to be swallowed by the rotten system they once swore to eradicate in their quest to serve the people “buhay man ang iaalay.”
(A. Inigo/MTVN)
