Newly-appointed Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro Jr. on Wednesday expressed opposition to attainable peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
“To enter into peace talks, I have always been against that,” Teodoro mentioned in an interview on ANC.
“Why will we enter into peace talks when they can go back and run for public office? This is really a violation of our democratic process,” he added.
Teodoro identified that if the considerations of the CPP are a considerable difficulty, there are current political processes below the Constitution for them.
“It cannot take up arms and just violate the Constitution, in the same way as we do not want rightists also to take up arms against the government. It works both ways,” he added.
For Teodoro, who first served as DND secretary throughout the Arroyo administration, CPP’s wrestle just isn’t about ideology however taking energy.
“The ideology part, I have never been convinced that it is ideological. It’s all getting, taking power for whatever reason. Even in other countries I mean the sole authority of the communist party in other country is a dictatorship in itself,” he mentioned.
On the problem of red-tagging, in the meantime, Teodoro mentioned that any violation of the legislation is reprehensible and needs to be disciplined.
However, he acknowledged the beneficial properties of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) — the group which has been linked to incidents of red-tagging by varied teams — in its job.
“Well, naturally any violation of law is reprehensible and should be disciplined. However, we cannot also deny the gains made by the NTF-ELCAC in dismantling communist fronts,” he mentioned. —KBK, GMA Integrated News
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
