The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today slammed Rodrigo Duterte’s “hysterical red-tagging” in an address recorded yesterday and aired earlier today.

Duterte echoed the recent statements of NTF-Elcac Lorraine Badoy, when he named party-list groups under the Makabayan bloc as “communist fronts” in what the CPP said was “heightened red-tagging against the patriotic and democratic forces and the leading political opposition parties.”

CPP Chief Information Officer Marco L. Valbuena denounced Duterte for “practically putting a red target on the backs of thousands of ordinary people who are affiliated with these progressive groups, for the military and police to aim at.”

Valbuena said Duterte’s statements last night are a brazen threat. “We all know how thousands of people have fallen victim to this tyrannical regime’s red-tagging in its desperate drive to pacify the masses and prevent them from asserting their democratic and patriotic demands,” said Valbuena. “He has practically ordered the police to clamp down on these organizations under the Anti-Terrorist Law.”

“Duterte is making a fool of Filipinos by insisting on his baseless claims that these party-list groups are ‘communist fronts,'” added Valbuena. “Duterte and Badoy are barefaced liars. Binobo nila ang mga tao.”

“Duterte and his ilk in the NTF-Elcac pretend not being able to distinguish between the legal political exercises, including the elections, which these democratic parties and organizations take part in within the framework of the reactionary government’s constitution and laws, and the revolutionary armed struggle being waged by the New People’s Army led by the CPP in the countryside,” explained Valbuena.

“Is it not ironic that while the NTF-Elcac wants the NPA to surrender its arms and instead ‘work within the system’, they are pushing the legal democratic forces out of the election arena and the increasingly narrow democratic space?” said Valbuena.

Valbuena added that Duterte’s tirades against the progressive party-list groups are part of his scenario-building for possibly resorting to martial law or some form of emergency rule, in the face of mounting “people’s rallies” in support of the leading political opposition.

“As the anger of the people mounts against Duterte and his ‘chosen one’ in the May 2022 elections, the opposition represented by these groups meanwhile continue to break ground,” he observed. “This is causing Duterte and his generals to panic.”

“Badoy, who clearly has pleased her boss Duterte, is on a full-scale red-tagging offensive,” said Valbuena. This has prompted organizations to file a slew of criminal charges and complaints of electioneering over her use of government resources to engage in negative campaigning.”

“The Filipino people knows all too well these tactics. They will surely push back against the regime’s attacks against them,” he ended. (CPP Information Bureau)