After its mortification during its own presscon, NTF-ELCAC froths at the mouth wanting to vex and pressure Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro. Its battalion of trolls, as well as top officials such as DND Sec. Gilbert Teodoro, have stooped to dishing out to the public a troubling amalgam of fake news, smear campaigns and threats. There is the threat of charging Jhed and Jonila with perjury if they insist on saying that state agents abused them. There is another sinister plot that claims the two were planted as surrenderees so they could recant the story later. Foul ideas that aim to poison the public perception and to further pressure the victims. The NTF-ELCAC must leave the two and their families in peace. Is the torture and trauma the victims suffered from these fascists still not enough?

NDF-Bikol joins the masses in strongly demanding the NTF-ELCAC, DND and the entire fascist state to stop their attacks on Jhed and Jonila, as well as all other Filipinos who dare speak up in defense of their lives and rights. In brazenly depriving the masses of their rights to democratic space, the fascists only succeed in digging their own graves.

Surely, NTF-ELCAC is paying obscene amounts for overtime pays and bonuses to its trolls and psywar experts in exchange of their frenzied absurdities. Among the lowest is the attempt to incriminate the CPP-NPA-NDF and vending the fake news that the whole scenario was orchestrated: the two organizers will surrender and will take their testimonies back to shame the NTF-ELCAC. They find it very difficult to understand that the duo’s decision to speak up regarding the military abuses they endured was not due to anyone’s cajoling but rather because of their own principles. After all, how can these fascists, who are nothing but parasitic puppets, understand the concept of principles when they have none of it nor do they know anything about fighting for their rights.

Moreover, it does not take a genius to predict they will resort to fake news as this is their nature. In Bikol, one of the military and police’s most cringeworthy blunders in recent times is PNP NCR’s pretend arrest of military man Joselito Naag who they dressed up as an NPA member in 2019. The cat got out of the bag because of Naag’s personal Facebook account. That same year, another scandal blew in their faces. This time regarding 2nd IBPA’s pathetic efforts to showcase pictures of alleged ‘Masbatenyo surrenderees’ who magically float in the air and ‘surrendered firearms’ with wrong date labels. The military’s braggadocio was reduced to a lesson in effects of poorly executed Photoshop attempts.

The NTF-ELCAC must stop with their impetuous attacks and disinformation campaigns. They fool no one but themselves. There is more than a world of difference between the class-conscious principles of people in struggle and the revolutionary ethics of CPP-NPA-NDF from their deliriously malicious, dirty and desperate ways. Both the revolutionary forces and the mass movement will never stoop to their levels. The only thing left for them to do is accept that they cannot enslave all the people, all the time with fear. Always, courage will grow, and the decision to fight will flourish and win in the end.