KARAPATAN assailed the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) for deflecting public outrage at revelations of large-scale bureaucratic corruption by warning that the “corruption of the Filipino mind” is the most dangerous form of corruption.
Said KARAPATAN National Council member Raoul Manuel, “In effect, the NTF-ELCAC is dissuading the youth from joining other sectors in condemning and taking action against bureaucratic corruption, claiming that such issues are being used by the Left to radicalize them. But what the NTF-ELCAC is really afraid of,” stressed Manuel, “is for the Filipino youth to become part of a snowballing campaign against corruption that would inevitably touch on anomalies in the use of the NTF-ELCAC’s infrastructure pork barrel through the corruption-ridden Barangay Development Program or BDP.”
That is why the NTF-ELCAC is trying to water down the gravity of bureaucratic corruption by citing “other forms of corruption” that are supposedly more dangerous, said the former Kabataan Partylist representative.
Manuel, who served as UP Student Regent and presiding officer of the University of the Philippines General Assembly of Student Councils (UP GASC) from 2016 to 2017, also took exception to the NTF-ELCAC’s specific mention of the recently held UP GASC whose resolutions called for, among others, accountability and transparency, including demands for the conduct of Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial and for the International Criminal Court to confirm charges against Rodrigo Duterte.
The UP student leaders also condemned the militarization of urban poor communities; called for the legislation of a national living wage; demanded higher state subsidies for health care; and called for a UP system-wide campaign against US-Israel wars of aggression on Palestine and the Balikatan military exercises in the Philippines. “These resolutions,” said Manuel, “were seen by the NTF-ELCAC as ‘disruptive outside agendas’ that supposedly had nothing to do with student welfare or even legitimate civic issues.”
“Significantly,” said Manuel, “the UP student leaders also demanded the relocation of the 11th Community Regional Defense Group which is based within the UP Mindanao campus and has been involved in harassing and red-tagging students and faculty and creating an intimidating atmosphere, no doubt upon the instigation of the NTF-ELCAC.”
“That the UP student councils demonstrated selfless concern for others and keen interest in a broad range of societal issues are laudable and speak well of the youth who are the country’s future leaders,” said Manuel. “But in the NTF-ELCAC’s mind-numbing narrow-mindedness, being socially concerned is automatically equated with ‘corruption of the mind’ and the normalization of violence,” decried Manuel. “The NTF-ELCAC’s stance is a thinly veiled threat against the UP student leaders, whose sharp social awareness has made them suspect, and legitimate targets of state violence in the NTF-ELCAC’s view.”
Said Manuel: “For the danger it poses to the Filipino youth, and for being a corrupt government agency, the NTF-ELCAC must be abolished.”
