AFP chief links 10 Metro Manila universities to ‘Red October’

At least 10 universities in Metro Manila have allegedly been organized by a broad coalition led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as part of the so-called “Red October” plot to oust  President Rodrigo Duterte, the Armed Forces (AFP) chief revealed on Tuesday.

AFP Chief of Staff General Carlito Galvez Jr. detailed the plot to oust President Duterte during the hearing of the Senate committee on finance on the proposed 2019 budget of the Department of National Defense and its attached agencies.

It was opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who asked about the ouster plot.

Galvez said the “Red October” plot is a combined armed struggle and legal struggle by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) using the broad coalition with all the opposition, including the youth or students and labor sectors.

“In fact, they have already organized 10 of the universities in Manila,” he told the committee.

“And right now they are making a lot of information drive wherein they will show to (all) high school and even college students the different atrocities committed during the Marcos regime and equate that to present administration.”

Galvez said they also have a document, which showed that CPP founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, has conducted a lot of conferences with the University of the Philippines.

“Meron po kaming document.. I can’t reveal it but I can reveal in the executive session so that we can see the vast efforts of the CPP-NPA in order to oust Duterte,” he said .

But the plot, he said, involves so-called “Operation Talsik (ouster) and “Operation Aklasan (protest), where plotters would conduct labor protests and tactical offenses in the countryside.

Galvez said the plan also involves “successive mass mobilization starting on September 21 up to the 50th anniversary of the CPP in December. The students, he said, would orchestrate the “Lakbayan Europe.”

“We unearthed this Oplan Aklasan with the publication of the Constitution of the CCP-NPA, dated 2016,” he said.

“It’s a very elaborate plan sir wherein they started the heightening of the agitation using the First Quarter Storm model.”

The AFP chief said the guilty verdict of the International People’s Tribunal on President Duterte was also part of the ouster plot.  /muf