MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III suggested on Tuesday that National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) Director General Alex Monteagudo may have been “misinformed” when he said that communist rebels had held insiders at the Senate for a long time.
Sotto was responding to a Facebook post purportedly shared by an account with Monteagudo’s name and picture, which said that “the Senate of the Philippines is manned” by a front organization for the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, and the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).
The post was referring to Courage, a government workers’ union with a Senate chapter called Sandigan ng mga Nagkakaisa sa Adhikain ng Demokratikong Organisasyon (Senado).
According to Sotto, he would have known if such allegations were valid, having served in the Senate as early as 1992.
“He must have been misinformed,” Sotto said in a message to reporters. “I would be the first to sense of such if ever.”
“I’ve been there since 1992,” he added.
The post that Monteagudo allegedly shared was attributed to a Facebook page called Just Philippines. The group implied that the CPP-NPA, which has waged an over-five decades-long war against the Philippine government, manages to hijack government plans and programs by having the Senado peek into the documents.
The supposed post from the NICA chief now has over 200 shares.
In a separate statement from Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite, former Courage president, he called on his fellow lawmakers at the Senate to condemn the red-tagging of the chamber’s employees.
“We call on our fellow legislators in the upper chamber to stand with Senate employees and to condemn this vilification and red-tagging campaign against their union SENADO,” Gaite said in a tweet.
“Itigil ang panunupil sa mga unyon ng mga kawani!” he added.
We call on our fellow legislators in the upper chamber to stand with Senate employees and to condemn this vilification and red-tagging campaign against their union SENADO. Itigil ang panunupil sa mga unyon ng mga kawani! pic.twitter.com/gWagArN7mB
— Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite (@FerdinandGaite) April 6, 2021