Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong
BAGUIO CITY — Mayor Benjamin Magalong again denounced Lorraine Badoy for red-tagging him on a recent TV broadcast.
In a Jan. 16 statement, the retired police general said Badoy had labeled him a traitor” and “a person of no principles” in several broadcasts of Quiboloy’s Sonshine Media Network International’s news channel.
“This tirade against me is unfounded and baseless and has subjected my person to needless and undeserved condemnation,” Magalong said in the statement.
“My public life as a police officer is an open book. I take pride in having been schooled in the Philippine Military Academy, where values as a soldier have been honed to better use in my humble being in the course of my service to the country since 1982,” he asserted, adding that he was wounded in combat in Abra during an anti insurgency operation.
Magalong was first hounded by Badoy in 2022 after the mayor vowed to protect Baguio youth activists from harassment and red-tagging following a March 12 dialogue with progressive and civic organizations.
The militants believed that the series of red-tagging appeared to be sanctioned by certain government officials.
Badoy at the time served as spokesperson of the anti-communist National Task Force on Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict.
“I am safeguarding our young constituents from being subjected to unnecessary vilification by striving to ensure that our youth activists — not communists — in Baguio are safe from persecution and harassment. Youthful activism does not necessarily mean espousing a communist ideology,” Magalong stressed.
“I was the Chairman of the Regional Peace and Order Council as well as Vice Chairman of the Cordillera RTF-ELCAC from 2019 to 2022. During my tenure, I have fully supported, without any mental reservation, the programs of the NTF- ELCAC,” he said.
“By all means, take the necessary steps that I be sanctioned, in accordance with procedures in place, without having to be publicly scorned over a non-issue,” Magalong said, but warned Badoy and Quiboloy that “no one is above the law.”