Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, National Anti-Poverty Commission Secretary Liza Maza, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
Malacañang on Monday dismissed Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s call for President Duterte to sack members of the Cabinet who were identified with the Left.
Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the President continued to trust Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo and National Anti-Poverty Commission Lead Convener Liza Maza.
“As far as the Office of the President is concerned, we see no reason why the three so-called Leftist members of the Cabinet will have to be removed,” Guevarra said.
“The President continues to repose trust in them,” he said.
Trillanes earlier said “hundreds of cadres” of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) were now “officially employed” by the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of Agrarian Reform, the Department of Labor and Employment, the National Anti-Poverty Commission and the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.
“Moreover, these communists are using the resources from these government offices to stockpile arms and ammunition, which they will use later on against our soldiers,” said Trillanes, a former Navy officer who led the Oakwood mutiny in 2003.
However, Guevarra pointed out that the country’s Anti-Subversion Law, which criminalized membership in the CPP and its front organizations, had been “repealed a long time ago in 1992.”
“The very purpose of that repeal is to ensure that people who advocate communism, socialism, Marxism, Maoism … will not go underground … that they join legitimate organizations so that they can espouse whatever they want to espouse,” Guevarra said.
“That’s why we have these groups also in Congress. So, if we have these groups in Congress, why don’t we have them as well in the President’s Cabinet?” he said.
Guevarra said Mr. Duterte’s order for the Philippine National Police to “wipe out” the New People’s Army, the CPP’s armed wing, was just “colorful language.”
“I guess that’s just colorful language to mean actually, let’s go and deal with this longstanding problem. This has been going on for a long, long time,” he said.
Brig. Gen. Renato Padilla, Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson, declined to comment on Trillanes’ claim that hundreds of communist cadres had infiltrated government offices.