CONTRARY to communist mouthpieces’ claim that there has been a pushback against the government’s campaign to inform the country, especially its youth, of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) front organizations, there has actually been a massive support for this unprecedented — I say historical — initiative.

I can even quantify this: 98 percent of Filipinos embrace this campaign being undertaken by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, with its articulate spokesmen being the intrepid Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade and the unflinching Lorraine Badoy of the Presidential Communications Operations Office.

My evidence: my column titled “We need more Parlades, Badoys to defeat the insurgency” generated “likes” of an incredible 18,000 — a spike, in that my columns normally have 1,000 to 4,000 likes, depending on the topic.

The Manila Times is the only newspaper that dares to be transparent by having a “like” button for each of its opinion columns and articles in its internet version. A reader registers his agreement with the column by clicking it.

18,000 likes

The number of readers agreeing with or supporting the columnists by clicking the button is shown below the writer’s by-line. The Manila Times’ system is such that trolls’ clicking (as well as comments) is blocked. The website also shows how many people have shared the article in their Facebook pages.

In contrast to the 18,000 likes for my column, how many were those for the four columns in this newspaper that were critical of the government’s campaign to expose the communist fronts? A pathetic 272.

We can reasonably use these figures (the total 18,272 is certainly much bigger than the usual 1,500 sample size of Philippine polls) as a kind of survey, which concludes that 98.5 percent of Filipinos (18,000 my “likes” as a percentage of total 18,272 that “responded” on this issue) support government’s anti-communist campaign.

My more recent column on this issue, titled “Remulla Jr. should emulate Remulla Sr. who was tough on communists,” had 4,000 likes. If I add this to the 18,000 likes of the earlier column, 22,000 or 99 percent of Manila Times readers support the government’s anti-communist campaign.

Reality

This data confirms what I had suspected to be an important political reality concealed by media. Most Filipinos are against these communist fronts, although media has managed to portray that they have the support of a sizeable number of the population, because of the Left-Yellow alliance in our media represented by the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the ABS-CBN network.

Even the Social Weather Station (SWS) appears to be complicit — by omission — in this false portrayal of the Left’s support. In its 35 years of existence, has the SWS ever conducted a poll that asked such questions as: “Do you support or not the Communist Party of the Philippines?” or “Do you support organizations, which the military allegedly claims are fronts of the party, like Bayan Muna and Gabriela? Do you support, even only in principle, the Party’s armed struggle to overthrow the democratic government?”

I dare the SWS to undertake such a poll. I hope some patriotic rich man would fund such a poll.

Philippine media has largely given the Communist Party and its fronts a good press, due to several reasons.

Assassination

Professional journalists prefer to deal with other issues, and hardly report the fronts as Red fronts, both because of some sympathy with them, or because they wouldn’t want to risk their lives. After all, the Communist Party has had deadly assassination squads that even liquidated their own best New People’s Army (NPA) veterans (when they broke away from their party) like Popoy Lagman and Romy Kintanar.

On the other hand, leftist journalists and even past and present high-ranking members of the party are even columnists, among them a former (or even current) Central Committee member in the Philippine Star.

Business World, supposedly a paper devoted to capitalist endeavors, has three ranking CPP members. One of these even bragged in his column that he was one of the small staff of the party newspaper Ang Bayan, the English edition of which, he claimed, “outclassed the commercial newspapers in terms of writing style.”

Of course I’m not at all saying that such communists shouldn’t be allowed to write columns in mainstream newspapers. They definitely should, but they should disclose their party membership, current or past, to be fair to their readers, to inform them that their “opinions” most probably are not really theirs are the politburo’s propaganda line.

Another reason for the Communist Party having good press is that several of its earliest recruits, as revealed in books by their comrades, were respected media men, such as the two-time National Press Club president Antonio Zumel, pre-martial law Manila Times business editor Satur Ocampo, and the legendary Free Press writer Jose Lacaba, who wrote the classic Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage that inspired a generation of activists. Many budding journalists who idolized them followed in their footsteps. There were several others that I cannot write about, as they have not been revealed as such by their comrades.

Samples

There were not only 22,000 “likes” for my two columns but many passionate comments agreeing with me (and only two disagreeing), samples of which are as follows:

Kokis Balles: To General Parlade, more power! We need the military guts that you have. This time we must end this insurgency because Sison’s group is a menace to society. They should be declared as terrorists.

To USEC Badoy, we admire your courage. What can the ordinary citizen do to help in the insurgency problem? Just tell us through the media. The government must now act offensively against [Jose Maria] Sison’s group by publishing all the organizations connected thereto and if possible, the members especially those in government, in the private sector and those in the underground.

Fred Yturzaeta: The leftist party-lists as well as the terrorist CPP-NPA funds started to dry up. Now that we have an anti-terrorism law, big telcos and other patrons of the terrorist CPP-NPA will have a second thought to pay them protection money. Also, more Filipinos are courageous now to report the presence of the terrorists group in their vicinity. With more Parlades and Badoys in the government, the terrorists CPP-NPA end is near.

Jose Oliveros: Freedom of speech, freedom of thought and freedom of action are constitutionally-protected rights. But when thought, expression and action merge so as to pose a clear and present danger to the security of the State, in the exercise of its right to defend itself can take appropriate and even radical measures to protect itself and the people residing within its boundaries.

Adolfo Malingan: I hope the people, especially the officers in the intelligence agencies of the gov’t, should follow what General Parlade and U[ndersecretary] Badoy have been doing in identifying the anti-gov[ernment] organizations and exposing the atrocities being committed by these organizations against gov’t forces and even against their own members. The people should try to realize what these communist-leaning party-lists are doing, siphoning the funds allocated to their party from the money of the people and using them to finance the propaganda activities of the NPA, CPP-NDF. It is high time that the party-list is abolished and the two-party system returned. Mabuhay kayo, General Parlade and [Undersecretary] Badoy. Thank you, Sir Bobi.

Nicole: People with credible knowledge of the workings of the NPA should speak up and speak out in public to warn people, especially the idealistic youth about these communist groups masquerading as legitimate casual groups with a noble purpose. We should not pussyfoot around these communists. They need to be called out. Look what happened to a lot of young men and women in the USA and Europe who were recruited by the ISIS. Many died. A majority realizing later on that they’d been had and while they acknowledged their mistake, they are unable to get back to their normal lives. We don’t want this happening to our youth. Thank you to people like General Parlade and Miss Badoy.

On my Remulla column:

Hahaasd Heeasdasf: Jonvic Remulla is incredibly trapo. He’ll go for the extra mile just to kiss the asses of anything or anyone popular or trending in social media. He’ll do and say the stupidest things just to score them pogi points from the liberal youth. I can almost totally tell that he’s going to run for a higher post. This guy, and many of his lot, are the treacherous ones which should be gone from the political scene.

Dave Bernal: Pa-pogi points lang ‘yan. Most politicians only say something that will earn them votes in the elections. Naghahanap at sumasakay lang sa mga viral controversies. Tulad nito, kasi mga involved ay mga popular beauties at mga may millions of following. So, nakasilip ng opportunity kahit hindi naman siya actually concerned. Subukan mo ilagay na involved ay common tao. He won’t care. So, ngayon mga followers nina Liza [Soberano] at Catriona [Gray] sa Cavite boboto na sa kanya. O baka naman may ambition maging senator? Ganyan lang naman ‘yan eh. Most politicians are plastics and trapos tulad ni Jonvic.

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