MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte said communists he appointed in government were removed because they wanted to impose their ideals.
“I placed them in government with the hope that we will be able to reach a common understanding. The worst thing is they want to impose on government their own ideals. But that wasn’t our agreement, so I had to let them go. The ideal thing for them to have done would be to lobby the concerns of those who are in the movement,” Duterte said in the vernacular during his speech at the distribution of Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) in Sagay City, Negros Occidental on March 8.
The President particularly identified former Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) secretary Rafael Mariano and former Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) secretary Judy Taguiwalo, whose appointments were not confirmed by the Commission on Appointments.
Former National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) secretary Liza Maza, meanwhile, resigned in August last year.
“Do not even bring the ideology of an idiot here in our government because the government will never wage war against its own people. The job of the government is to preserve the nation from those who want to occupy our land,” said Duterte.
The President also urged the communist armed wing, New People’s Army (NPA), to stop the armed struggle.
“You NPAs must have lost your mind when you believed in the armed struggle. We will just keep on killing each other then. Fifty-three years. Think about it. Sleep on it. For 53 years so many lives were wasted. You will die and get buried in the forest. Your children will grow up not even knowing what you look like,” he said.
The Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA, in previous reports, has been allegedly tagged in cases of extortion, mass murder, and violation of indigenous people’s rights.
The US State Department and the European Union have both tagged the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization. (PNA)
