The announcement that the NTF-Elcac will be dismantled and transformed into the National Task Force for Unity, Peace, and Development is a desperate move by the Marcos regime to cover up the corruption and bloody crimes the NTF-Elcac, in collusion with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, has committed against the people.
After seven years of fascist rampage across the country, “it is only right that the NTF-Elcac, which was formed by the previous Duterte regime to lead the brutal war of suppression, be dismantled,” Marco Valbuena, chief information officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), said. “What ‘peace’ will this epitomize if the same military butchers are still in charge?”
“The stench of the NTF-Elcac is nauseating. It should be completely dismantled and buried,” Valbuena added.
“This agency has caused immense harm to the people. It has partnered with the AFP in imposing de facto martial law in many peasant and indigenous communities in the countryside,” according to Valbuena. “Its hands are dripping with blood.”
Valbuena further stated that the NTF-Elcac is “the instigator of relentless intimidation and violence against farmers suspected of supporting the New People’s Army (BHB), forcing them to participate in fake surrender parades in exchange for rice and meager aid.”
“Those who refuse are threatened, arrested, or worse, killed and made to appear to have died in fake encounters.”
“It is also the perpetrator of widespread red-tagging, which serves as a precursor for many extrajudicial killings of those who stand up and fight against the abuses of the AFP and the reactionary government, from the Duterte era to the current regime of Marcos.”
“The NTF-Elcac is where the bloodiest and most brutal war crimes are carried out,” he said. “If the Philippines did not leave the ICC, NTF-Elcac officials would’ve been charged for their crimes against humanity.”
“This agency is not only an instrument of fascism; it has also turned the billions of pesos budget for the so-called E-CLIP into a cash cow for military officials and their personnel, as well as for roads and buildings under its Barangay Development Project,” Valbuena added.
“These BDP projects the NTF-ELcac has bragged about are useless and unsustainable,” according to Valbuena. “Many of these involve laying down roads that everyone knows have been sources of corruption for military officials and their colluding contractors.”
“These roads, which the military use for their vehicles, are a waste of the people’s money and are damaging to farms,” Valbuena continued. “What the peasant masses need is genuine land reform, not roads.”
“Elcac officials boast that they will dismantle the CPP and NPA, but ironically, they will be the first to be dismantled,” Valbuena said. “The revolutionary spirit of the Filipino people is alive and well. As long as the poverty, oppression, and exploitation of the majority of Filipinos, considered as the roots of armed struggle, remain unresolved, the NPA will continue to fight, grow stronger, and expand throughout the country.”