By Fernan Angeles
THE Department of Interior and Local Government doesn’t see anything wrong with the anti-communist billboards adding that such is guaranteed under the constitutional provision on the freedom of speech.
Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said that the billboards and posters denouncing the Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front-New People’s Army are legally protected under the Constitution.
“Remember, these are the terrorists’ groups driven by an archaic ideology who have been killing our police and soldiers and extorting from innocent civilians for the past 50 years. It is just right that people denounce them for their crimes against the people.”
Año added that only members of the CPP/NPA/NDF need worry about these posters.
Photos of these posters, which were displayed in major areas in Manila City which went viral on the social media, were removed on orders of Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, who earned the ire of Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., spokesperson of the government’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
One such poster, printed on a plastic tarpaulin, was hung on the railings of a footbridge near the US Embassy along Roxas Boulevard.
Año believed that the posters were “expressions of citizens or certain groups that they are fed up with abuses and atrocities perpetrated by the CPP/NPA/NDF” and he welcomed such expressions.
However, NTF-ELCAC denied the material was their handiwork.
Nevertheless, the NTF-ELCAC said that it fully supported and lauded “this message of a people united in their disgust and rage against this communist terrorist group.”
Meanwhile, Año encouraged all LGUs and other organizations to place their own anti-communist posters and billboards “to send a strong message that their terrorism and criminal acts are not tolerated by the people.”