There is only one gov’t, AFP chief Año tells Joma

Armed Forces chief General Eduardo Año said Wednesday that there is only one government in the country, contrary to the claims of exiled Communist Party of the Philippines founding chair Jose Maria Sison.

“Mr. Sison asserts that there [are] two governments in the Philippines—one being his so-called ‘revolutionary government’ led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. That’s untrue,” Año said in a press statement.

“There is only one government and that is the one led by President Rodrigo Duterte who was duly elected by 16.6 million Filipino voters in May of 2016,” he added.

The military chief was reacting to Sison’s statement that Duterte should “wake up to the fact that there are already two governments in the Philippines,” the other being the revolutionary faction of workers and peasants led by the CPP. 

Año said the ‘revolutionary government’ which Sison leads exacts ‘revolutionary tax’ – a euphemism for extortion money — from the people.

“By ‘growth’ Mr. Sison might be referring to the wealth they amass out of extortion money. Even in dividing the gains, the leaders of this group they call ‘revolutionary forces’ get the lion’s share while the ordinary NPA collectors get only the morsels,” he said.

He said the CPP-NPA-NDFP (New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines) has degenerated into a national mafia syndicate which was allegedly obsessed with squeezing money from private companies, businessmen, planters, and contractors.

He added the organization’s expertise is burning and destroying properties and resources without regard to human lives.

“They are mere bandits and terrorists posing as communists. Obviously, these communist terrorists failed, if not are detached from reality, to see that the people favors the government of President Rodrigo Duterte with his so far highest net satisfaction rating of +66% per SWS Survey of 23-26 June 2017,” he said.

Año said that instead of blaming the AFP for the collapse of the peace negotiations, Sison should show his leadership and control over the CPP-NPA-NDF and “rally them into halting the extortion and the attacks on soldiers that are on peace and development endeavors and to show their group's sincerity to and trustworthiness for the peace talks.”

Duterte has called for the cancellation of negotiations with the communist group following the series of attacks on government forces, including members of the Presidential Security Group, last week. — Amita Legaspi/RSJ/KVD, GMA News