Duterte asking NPA nurses' help in COVID-19 response ‘pure hypocrisy,’ says CPP

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on Friday said President Rodrigo Duterte's request that nurses from the New People's Army should help in addressing the pandemic is pure hypocrisy.

"Duterte's offer is pure hypocrisy. The truth is, Duterte has offered the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) to wage a total war against the NPA and the civilian peasant masses," CPP spokesman Marco Valbuena said.

He mentioned that the NPA even beats Duterte and the military in assisting people amid the pandemic through building village health committees, conducting information campaigns, having classes and tutorials for kids, helping in planting and harvesting crops, and rebuilding homes and farms in disaster areas.

Valbuena claimed that the state security forces are "relentless in terrorizing civilians, controlling their movements, preventing them to farm, dropping bombs, strafing homes, firing cannons, destroying their organizations and forcing them to 'surrender' and give up their struggles for land."

Duterte asked the nurses among communist rebels to help increase the country's health workforce amid the health crisis. He even offered to have coffee with the communist rebels.

He said if the communists could not help, they should "just stand aside and allow the government to operate."—LDF, GMA News