Farce if it is from Valbuena, 'red-tagged' if it is from me

LAST week, I wrote about the hundreds of New People's Army (NPA) rebels going back to the fold of the law just in the past two months. As if with prescience, Pete T. Arce Jr wrote in this paper about how the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is doomed to fail from the get-go. He spoke about the lack of counter-ideology being championed by the academe. This is what Simeon del Rosario also said in a monograph on Cardinal Sin. Civics and democracy were never allowed to take first base at the University of the Philippines, hence the dominance of Marxist, Leninist, Maoist teachings, which UP now erroneously describes as "academic freedom." What is more damaging is the assessment of former ambassador Bobi Tiglao about the CPP dying of old age. While the vanguards - like its founder Jose Ma Sison, who is now 82 -are falling one by one, there are no credible ideologues as replacement to the top leadership.

Speaking of CPP old guards, last week, government forces took down Rey Bocala, 75, and Rustico Tan, 80, in Negros. Philippine Revolution Web Central (PRWC) would confirm that National Democratic Front (NDF) Negros spokesman Concha Araneta is the spouse of Bocala. No wonder then that Concha Araneta was quite proud to declare the NDF's contribution to the armed struggle of at least 50 casualties from the Army and the police. Bocala and Tan, Concha claims, are consultants of the NDF. What she is saying is that they, too, were part of all the atrocities in the Visayas, and their old age is not an alibi for all those they ordered killed. Who cares now if they have been "red-tagged" by the CPP? No one. But wait until the government announces who else like them are part of the CPP.