MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Leni Robredo slammed yesterday the latest attempts to link her and opposition figures to the so-called Red October destabilization plot against President Duterte.
Robredo, in a statement, said linking critics of the government to ouster plots against Duterte is a tactic used during martial law to silence the opposition.
“Baseless allegations that link my involvement in legitimate opposition activities with illegal actions, particularly when they come from high ranking military officials, undermine not just the opposition but also our democracy,” she said.
Red October is another term for the 1917 revolution in Russia that overthrew the autocracy and established the Soviet Union.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) deputy chief of staff for operations Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade earlier claimed that Tindig Pilipinas, whose leaders belong to the Liberal Party (LP) chaired by Robredo, almost got involved in the plan but backed out after realizing that communists were behind the move.
Robredo said silencing the opposition “was a prelude to establishing a regime of corruption, abuse and dictatorship.”
In an interview after attending the LP’s National Executive Council Meeting in Quezon City yesterday, the Vice President called the AFP’s allegations linking opposition groups to ouster plans as “dangerous.”
“It’s dangerous because they are setting the stage, that they can do this even without proper basis,” she said.
“When I first heard that they’re linking me to the alleged conspiracy with the communists, I found it hilarious. But when a top AFP official was the one making such allegation, it’s a different story,” she said.
“If they say that their basis is intelligence, we have a problem here because that is not true. When you use wrong intelligence, you are putting our country in a dangerous situation,” the Vice President said.
Fascist dictatorship
There is no plot to oust or kill Duterte, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison said on Monday.
Sison, in a statement posted on the National Democratic Front (NDF) website, said the allegations are part of Duterte’s plan to realize his “fascist dictatorship a la Marcos.”
“Duterte and his military minions and propagandists are now frenziedly carrying out a psy-war campaign to glorify the Marcos fascist dictatorship and to fabricate conspiracies to justify the eventual declaration of martial law nationwide and further realize Duterte´s scheme,” Sison said.
Sison also accused the Duterte administration of “militarizing civil agencies of the government under an inter-agency task force, making (Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) the vice president and declaring martial law or state of emergency nationwide.”
“Duterte is really crazy by trying hard to bring the country to perdition or hell. Peace negotiations would have been a more economical effort of the Duterte regime, were it not for its mania for fascist dictatorship,” Sison said.
The AFP is “inventing” the plot to overthrow the Duterte administration, the CPP added in a statement.
“The CPP denounces the AFP for conjuring this fictional plot, which clearly aims to set the stage for applying increasingly draconian measures against the Filipino people,” the CPP said.
“Like the rest of the AFP’s fakery, it is a poorly concocted story,” the CPP added.
The CPP admitted that its armed wing New People’s Army (NPA) is not strong enough to overthrow the government.
Meanwhile, the military announced the arrest of eight persons, including ranking NPA leaders, as well as the recovery of high-powered firearms in a raid by the Philippine Army and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Teresa, Rizal yesterday morning.
Reports showed that 80th Infantry Battalion soldiers and NBI operatives recovered high-powered weapons after serving a search warrant at a farm suspected to be a safehouse of top NPA leaders in Southern Luzon.
“The presence of top NPA leaders and the proximity of Teresa town to Manila are indicators that the threat of Red October cannot be downplayed and that the plotters are just waiting for an opportunity to execute their plans,” said Brig. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr., commander of 202nd Infantry Brigade.
Recovered from the alleged safehouse were four M653 (baby armalite) rifles, one M203 grenade launcher, five US made 12-gauge shotguns, one caliber .45 pistol, one caliber .38 revolver, one 9mm KG3 machine pistol, six units of two-way radios, two grenades, eight cellular phones and documents. – With Jose Rodel Clapano, Edith Regalado, Artemio Dumlao, Michael Punongbayan