NDF twits Padilla over taunting Facebook remarks

Communist peace negotiators on Tuesday scored their government counterparts for making “provocative" claims that Facebook and the Internet are pushing them into irrelevance. National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating panel spokesman Fidel Agcaoili said such claims by chief government negotiator Alexander Padilla are “totally out of touch with reality" and only exposes him as a “disinformation mouthpiece of the … Aquino regime." Agcaoili added there are numerous Facebook accounts, blogs and websites of revolutionary organizations and other Leftist groups. These include the Philippine Revolution Web Central, the Paaralang Jose Maria Sison, the Facebook accounts of Marco Valbuena and Ang Bayan Community Page, and the YouTube postings of allied organizations of the NDFP, he said. “Facebook and other social networks are some of the venues to bring the call for a genuine social change in the country. The efficient use of the internet and Facebook by the Philippine revolutionary movement as a means to propagate the national democratic revolution has even been reported on by local and international media," Agcaoili said. Last week, Padilla claimed that rebels have been suffering from dwindling recruitment as youths in search of identity now choose to vent in the Internet rather than take up arms against the state, further saying that the insurgents are now forced to fill their ranks with unschooled dropouts. (See: Facebook activism means fewer rebels - govt negotiator) “Alex [Padilla] seems to be suffering from the same arrogant sickness as some of those who left the national democratic movement to join the (Philippine government) bureaucracy," Agcaoili said in a statement posted on the Communist Party of the Philippines website. Agcaoili chided Padilla for thinking “that the movement has stopped growing and recruiting from the ranks of the educated youth since he left 25 years ago," adding that 25 years “is such a long time for Alex to make speculations about the movement’s current strength or weaknesses." He added that youth leaders in the legal democratic movement such as Kabataan Party List Rep. Raymond Palatino, Renato Reyes Jr. of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), Giovanni Tapang of AGHAM, and many more would really be insulted by Padilla’s “mendacious claim." “[H]aving been with the movement for a time," the NDF negotiator said, Padilla “should have learned that the main issues before the peace negotiations now are genuine land reform and national industrialization and not communism." Agcaoili also dared Padilla to ask President Aquino why the Aquinos’ Hacienda Luisita cannot be subjected to genuine land reform instead of putting the blame on the NDFP, if the peace talks cannot end in three years. “It does not speak well of the GPH negotiating panel chairperson to declare publicly that the use of Facebook determines the course of the revolutionary movement of the Filipino people," the NDFP leader said. NDF ‘clarifies’ talks with UN envoy on 'child soldiers' Meanwhile, the NDF also “clarified" its meeting with UN Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy in Makati City last April 7. In a statement posted on the CPP website, Agcaoili denied reports that the NDF acknowledged the existence of child soldiers in the New People’s Army. Instead, he said they were handed a generic proposed action plan on children in war situations, for consideration and study by the NDF. The UN Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict was to link up with armed groups in internal conflicts with States in order to pursue the proposed plan. “We replied that we shall relay the generic proposed action plan with the leadership of the Philippine revolutionary movement," Agcaoili said. He also confirmed that the proposed plan can be discussed during the planned visit of the UN Special Representative in May 2011 in Utrecht, The Netherlands to meet with the NDF peace panel. The NDF also submitted a letter of protest to the UN Special Representative in connection with its yearly reports to the UN Secretary General to the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, Agcaoili said. “At no time during the meeting did we acknowledge the existence of so-called child soldiers in the ranks of the New People’s Army (NPA) given the policy directive of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to raise the recruitment age to 18 into the NPA as early as 1988 and reiterated in two memoranda by the Military Commission of the Central Committee (CC) of the CPP in August 1999 and the Executive Committee of the CPP in October 199, respectively," he said.—JV, GMA News