CBCP president says religious body evaluating participation of episcopal commission in task force committee

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MANILA (UPDATED) - A Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) commission has joined the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

NTF-ELCAC Executive Director Usec. Ernesto Torres said that their executive committee approved to have a member from the religious sector as one of the private sector representatives.

The CBCP commission will be represented by the Bishop Reynaldo Evangelista, and his alternate will be Father Jerome Secillano from the Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs.

“We need to review how we do things and…at this point in our campaign, it is necessary that we have two private representatives as member agencies,” Torres explained.

When offered to be a member, CBCP “accepted warmly”, Torres said.

“So with them on our side it will be a lot easier to disseminate, to cascade the information, the good news of the government to those living in the far-flung areas considering the trust and confidence and respect that the general populace have for those in the religious sector. It would readily be accepted by them,” he stressed.

“We will not stop there, because down the road, there will be some observers also as part of religious sector representative, not only the regular member, but observers coming from other religious denominations. That is not yet happening now, but that is within the road map we are crafting,” he added.

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In a statement on Friday, CBCP President and Kalookan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David said the Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs' involvement with the NTF-ELCAC would address Church concerns on red-tagging of some cause-oriented groups.

• CBCP says only its panel will engage NTF-ELCAC on red-tagging, other issues

David also said that the commission intended to provide "moral-ethical approaches" in addressing insurgency in the country. He noted that the CBCP as a whole would discuss the issue and evaluate whether it is necessary for the commission to join the NTF-ELCAC's executive committee.

NTF-ELCAC is also eyeing to have someone from the business sector as another private sector representative.

Aside from them, the task force also announced that it has included other 11 government agencies and departments as regular members, bringing the total number of members to 32.

These are the following:

• Department of Information and Communications Technology
• Department of Labor and Employment
• Department of Transportation
• Department of Tourism
• Department of Energy
• Department of Trade and Industry
• Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development
• Department of Foreign Affairs
• Department of Environment and Natural Resources
• Department of Health
• Department of Migrant Workers

Torres said these member agencies would help in the “whole of government approach” in addressing the root problem of insurgency as well as to help in the development of insurgent-free barangays.

“It’s not just a military of police problem, but it is a whole of nation, and whole of government approach, and nakikita natin when we introduce the support of the barangay development program, as well as the enhances comprehensive local integration program, mas maraming nag-surrender, lalo na yung armed group, and the people themselves, they condemn and repudiated the attempt of the NPA to recover the areas,” National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano stressed.

Since its establishment in 2018, the task force noted they were able to “dismantle” 69 out of 89 guerilla fronts in different barangays across the country.

Only 20 remain, with 1 active in Northern Samar, and other “weakened” guerilla fronts in Luzon with 6, 7 in Visayas and 6 in Mindanao.

“So what we can see in the term of President Ferdinand R Marcos Jr., finally matutuldukan, matatapos natin ito local armed communist conflict,” Ano said.

“We can now re-orient the focus of the Armed Forces towards external defense, because right now we have so man geopolitical issues, and challenges to face, so we need the Armed Forces to now focus their eyes on external threats,” he added.

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