“LET’S BE watchful of these individuals, groups, and organizations opposing a law that will protect our citizens from terrorists. What’s their agenda? … The Day of Judgment is upon you and the Filipino people, who have suffered enough from the malignant hands of the CPP-NPA-NDF of which you are part of, sit in judgment.
Very soon, blood debts will be settled. The long arm of the law will catch up on you, and your supporters.”
So posted in his social media account Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., commander of the Southern Luzon Command and spokesman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
“A clear threat” against those who challenged the legality of RA 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. So a group led by two retired Supreme Court justices called out Parlade and asked the High Court to compel the Office of the Solicitor General to explain.
“Petitioners believe this is a matter of serious concern that requires judicial remedy as [Parlade’s] post, if indeed made by a state actor, construes the [anti-terror law] to be able to penalize the right to seek judicial relief,” the group that included retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales said in their six-pagemanifestation filed Monday.
“Designed to intimidate … [Parlade’s] post also amounts to interference with the honorable court’s power to administer justice as it is directed to the parties and their counsel days before the matter is heard by the honorable court,” they added.
Parlade’s threatening message, said the petitioners, may actually be considered “an act of terrorism” as stipulated under Section 4 of the law, citing that the law holds a person criminally liable for “acts intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to any person, or endangers a person’s life … when the purpose of such act … is to intimidate the general public or a segment thereof, create an atmosphere or spread a message of fear.”
For too long has Parlade been imagining terrorists just about everywhere, from campuses to show business, from churches to media offices, when all he needed to do is to look in the mirror and see terror itself. With media reports
