Ibon Foundation no credibility to back UN resolution: Parlade

FILE: Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Deputy Chief-of-Staff for Civil-Military Operations Major General Antonio Parlade, Jr. (PNA photo)

MANILA — Citing its lack of credibility, a ranking official of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC) has scored the Ibon Foundation for supporting the United Nations-adopted resolution, seeking for a comprehensive written report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.

“What’s the fuss about this Iceland resolution on Human Rights? What credibility does Ibon Foundation have for supporting the call for UN probe in the Philippines?” Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., said in a statement forwarded to the Philippine News Agency (PNA) Saturday.

He also accused the group of “partly responsible for fabricating false data and information” about the country for the last 40 years.

Parlade, also the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Deputy Chief-of-Staff for Civil-Military Operations, said the deliberate twisting of facts and figures is aimed at projecting the country as an oppressive state to justify more funding from the foreign sources.

“Ibon Foundation has been getting funds from foreign governments and organization to conduct ‘research on human rights’ amongst many other topics, and has been twisting facts and figures, to project the Philippine state as oppressive, tyrannical, and in a dire state, even before PRRD (President Rodrigo R. Duterte) became President. This is to justify more funding from donors,” he added.

Ibon Foundation, he said, has been involved in the publication of manuals and books for Filipino children using falsehoods like the Jabidah Massacre in Corregidor to incite sedition among the country’s Muslim population.

Parlade took exception of the group’s efforts to promote the Communist Party of the Philippine-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) rebels and their supporters as an icon of heroism among children enrolled in their Salugpungan schools.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

“Ibon Foundation have been promoting false heroes and rebels as icons of heroism among children like Fr. Pops Tentorio, an Italian communist priest killed in Mindanao is being hailed by Ibon Foundation as a National Hero in their Salugpungan school manuals,” Parlade said.

He said Ibon Foundation manuals are produced by the rebel groups, with CPP cadres and wives of NPA fighters sitting and acting as the board of editors.

This is not unusual as the Ibon Foundation is known to be CPP-front organization which has been delivering well in its mandate which is to deliver CPP propaganda, he said.

He added that it is not surprising to find out that the Ibon Foundation has been a major source of European states and the UN of their negative narrative about the Philippines.

“Ibon Foundation has, in fact, been fomenting rebellion amongst young children and students, pushing them to violence, and then promote themselves, together with Karapatan and other CPP front organizations as champions of human rights.

Then they have the temerity to complain to SC for harassment? The height of hypocrisy and deception,” he said.

The Iceland-initiated resolution was adopted with 18 votes in favor, 14 against, and 15 abstentions by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Thursday night. The resolution expressed concern over reported cases of extrajudicial killings in line with the illegal drugs campaign but also raised the issue of reported violations targeting critics and human rights defenders.

“This resolution was not universally adopted. Therefore, its validity is highly questionable. It does not represent the will of the Council, much less that of the developing countries who are always the target of such resolutions,” Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. said in an earlier statement.

“Western countries pushed for this resolution in the confidence that the world has forgotten what they did and what should have been done to them had there been a Human Rights Council. It was pushed with the arrogance that developing countries must not stand up to them even if we can and as we hereby do. There will be consequences,” Locsin said.

Locsin described the Iceland resolution as politically partisan and one-sided, reiterating the Philippines’ position to reject it.