Now they’re listening to ‘Ka Eric’

By Alex P. Vidal

 

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”—Jim Morrison

 

SOME people feel very uncomfortable each time National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) asset Jeffrey “Ka Eric Almendras” Celiz opens his mouth.

And because Celiz minces no words in stating what he knows and why he knows something many people have already known but were too timid to admit it, he easily attracts hostility on the Internet, especially in the social media where he has been a favorite whipping boy of those he had offended.

Since hogging headlines in October this year when he accused some progressive members of the partylist in the House of Representatives and leftist organizations of being fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), Celiz, a former activist, has become a rich source of succulent news about the country’s insurgency problem.

His new role, however, has placed him directly on the radar of hate and contempt.

But Celiz’s critics have again started to take him seriously—and they have been listening to his explosive “expose” whether he said it in the senate or in the press conference.

People have started to listen because Celiz has something to say, and he is saying it in his own brand of existentialism.

 

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When he was the spokesperson of former Iloilo City Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog, the mayor’s political enemies dismissed his defense of the embattled mayor as purely “a political rhetoric” even if some of Celiz’s arguments had a monolithic message and his principle was unbending.

He had his own share of infamy for being allied with a very controversial political personality, but after a brief hiatus, Celiz bounced back and reinvented himself under a new crusade.

In the recent senate defense panel hearing chaired by Senator Panfilo Lacson, Celiz went toe-to-toe and was unfazed against some of the most prominent and loquacious bigwigs of the Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan (Makabayan).

He risked his life and the safety of his family by going all-out against his former comrades in the leftist movement.

Again, Celiz made so many heads turn when he tagged anew four Iloilo universities as “hotbeds of recruitment by the CPP-NPA.”

Jennifer P. Rendon of the Daily Guardian reported on December 10 that “in a publicly attended and live-streamed press conference Dec 10, 2020 at the Passi City Arena, Celiz, without offering any proof, said that the two University of the Philippines in the Visayas (UPV) campuses in Iloilo City and Miag-ao, Iloilo; his alma mater West Visayas State University; and the Iloilo Science and Technology University remain cradles of rebel recruitment operations in Panay Island.”

 

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Celiz reportedly denied red-tagging or linking the Iloilo institutions to the communist insurgents.

“Kung mayroong dapat i-criminalize ang gobyerno, it’s not the red-tagging because red-tagging is a concoction and invention of the CPP-NPA,” Rendon quoted Celiz as saying.

Celiz reportedly said further: “…because they (recruiters) are the ones who are pretending to be leading the open organizations and open alliances but actually, they are operatives and functionaries of the underground movement of the CPP. This is not red-tagging. Ito ay patuloy na pagbubunyag.”

Panay Island is “special” he reportedly said, because it is one of the last vestiges of CPP operations that remain active. “We started here,” Celiz reportedly said referring to his earlier claims that he was recruited while being a staff of a campus paper.

He also reportedly accused leftist organization Bayan-Panay as “one of the most persistent recruiters of the NPA.”

Whether he will float or sink, Celiz has proven himself to be a true warrior; an intrepid crusader who will stop at nothing until he has proven to all and sundry that what he is fighting for is for the good and future of the country, and not merely to save his ass as what his critics are saying.

 

(The author, who is now based in New York City, is a former editor of two dailies in Iloilo, Philippines)