Vice President Sara Z. Duterte shares with the audience of the Peace Village Exhibit on Monday her encounters with rebel leader Leoncio “Kumander Parago” Pitao, and how the casualties of rebellion in Davao City have cemented her hatred for the New People’s Army. MindaNews photo by YAS D. OCAMPO
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 12 September) – Vice President Sara Duterte turned the Peace Village Exhibit held Monday in Davao City into an occasion to hit back at a legislator and other unnamed critics who questioned the inclusion of confidential funds in the 2024 budget for the Office of the Vice President as well as for the Department of Education where she serves as Secretary.
The exhibit, timed for the National Peace Consciousness Month, aims to showcase the gains of Peace 911, the city government’s peacebuilding program.
In her keynote speech, Duterte acknowledged the exhibit as the culmination of the decades-long fight against communist insurgency in Davao City, particularly in Paquibato, Calinan, and Marilog Districts.
She said the event marked the end of the local government’s campaign against the New People’s Army.
In the same speech, however, she called ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro as one of the few “terrorists” allegedly peddling lies against her office.
Castro and other leaders of the minority from both chambers of Congress had challenged the necessity of the confidential funds for the OVP and DepEd.
Castro also said the 2022 OVP budget had no confidential funds among its line items, but that Duterte, after assuming the office in June 2022, obtained P125 million confidential funds.
Vice President Sara Z. Duterte, shown in tech monitor, calls critics of her confidential funds terrorists during a Peace Village Exhibit held at the ground floor of the SM City Davao Annex in Davao City on Monday, 11 Sept. MindaNews photo by YAS D. OCAMPO
Duterte dismissed Castro’s attacks as unsubstantiated and a futile defense against the OVP’s efforts to link Castro’s group with the NPA.
The vice president said that between them Castro is more dangerous, citing that the latter was charged with kidnapping and human trafficking.
Duterte was alluding to the cases filed against Castro, former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, and 16 other individuals who, during a National Solidarity Mission, transported 14 minors on 28 November 2018 from Talaingod, Davao del Norte to “rescue” them from harassment by the paramilitary group Alamara and the military.
The minors were students of the Salugpongan Community Learning Center, a school for Lumads that the military accused as a communist front.
The parents of the minors denied their children were kidnapped by the National Solidarity Mission. They said they had to leave Talaingod because the threats were “no longer bearable and became relentless. They have to leave for their safety.” (Miah Christine Bontilao/MindaNews)
