BAYAN Muna Party-list Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate filed a complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman against Antonio Parlade Jr., spokesman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, for allegedly red-tagging him and Bayan Muna during the 2019 campaign and election period.

In a complaint filed on June 9 but released to media on Wednesday, Zarate accused Parlade, then the Armed Forces’ deputy chief of staff for civil military operations, of allegedly “publicly attacking my person and character” and of “engaging in black propaganda and negative campaigning constituting prohibited partisan political activity against me and Bayan Muna Party-list” during the 2019 campaign and election periods.

“By respondent’s public pronouncements, he has shown to have acted with manifest partiality, evident bad faith and inexcusable negligence. By his public pronouncements, he definitely caused my person and Bayan Muna undue injury during the campaign and election period,” Zarate said.

“Respondent’s persistent red-tagging hindered me and Bayan Muna from our campaign activities during the election and worse, threatened my personal safety during the campaign and election period,” he said.

Zarate said Parlade violated Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act and Section 55, Chapter 7, Subtitle A, Title I of the Administrative Code of 1987.

Zarate also alleged that Parlade’s public pronouncements and statements constituted prohibited political activity under the Administrative Code of 1987.

The lawmaker asked the Ombudsman to suspend Parlade from office pending investigation and thereafter file a case against him.

Zarate also asked the Ombudsman to “[f]ind substantial evidence against” Parlade for alleged grave misconduct, and order his dismissal from public office.

In a statement, Parlade said while it was the government’s job to “inform the people and expose to them the real nature of terrorist organizations representing themselves as advocacy groups”, he denied
“red-tagging” Zarate and Bayan Muna and blamed Jose Ma. (Joma) Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

“It was Joma Sison and to this day the CPP is consistent in tagging them as their red allies. Is Rep. Zarate denying this fact?” Parlade asked.

Parlade also asked whether it was wrong for the government to call “a spade a spade”.

“We will be remiss with our job if we continue to allow the people to be fooled by these criminals, by not informing them of the terrorist nature of these Kamatayan bloc. They continue to recruit and kill our children, traffick our IPs to the underground, and they want us to be silent on these?”

Parlade said they never told the people not to vote for Zarate and Bayan Muna but that for the people

“to choose properly their candidates and their party list groups”.

“The choice is theirs and its called ‘informed decision’, instead of some random choice because of lack of information that our people deserve,” said Parlade.