[PODCAST] Seat of Power: A conversation with Lieutenant General Parlade

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Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr has become the controversial face of the National Task Force to End Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

He’s been derided for suggesting communist links among celebrities, universities, and community pantry organizers. He’s been censured by senators, his resignation demanded by many.

But to Parlade, he’s only doing his job: protecting Filipinos from “communist propaganda” and communist “deception.”

Rappler reporter Pia Ranada speaks to Parlade to find out more about NTF-ELCAC and its role in President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration.

Is Parlade and the task force endangering lives by calling them communist sympathizers?

“Feeling nila ‘yun, na naeendanger sila (That’s just their feeling, that they’re being endangered),” he tells Ranada.

And though he admits only a tiny percentage of community pantries were used to distribute what he thinks is communist propaganda, he still thinks there’s something suspicious about the whole thing.

“So tulong, ang dami niyan spontaneous yun. Now suddenly, ang daming nagaano and then lahat galit sa gobyerno, eh alam na natin ‘yan. Pattern ‘yan,” said Parlade.

(There are so many spontaneous act of charity. Now, suddenly, so many of them are sprouting up, and all of them are mad at the government – we all know that. It’s a pattern.)

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