The Makabayan bloc of the House of Representatives scoffed Tuesday (Dec.8) at President Duterte for launching "intensified attack" against them, saying that his government is seeking to “eliminate” them given their machinery that could expose the corruption issues and other anomalies hounding the current administration. 

"This intensified attack against us in Makabayan, and Rep. Zarate in particular, shows that the Duterte administration is really trying to eliminate the bloc and then concentrate on the broader political opposition so that they can reign beyond 2022,” the progressive lawmakers said in a statement, which was read during a press conference by ACT Teachers partylist Rep. France Castro and Kabataan partylist Rep. Sarah Jane Elago.

They condemned the President’s continued spree of red-tagging the progressive bloc, particularly House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate.

"They know that Rep. Zarate and the Makabayan bloc's sterling record in and outside Congress is a stark contrast to the criminally negligent and incompetent handling of the Duterte administration of the different problems of the country from the Covid 19 pandemic, to typhoons, unemployment, landlessness and others,” they said.

"They know that the Makabayan bloc's whole machinery would be mobilized to expose the corruption issues and other anomalies of the Duterte administration from the generals' pork, to subservience to China, to illegal POGOs, high electricity and water rates among others.”

In his televised address Monday night, Duterte claimed that "the act of one is the act of all...the act of a soldier NPA (New People’s Army) is the act of Zarate, the congressman.”

Reading their statement, Castro said President’s claim cannot be allowed to pass, describing it as "a flawed and dangerous legal theory” that the Chief Executive is foisting on the public to justify intensified attacks on his critics. 

"It erases any distinction between the legal and illegal, the unarmed activists and armed rebels, in utter disregard for due process and fundamental freedoms. It paves the way for more acts of state repression and violence on our ranks,” said. 

Castro said if President Duterte and his ilk has tons of evidence against them, “then present it in court now, not just rant about it.”

According to Makabayan lawmakers, Duterte's human rights statement seems to be just for show for the international community particularly the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). 

"For the second time around the president red-tags my colleague Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate during his late night address and declares him guilty without an iota of evidence. It smacks of utter hypocrisy that one the same day that they opened a supposed summit on human rights, President Duterte goes on a tirade that signals more attacks against dissenters, more human rights violations,”  Bayan Muna partylist Rep. Ferdinand Gaite told reporters during a virtual press conference.

"Clearly, they have launched this summit with zero intention whatsoever in truly addressing the grave abuses happening in the country including the attacks on activists and human rights defenders themselves,”he said.

Gabriela partylist Rep. Arlene Brosas said the President's latest attack against Zarate, who is a longtime ally of consumers and ordinary Filipinos against incessant price hikes and onerous power rates, "forms part of the bigger and ongoing siege against the Makabayan bloc and ordinary people critical of Duterte.”

"Rep. Zarate has been very active in fighting against environmental plunder, against electricity rate hikes, against the rising body count under Oplan Tokhang. These are the very issues which the Duterte regime is criminally liable, hence Duterte's rabid attack against him and against anyone who speaks truth to power, she said.