CBCP: Public affairs office part of NTF-ELCAC

MANILA, Philippines — Only an office under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, not the entire body, would take part as a member of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), CBCP president and Caloocan Bishop Pablo Virgilio David said yesterday.

The CBCP’s Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs, headed by Bishop Reynaldo Evangelista as chairman and Fr. Jerome Secillano as executive secretary, will become an NTF-ELCAC member, according to David.

The commission “has the specific task of engaging government on many levels of dialogue over important issues,” he said.

David maintained that by being a member of the NTF-ELCAC as a private sector representative, the CBCP commission would “address some Church issues vis-à-vis government, including the issue about the red-tagging of some cause-oriented groups and Church organizations.”

The NTF-ELCAC membership has given the CBCP Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs “more opportunity to express the Church’s specific concerns,” the bishop said.

“The commission also has the intention of providing moral-ethical approaches to dealing with the problem of insurgency,” he added.

David also said the CBCP intends to discuss the possibility of the commission engaging the NTF-ELCAC “without having to join as member” during the upcoming meeting of the CBCP’s Permanent Council.

According to earlier reports, the NTF-ELCAC agreed to have an official of a religious organization as a representative from the private sector.

David previously slammed the NTF-ELCAC for branding as communist insurgents personalities behind the so-called community pantries that provided meals and other basic goods for free at the height of the COVID pandemic.