Ping: Esperon won’t need a week to review Parlade’s NTF-ELCAC role if…

National security adviser and National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict vice chairman Hermogenes Esperon Jr. may not even need a week to decide on the fate of spokesman Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. if he reads the Constitution, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Thursday.

Lacson said Esperon only needs to check Article XVI, Sec 5, paragraph 4 of the 1987 Constitution, adding Esperon “may not even need one week to review.”

“The said provision in the Constitution is clear: ‘No member of the armed forces in the active service shall, at any time, be appointed or designated in any capacity to a civilian position in the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations or any of their subsidiaries,'” Lacson said in a statement.

“As such, Sec. Esperon and Malacañang’s legal staff can simply ask themselves the question: is NTF-ELCAC a civilian office or a unit of the AFP?” he added.

Last March, the Senate adopted the committee report of the Senate defense committee chaired by Lacson, regarding the red-tagging issue.

One of the recommendations was to relieve Parlade as NTF-ELCAC spokesman because of the constitutional prohibition against active military officers getting civilian posts. The defense establishment, however, had ignored this recommendation.

Esperon on Wednesday said he is reviewing whether to keep Parlade and Lorraine Badoy as spokespersons of NTF-ELCAC, in the wake of the controversy the two had generated with their comments on community pantries.

Meanwhile, Lacson also reminded the military to remain apolitical, following Parlade’s recent politically charged statements.

“Art. XVI, Sec. 3 of the Constitution also decrees that the armed forces shall be insulated from partisan politics. As such, ‘no member of the military shall engage, directly or indirectly, in any partisan political activity, except to vote,'” Lacson said.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)