An alleged member of the executive committee of the Community Party of the Philippines in the Ilocos and Cordillera regions reportedly came forward on June 10 to clear her name from allegations and her alleged link to the CPP.
Police Regional Office-Cordillera Director, B/Gen. R’win Pagkalinawan, reported that Annie Tauli, an alleged executive committee member of the Ilocos-Cordillera Regional Committee of the CPP has yielded through the efforts of National Security Adviser, Sec. Hermogenes Esperon.
Tauli was airlifted from Besao, Mountain Province to Baguio City on June 11 while Esperon held a press conference in Baguio on the same day.
The supposed peaceful surrender was facilitated by B/Gen. Henry Duyaen, commander of the 503rd Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army and Pagkalinawan with the help of retired general Ramon Yog-yog.
The 70-year-old Tauli is the alleged party wife of supposed CPP Chair Julius “Ka Nars” Soriano Giron, who was killed along with his two companions in a government operation in Baguio on March 13.
Giron is the second consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) who was killed in Northern Luzon after NDFP peace consultant Randy Felix Malayo, who was assassinated in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya on Jan. 30, 2019.
In the press conference, Esperson said Tauli’s surrender is a good gesture in support of the effort of the government in ending the more than 50 years of the Maoist-inspired rebellion, the longest in Asia.
Esperon said Tauli will be assessed on her qualifications in availing of the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program.
The program provides a complete package of assistance to former members of the CPP-NPA-NDFP as well as members of their family, who have surrendered to the government to abandon the armed struggle and become productive citizens.
Meanwhile, journalists received a press statement from a progressive group calling for the government to release Tauli.
The group claimed that Tauli is the older sister of Vicky Tauli-Corpuz, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Tauli, who is among the first batch of graduates from the Philippine Science High School in 1969, was a teacher in Brent School up to 1980.
She was the coordinator of the Cordillera Studies Program of the Cordillera Schools Group based in Easter School up to 1984.
She has done independent research and has written several papers on Cordillera history and issues and she was among the 300 plus participants in the Cordillera People’s Congress which founded the Cordillera People’s Alliance in 1984.
Sources also told the Courier that the Tauli family has clarified that the former did not surrender, but she faced authorities merely to clear her name.
“Annie has long been experiencing threats to her life and security. These threats heightened in March after she was falsely linked to an incident that happened on March 13, wherein three alleged NPA members were killed in a police operation in Baguio City,” the Tauli family said.
“She denies being a member of the NPA and said that there is no reason for her to return to the fold of the law, being a law-abiding citizen,” her family added through a statement shared in the social media.
The Philippine Information Agency-Cordillera, meanwhile, quoted Tauli, who was presented to the press in Baguio, as saying: “I came here to clear my name from the various charges that have been hounding me since I have been a law-abiding citizen in Besao for the past years.” – Harley F. Palangchao
