NEITHER the covert devil of her deeds. Rose Beatrix Laviña “Trixie” Cruz-Angeles had it coming: resign.

To some knowledgeable quarters, the appointment of former Supreme Court Justice Lucas Bersamin proved to be the last straw. It turned out Bersamin was one of the justices who concurred in the Supreme Court decision slapping a three-year suspension on Cruz-Angeles for violation of Rule 1.01 of the Code of Professional Responsibility. As records show, Trixie is said to have failed to deliver a commitment to act as counsel for one Cleo Dongaas, a former military officer, despite having received an advance payment of P350,000 as an acceptance fee. It is a matter of course that Bersamin, a straightforward do-gooder, would not condone being lumped this time with the law offender he once condemned. And so, Trixie had to go.

Personally, I would let bygones be bygones for Trixie on this one. She had suffered for the offense, must be presumed to have atoned for it, no more reason for further chastisement. Still and all, I would urge a thorough probe into her doings while enjoying the perks of political power she is said to have gotten as soon as the Bongbong administration set in. For a time, it was being bruited about that appointment to posts in the executive branch was being heavily influenced by an exclusive circle that had worked out President Bongbong Marcos’ campaign propaganda, of which Trixie was a leading element among others who, my informant disclosed, are actually covert sympathizers, if not operatives, of the Sisonite communist terrorist insurgency. It is understandable that some left-leaning individuals have found themselves worming their way early on into the Bongbong bureaucracy. This could be the explanation why, for instance, according to my source, somebody high up in the Cabinet has the penchant of parroting the line: “poverty is the root cause of the insurgency.” Such a big baloney, I would say, considering the number of countries in the world that are poorer than the Philippines but don’t have insurgencies like the more than 50 years old one of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF). It turns out, the official, in the not-so-distant past, used to be a rabid propagandist, albeit covertly, for the NPA at the University of the Philippines campus. Her exposure now is a case of the fish getting caught by the mouth.

If only for that reason, I must find myself joining the growing number of media people heaving a sigh of relief at Trixie having left her post. It’s nothing personal that I would love to see her go. It has nothing to do, for instance, with what one writer describes as her Duchenne smile. Meaning that whenever she speaks, according to the writer, she always betrays that she is “lying through her teeth.” Neither is it for her predilection to prevaricate, such habit being in certain extraordinary circumstances the hallmark of a subaltern called to cover up for the shortcomings of his boss. Wasn’t that the case with the sugar importation brouhaha at the Sugar Regulatory Administration? Trixie was quick to deny that Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian had the authority to sign for the President in the latter’s capacity as concurrent Secretary of Agriculture, when the truth was that she must have known Sebastian had that authority under the memorandum of designation issued to him by resigned Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez.

At any rate, what this piece is worried about is a scenario where somebody who has had a record of propagandizing for the communist terrorists, whether covertly or overtly and no matter the degree of the engagement, is given a leeway to put in officials in the government that surely could turn the insurgency situation from bad to worse. For what if then Press Secretary Cruz-Angeles, for instance, had been able to sneak in a conscious disciple of Jose Maria Sison into the security sector? By simply parroting the idea that “poverty is the root cause of insurgency,” such a Sison infiltrator, particularly if placed in such a position as to influence the country’s security policy, could bring about a sorry diversion of government policy in ending the CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency, from the correct main emphasis on an ultimate armed solution to the illusory approach of solving poverty first.

Over the years, alongside the flow of a succession of Yellow regimes, the country had steadily dropped into a virtual economic stupor, with its industries that were abloom during the first Marcos era diminishing one by one: steel, textile, automotive, food manufacture, what else. There was even talk that Marcos was already into a nascent space program with its initial missiles named after Bongbong.

Now, have we ever tried to pause and ponder? Economic hardship for the people during this period increased perfectly in direct proportion to the growth of the CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency. From P2 to $1 during the Marcos era, the peso plunged to P25 at the start of the Cory rule, when the CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency regained momentum through Cory’s release of Jose Maria Sison. Since then, the peso has sustained its fall. Today, when the CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency has betrayed itself as having substantially infiltrated the government already, the dollar stands at $1 to P58.

Far from causing insurgency, poverty in the Philippines has been caused by the CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency. Capital flight, regarded as the main factor for this development, came about mainly because of NPA extortions of industries, and where entrepreneurs defied, the NPA punished them with burning and otherwise destruction of facilities, like the blasting of towers of telecommunication facilities. The current telcos, like Smart and Globe, have resorted to building their towers inside military camps, or if they cannot help but acquiesce to NPA extortions, pass on the cost to the consumers, resulting in exorbitant rates of the internet the highest among Asean nations. The same situation exists in the electric power sector. Electricity providers pay up to the extortion demands of the NPA and pass on the cost to the consumers who ultimately suffer the burden.

With the creation of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac), the government successfully implemented the two-pronged attack of providing, through the Barangay Development Program, development in all spheres of the people’s social life, while not letting go of armed option in decisively crushing NPA resistance. But as things turned out, there was a confluence of actions by CPP-NPANDF infiltrators in government to hamper the effective approach of the NTF-Elcac through manipulations of government processes, like the decision of Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar declaring the CPP-NPA-NDF not a terrorist group, the speech of Sen. Loren Legarda proclaiming the CPPNPA-NDF as having the objective of social justice, and the constant criticisms and sustained lobbying by the Makabayan bloc in Congress resulting in the task force’s budget being cut down to a pittance.

Having sympathizers of the Sisonite communist terrorist insurgency in influential posts in government is a gravely delicate and dangerous matter. And if Trixie, as my informant disclosed in confidence, is one such sympathizer, then pity the Bongbong government for the possible infiltration accomplished in it by the CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency through the intervention of its press secretary once upon a time.