There is more than abundant reason for this newspaper and the nation to be concerned that a reported paper by former Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg on how to deal with the Duterte government in the next 18 months has now provided President Rodrigo Duterte and his Leftist colleagues in the Cabinet not only a convenient excuse to intensify their political attacks against the United States, which remains a friendly government, but more than that, a smokescreen to cover concrete and dangerous moves to fast-track the intended communization of the six-month-old government.

We take very seriously the observations made in his Friday column by Times columnist Francisco S. Tatad, a former senator and Cabinet minister, who has identified Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco Jr. as the moving force behind this extremely dangerous project. Evasco is an ex-priest, ex-rebel and ex-mayor (of Maribojoc, Bohol), who served as Duterte’s campaign manager in the last election, and ended as Cabinet Secretary after the position of Executive Secretary went to a lawyer-friend from San Beda College of Law, Salvador Medialdea.