Opinion

Save the Puerto Rican Day Parade — disinvite the terrorist

It’s time for the members of the National Puerto Rican Day Parade board to put the celebration ahead of their personal pride and rescind the “National Freedom Hero” honoring of terrorist Oscar López Rivera.

The parade’s lost all its marquee sponsors, from Goya Foods to the New York Yankees to Univision. Police Commissioner James O’Neill and acting Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez refuse to march over the OLR honors.

And a parade day “flu” has claimed every statewide elected official: Gov. Cuomo, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Comptroller Tom DiNapoli are all no-shows.

(Don’t take any support from the City Council at face value: In budget season, members fear Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito will penalize their districts if they don’t side with her in honoring OLR, her idol.)

Mayor de Blasio is the only pol of note still on board — odd as that choice is for the leader of a city targeted by al Qaeda and ISIS-inspired terrorism, as well as OLR’s FALN.

GOP mayoral candidate Nicole Malliotakis has it right: Celebrating López Rivera is “equivalent to 40 years from now saying it is OK to honor a member of al Qaeda.”

Yes, much of the Puerto Rican community supported clemency for him. But only the far-left fringe is eager to follow a terrorist up Fifth Avenue.

This year’s parade can still proceed despite it all, but future parades are at risk: Funding from one year is the seed money for the next, and an event that’s lost so many sponsors won’t have much left.

Plus, a board that has miscalculated so badly will have trouble raising cash to make up the deficit. Donors hate controversy.

Angelo Falcón, president of the National Institute for Latino Policy, warns the “Incredible Shrinking (or maybe even Vanishing) Parade” may be yet another institution “marching straight into the Intensive Care Unit (or Hospice) of history.”

The board doesn’t even have to admit it made a huge mistake: It can say it’s just guarding the parade’s long-term interests.

After all, Schneiderman installed the current leadership after ousting a previous board over fiscal abuses. Even if he’s running for cover now, the new board should see its clear duty: Marching the Puerto Rican Day Parade off a cliff for the likes of Oscar López Rivera is a betrayal of trust.