THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has condemned the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) and the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) after it declared 16 groups as terrorist due to their “verified and validated” links with the CPP-New People’s Army (NPA)-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF).
In a statement, CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said tagging the groups as alliance of the NDFP is part of the National Government’s effort to suppress broad democratic forces and to terrorize the public.
“By aiming to terrorize the people, the declaration is part of preparations to steal the upcoming May presidential elections to ensure the victory of the Marcos-Duterte candidates,” he said.
He maintained that the 16 organizations recently tagged as terrorist are patriotic and democratic and have long been fighting for the rights and interests of their represented sectors.
Valbuena said they remained underground where their members were incognito and unidentifiable to avoid the acts of suppression of the reactionary state.
He said many of the members of these groups experienced difficult struggles during the dark period of martial law.
“We anticipate the NTF-Elcac/ATC's to use the resolution as blanket authority to clamp down on social activists by accusing them of being members of any of these organizations, in violation even of its own constitution and legal processes,” said Valbuena.
“It is likely that the NTF-Elcac/ATC will be filing more and more trumped-up charges against activists, human rights defenders and critics of the regime, as in the recent case of Dr. Natividad Castro,” he added.
Castro was arrested on Friday, February 18, in Barangay San Perfecto in San Juan City on the basis of a warrant of arrest for multiple kidnapping and illegal detention charges issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 7 of Bayugan City in Agusan del Sur in January 2020.
Castro’s brother, Jun, said his sister was arrested and accused of the said charges due to her human rights advocacy, which includes serving both rich and poor in Mindanao.
The ATC approved Resolution 288 (2022) signed by ATC vice chairperson and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. on January 2, linking the 16 organizations to the CPP-NPA in a bid to hinder them from getting financial support to fund their “terrorist acts, recruitment of members and the supply of weapons to terrorists.” (SunStar Philippines)