Volume 2, Issue No. 46
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . .
Our latest as of Wednesday, December 23, 2020
~ The Philippine government has officially added a new designation to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army: "terrorists". Along with three Islamic groups operating in the Southern Philippines, the government said they pose a "serious terrorism threat in the country". In the three years ending 2019, "the CPP/NPA extorted around P5.5B in ‘revolutionary taxes’," a Malacanang Palace statement said this week. The label takes significance in Canada because there are active front organizations operating in some provinces, particularly in Ontario's Greater Toronto Area.
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THREE ISLAMIC GROUPS INCLUDED
PHL Gov't Tags Communists, NPA 'Terrorists'
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
The presidential Malacanang Palace has announced in Manila that the government has officially classified the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its military wing, the New People's Army (NPA); the Islamic State East Asia, Maute Group, and Daulah Islamiyah "terrorists".
They "pose serious terrorism threat in the country," the Palace said in a press statement issued on December 9, 2020. A copy of the statement was made available to The Filipino Web Channel only this week.
The CPP/NPA has been "engaged in violent and destructive activities for the last five decades," and "its violent and armed activities (that) resulted in the destruction of properties, loss of lives, and damage to business and economy," the press statement said.
(Full text of resolution at: https://atcpmc.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/ATC-RESOLUTION-NO.-12-2020.pdf).
The determination is particularly significant in relation to Canada, especially in the Greater Toronto Area where there are leftist ideologues, communist sympathizers, youth advocates, and media organizations fronting as active community participants. Some are engaged in fundraisings.
Canada's Minister of Public Safety, Bill Blair, MP for Scarborough Southwest, has not responded to questions as of this writing today, Wednesday, December 23, 2020.
The Philippine government's Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) said it "found probable cause to designate the CPP/NPA as a terrorist group for its violent and armed activities that resulted in the destruction of properties, loss of lives, and damage to business and economy."
The law creating the ATC was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on July 3, 2020, to prevent, prohibit and penalize terrorism in the Philippines. Its constitutionality is under challenged in the Supreme Court. (More info at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Terrorism_Act_of_2020).
"The CPP/NPA also employs deception, threats, and violence to be able to raise funds through unlawful exaction of money, extortion, collection of so-called permit-to-campaign (PTC) and permit-to-win (PTW) fees during the
campaign period, and soliciting material support from international NGOs under the guise of being a pro-people and humanitarian organization," the ATC explained.
It said that "from 2016 to 2019, the CPP/NPA extorted around P5.5B in ‘revolutionary taxes.’ It also collected millions in PTC and PTW fees during the May 2019 elections. Moreover, the CPP/NPA, in the past, was able to solicit from NGOs abroad".
Prior to the latest Malacanang announcement, Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of CPP, already stated in his website that: "The Duterte regime and its political and military agents misrepresent communists as terrorists through propaganda and by the enactment of a fascist law like the Anti-Terrorism Law which targets the Communist Party of the Philippines and the revolutionary movement".
"With their baseless listing of the CPP and CPP as terrorists, they are practically encouraging Duterte to engage in anti-communist witchhunts and engage in state terrorism," the Netherlands-based Sison said.
President Duterte has previously issued a proclamation in December 2017 designating the CPP/NPA as "terrorist organizations". This month's ATC resolution merely affirms that, based on the Department of Justice's findings of twelve incidents which it said "constitute terrorist acts of murder, kidnapping and arson".
"The CPP/NPA continues to commit acts of terror to sow and create a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace in order to coerce the Philippine Government to give in to its unlawful demand, i.e., for the CPP/NPA to overthrow the duly constituted authorities and seize control of the Philippine Government. Similar terrorist acts are continuously committed by the CPP/NPA in different parts of the country up to the present," the statement explained.
The ATC said other countries had made similar designations of the CPP/NPA as a "foreign terrorist organization" (FTO), including the European Union, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand.
Suggested readings:
1. https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/09/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/the-communist-party-and-sisons-greatest-trick/793690/;
2. https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/11/11/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/communist-partys-greatest-trick-shocking-examples/794505/;
3. https://www.manilatimes.net/2019/06/03/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/the-communists-most-successful-strategy-but-dont-red-tag-it/563620/
4. https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/12/07/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/dont-call-them-progressives-or-nationalists-theyre-neither/806124/). (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).
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