THE Justice Department will file a petition before a lower court this week to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines a terrorist group as the Armed Forces of the Philippines raised the security alert level across the nation to brace against attacks on the group’s 49th anniversary.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II said a team of prosecutors took almost a month to prepare the petition to be filed before a regional trial court.
He said the Justice Department team also coordinated with the intelligence community in preparing the petition to declare the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, as terrorist groups.
“Our task force has been meeting with the intelligence people from NICA [National Intelligence Coordinating Agency], ISAFP [Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines] and other intelligence agencies of the government,” Aguirre said.
He said he was optimistic the court would grant the petition.
“We are including in the petition numerous supporting pieces of evidence showing that the CPP and NPA are committing terroristic activities despite numerous initiatives of President Duterte to reach out to them,” Aguirre said.
The DoJ chief earlier created the team to draft the petition following President Duterte’s decision to issue a proclamation naming the CPP as a terrorist group.
Section 17 of Republic Act No. 9372 (Human Security Act of 2007) requires the DoJ to first seek clearance from a court before an organization, association or group of persons can be declared as terrorists.
Last month, the DoJ moved to arrest of key leaders of the CPP and the National Democratic Front, who had been granted provisional bail for their participation in the botched peace talks.
Prosecutors filed a motion before the Manila regional trial court Branch 32 seeking cancellation of bail for 20 NDF consultants led by spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon.
The DoJ made the move after President Duterte canceled the peace talks and publicly branded the CPP as a terrorist group.
“In view of the cancellation of the peace talks, there is no more legal ground for the continuous provisional liberty of the accused. Thus, the immediate recommitment and cancellation of bail of all the accused should logically follow,” the Justice Department said in its pleading.
The NDF leaders were granted bail upon initiative of the government last year for their participation in the peace process between the communist rebels and the government.
The Supreme Court, in its resolution in August last year, granted bail to the communist leaders for their participation in the peace talks in Norway under specific conditions. The ruling was adopted by the RTC.
One of the conditions was that once their participation ceases or the peace negotiations are terminated, the bail bonds shall be “deemed automatically canceled.”
Meanwhile, Col. Edgard Arevalo, AFP spokesman, said alert levels were up because the usual anniversary of the communist movement is accompanied by attacks on government forces.
“The CPP-NPA-NDF [National Democratic Front] lost its ideological mooring and all its actions reflect a terrorist organization rather than what they claim to be,” Arevalo said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The AFP is on full alert and vigilant for possible CPP-NPA attacks on our people and vulnerable communities,” he added.
At press time, the military had not recorded any NPA attacks on military personnel and various installations nationwide.
A week before the CPP anniversary, President Duterte declared a unilateral ceasefire with the NPA during the holiday season with the communist armed component issuing its own truce.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, however, said he had recommended against a ceasefire, saying the NPA could use it to launch attacks on government forces.
“The AFP will abide by the government’s SOMO and will maintain active defense posture nationwide to thwart any atrocity, deception, and sabotage that the CPP-NPA is planning to stage,” Arevalo said.
Lorenzana, in a separate text message to reporters, said he could not tell what the communists might do.
“I do not know of their plans. They also declared their ceasefire. If they will violate it, our troops are ready,” he said.
Communist rebels on Tuesday maintained that they are not terrorists and vowed to resist President Duterte’s “fascist” rule on the 49th anniversary of the longest-running Maoist insurgency in Asia.
“The CPP and NPA are revolutionaries and not terrorists,” Ka Maria Malaya, spokesperson of NDF Northeastern Mindanao, said in a statement on the anniversary of the CPP.
The communist rebels accused Duterte of trying to force revolutionaries “to kneel down to fascist rule and the establishment of a dictatorship.”
“The declaration of the Duterte regime of completely ending the peace talks, tagging the CPP-NPA as “terrorists,” issuing a shoot to kill order against NPA members, arresting CPP members and NDFP consultants, and focusing its attacks against the NPA under its extended martial law in Mindanao, are but desperate attempts of the regime in the face of the people’s escalating discontent of the gravely rotten ruling system,” she added. With John Paolo Bencito