MANILA (UCAN): Advocacy groups have called on the Philippine government to drop “terror” charges against 27 activists, including two Catholic priests, who are accused of financing the New People’s Army communist rebel group in Negros island.
All the accused are affiliated with the Community Empowerment Resource Network based in Cebu City in the central Philippines. They have been charged with violating the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012.
Cebu City’s regional trial court issued an arrest order against the accused on May 14, but they were not arrested as the court granted them bail. However, they face trial.
Among the accused are Father Herbert Fran Fadriquela Jr. and Father Merlin Logronio, according to a May 17 report in Cebu-based online publication Sunstar.
Meanwhile, secretary for justice, Jesus Crispin Remulla, reportedly ordered government prosecutors to ensure convictions, urging them “to put behind bars all financiers of terrorism.”
Remulla told reporters in Manila on May 20, “Either you are with us in safeguarding the welfare of our children and future generations or not at all; the choice is up to you.”
He warned the public against financing terrorist groups, saying they “will face extreme consequences as harsh as those met by the terrorists themselves.”
“We will never stop running after terrorists who continue to sow fear among our communities; you have no place in our society,” the Manila Bulletin reported Remulla as saying.
At a press conference on May 17, the counsel for the accused said they had yet to receive a copy of the preliminary investigation of the charges.
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…[various organisations have] condemned this attack, defining it not only as an assault on development workers but also on all Filipinos longing for adequate social services
The 27 have been accused of delivering 135,000 pesos [US$ 2,320] in cash to the South Eastern Front of the communist rebels in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental in 2012.
The fund, given in September 2012, was aimed at helping the rebels secure food, armaments, ammunitions, firearms, medical supplies, and other operational requirements, the Department of Justice panel said in its resolution.
It was “undeniably an act of ‘making available funds’ to a ‘designated’ terrorist organisation,’” and hence, punishable, the department said.
Since the violation comes from an organisation, which is a juridical person, the penalty “shall be imposed upon its responsible officers who allowed” the crime to take place. Hence, “the recommended indictment of all respondents,” the resolution added.
Advocacy groups have called these “trumped-up” charges and urged the government to junk them.
Networks like that of the accused capacitate peoples’ organisations and “compensate for the government’s lack of adequate service,” according to a May 17 statement from the rights group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or Bayan in Central Visayas.
The accused are respected professionals, including four doctors, two lawyers, priests, and “dedicated development workers,” Sunstar quoted the group as saying.
Bayan said that various organisations have “condemned this attack, defining it not only as an assault on development workers but also on all Filipinos longing for adequate social services.”
The Centre for Trade Union and Human Rights on May 16 said the case “is most absurd” because the accused “have no money and had to borrow” 200,000 pesos to post bail.
It accused the government of “weaponising” anti-terrorism law “to harass and try to silence activists and non-governmental organisation workers,” it added. It called such cases a “trademark violation of civil and political rights committed by the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government.”
The arrest order against the 27 came after the Philippine Army’s Visayas Command, in collaboration with other officials, filed charges against them on 28 September 2023.
