MALACAÑANG on Monday denied it was out to harass communist rebels after President Rodrigo Duterte moved to proclaim the New People’s Army as a terrorist organization.
In a Palace briefing, Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said the communist armed wing, the New Peoples’ Army have continually preyed upon and killed innocent people through the years, with the intention of “creating terror in the mind of the general public.”
Roque said this was not red baiting because the communist rebels have committed acts that are punishable under the Revised Penal Code and special laws.
“They are being punished because of acts of terrorism being conducted by the NPA, including attacks on civilians,” he added.
Roque insisted that those aligned with the left are not being “punished for mere membership,” but said it is “a crime when you take up arms.”
The Palace statements came as 200 families fled to an evacuation center in Iligan City as the military pursued communist rebels along the border of Iligan and Talakag, Bukidnon.
On Saturday, Duterte said he will proclaim the New People’s Army a terrorist organization, and crack down on leftist groups such as the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan for conspiring with communist rebels.
Calling the NPA “a bunch of criminals,” the President said he is no longer inclined to continue the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
He likewise warned of an impending crackdown on Bayan and other leftist groups, for allegedly conspiring with the armed communists.
The Communist Party of the Philippines on Monday scored what it called Duterte’s brazen attempts to eliminate all opposition to his ‘fascist’ rule.
“Emboldened by the recent Trump approval of his strongman rule, he is bent on eliminating all opposition, legal and otherwise. The people recognize these threats against the revolutionary and progressive movement for what they are: to eliminate the strongest and most consistent opposition to his fascist rule, silence dissent against his anti-people and pro-imperialist policies and further perpetuate himself in power through a one-man rule,” the CPP said in a statement.
The CPP also accused the President of using the communist threat to justify the military’s proposal to extend martial law beyond Dec. 31.
Duterte was criminalizing political dissent when he moved for the filing of charges against revolutionaries and progressives with trumped-up criminal charges, the CPP said.
The United States has placed the CPP and NPA on its list of foreign terrorist organizations since Aug. 9, 2002, upon the request of the Arroyo administration.
Three senators belonging to the majority bloc expressed their support for declaring the communist rebels as “terrorists.”
Senator Panfilo Lacson said Duterte is the only President who has the guts to declare the NPAs as terrorists.
“And that’s what who they are for quite a long time,” said Lacson, chairman of the Senate committee on public order.
The former PNP chief said the ideology of the NPA has been gone more than a decade ago.
“They burn, destroy, kill innocent civilians to terrorize; they terrorize to sow fear and harass helpless civilians; they harass to extort under the guise of revolutionary taxation,” he said.
Senator Gregorio Honasan said that as a commander-in-chief of all security forces and based on information from his national security advisers, it is the President’s prerogative to call the NPA terrorists.
Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III also supported the terrorist tag.