To gather funds to be used in their effort to bring down the government, some front groups of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army are masquerading as relief organizations, an official said Monday.
Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ deputy chief-of-staff for civil-military operations, made the statement in a message to the Philippine News Agency.
In other developments:
• The Philippine National Police on Monday urged parents to monitor the activities of their children, especially those that are not sanctioned or approved by their respective schools.
Police Chief Oscar Albayalde made the reminder as communist rebels use extra-curricular activities to recruit members among unsuspecting students.
• Albayalde on Monday also commended the 18 police officers of the Victoria Municipal Police Station in Northern Samar who repulsed the attack of 50 communist rebels last week.
Parlade cited as an example “Panday Bolig” as part of the groups allied with the communist movement, which use such tactics during the aftermath of typhoons “Yolanda” and “Pablo.”
“These front organizations appeal to the kind-hearted especially in Canada and US, Europe, Australia, etc., but only a portion are spent for the actual rehabilitation,” Parlade said.
According to the revelations of former rebels and organizers, a good 60 percent of the solicited funds go to the CPP. Only 40 percent is spent for [rehabilitation], if at all. Reports from the California Filipino Communities last November 2018 said that their donations went unaccounted during the onslaught of ‘Yolanda’ for instance.
“In the Visayas, they use CERNET Community Empowerment Resource Network] as the CPP clearinghouse of all these fake advocacies. We saw this pattern earlier in the past but it’s only now that we had solid evidence after the series of engagements we had with EU and some European governments. In the days to come, we will expose the other ‘miracles’ the CPP have been doing. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Parlade said the front organizations were in panic mode, prompting them to highlight and even distort issues like “massacre” in the case of the legitimate police operations in Negros Oriental, the killing of IPs (indigenous peoples) by CAFGU (Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit), even if CAFGUs [are] not involved, and hype those killed in the drug war for two reasons.
He said these reasons included the establishment of a “consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of HR” so CPP founder Jose Maria Sison could invoke Article 8, Paragraph 2 of UN General Assembly Resolution 47/133 to justify foreign funding and support for Human Rights Watch, fact-finding missions, etc.
“The SOS [Save Our Schools], Bakwit, EJK, bombing threat to Salugpungan, the killing of lawyers, all based on fabricated reports and lies, are all designed to keep money from EU coming,” Parlade said.
“We will continue to expose their deception strategy with the truth we are equipped with now. Are we not wondering none of them is taking the challenge?”
Parlade said the funds from NGOs were what they use in recovering lost ground, even without their armed groups.
“These funds were used to organize their mass base, with livelihood projects that promote the CPP and highlight the neglect of government, rather partner with government to develop the countryside,” he said.
The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. With PNA