MANILA, Philippines — Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison bared he is included in the government’s list of terrorists, but said it is President Duterte who is “the number one terrorist” in the country.
In a statement posted on the website of the CPP’s political arm National Democratic Front yesterday, Sison said he learned from sources that he is included in the list but “there is no basis for the charge of terrorism.”
“Duterte and his minions are stupid and pretend to be ignorant that I have won legal cases for the removal of my name from the EU list of terrorists and for the dismissal of murder charges fabricated against me by the Arroyo regime and fed by this regime to the Dutch government,” he added.
In a petition filed before the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 on Feb. 21, the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the court to declare 600 people as terrorists.
The list reportedly includes Sison, United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni, former Bayan Muna congressman Satur Ocampo and four Catholic priests.
The motion also seeks to declare the CPP and its armed wing, New People’s Army (NPA), as terrorist organizations.
Sison said the false accusations are related to Duterte’s scheme to engage in the mass murder of patriots and progressives in the country, to silence all his critics and opposition to his cruel and corrupt regime in order to realize completely his fascist dictatorship through martial rule and the railroading of a pseudo-federal constitution.
“Duterte is truly the number one terrorist in the Philippines,” he said.
“Even the US intelligence agencies now regard Duterte as a threat to democracy and human rights, despite his duplicitous and despicable efforts to keep the overall US hegemony in the Philippines and serve additional foreign masters. As far as the Filipino nation is concerned, the Duterte regime is a murderous and greedy scourge that must be eradicated,” he added.
Sison stressed that the revolutionary movement is absolutely correct in taking as a forewarning the Duterte brand of propaganda and slaughterhouse methods used in the government’s anti-drug campaign.
“In less than two years of his tyranny, Duterte has been responsible for the mass murder of 20,000 people in his war on drugs,” he said.
The CPP leader also cited Duterte’s decision to back out of his pledge to amnesty and release all political prisoners as well as the police and the military’s repeated violation of the prolonged ceasefire from August 2016 to February 2017.
“Duterte is engaged in a wild anti-communist witch hunt under the guise of anti-terrorism. An immediate look at his list of terrorists will show that he is running amok in slandering people as terrorists. There are also hundreds of John Does in the list just to intimidate a limitless number of people,” Sison said.
UN: Remove Filipina rapporteur
Earlier, Malacañang accused Tauli-Corpuz and UN special rapporteur for internally displaced people Cecilia Jimenez-Damary of embarrassing the Philippines on the international stage for their statements criticizing the status of indigenous peoples in Mindanao.
The two rapporteurs warned that the ongoing militarization of Mindanao is having a massive and potentially irreversible impact on the human rights of some of the island’s indigenous lumad communities.
The DOJ then reportedly listed Tauli-Corpuz as a senior member of the CPP, an accusation that she has denied.
“I denounce this act by the Department of Justice of including me in the list,” she said. “I am not connected at all in anyway to those organizations nor do I have any knowledge, much less participation, with the alleged incidents cited in the petition.”
Tauli-Corpuz said she is consulting with lawyers to address the “baseless, malicious and irresponsible” inclusion of her name in the list. She vowed to make accountable those people who put her life and security at risk by the inclusion.
UN human rights experts yesterday called on the Philippine government to remove Tauli-Corpuz from its list of 600 people that it asked a court to be declared as terrorists.
Michel Forst, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, and Catalina Devandas Aguilar, chair of the coordination committee of the special procedures, expressed grave concern as they slammed the government’s “unacceptable attack” against Tauli-Corpuz.
“We are shocked that the Special Rapporteur is being targeted because of her work defending the rights of indigenous peoples,” Forst and Aguilar said in a joint statement.
They said Tauli-Corpuz’s inclusion in the petition “comes after the public comments made, jointly with other special rapporteurs, in relation to the militarization, attacks and killings of indigenous lumad peoples by members of the armed forces in Mindanao.”
Forst and Aguilar said the accusation was “an act of retaliation” by the government against its critics.
“We call on the Philippine authorities to immediately drop these unfounded accusations against Ms. Tauli-Corpuz and to ensure her physical safety and that of others listed,” the UN experts said. – Helen Flores, Janvic Mateo, Rhodina Villanueva, Marvin Sy