NICA chief: Gov't building up cases vs. legal fronts of CPP-NPA

The government security sector is in the process of building up cases to bring "legal fronts" of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) to courts, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency Director-General Alex Paul Monteagudo said on Tuesday.

During the Senate hearing on alleged military red-tagging, committee on national defense chairperson Panfilo Lacson asked if the state security forces have direct and substantial evidence to file legal charges against groups which they claim to be linked to the CPP-NPA.

"Instead of attending daw this public hearing, mas maganda pa filean ninyo na lang daw sila ng kaso kung mayroon kayong ebidensya. That's the essence of the letter of former Congressman [Neri] Colmenares which I received," the senator said.

"We are building up our case, sir, and in due time, there will be cases," Monteagudo said.

Colmenares, who chairs the Bayan Muna, did not attend the Senate inquiry. The Makabayan solons also skipped the hearing but sent a legal counsel to represent them.

The Makabayan bloc also urged Lacson not to let the Senate be used as a venue for further red-tagging.

Armed Forces' Southern Luzon Command chief Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr. recently said Colmenares and the progressive lawmakers are under surveillance for being "card-bearing" members of the CPP.

During the same hearing, the Police Lieutenant General Cesar Hawthorne Binag, representing the Philippine National Police, also mentioned that there are over 1,000 standing arrest warrants for alleged CPP-NPA members.

"We operate based on evidence so we're building up all these cases so that we can firm up 'yung campaign natin against them as part of the NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict)," Binag said.

Self-confessed former communist rebels were also presented during the hearing. Most of them claimed to have been recruited by militant students' organizations in universities before they joined the armed struggle.

Lacson, for his part, said it was unfortunate that the leaders of the militant groups are not present in the inquiry to immediately answer and rebut the claims of the resource persons.—AOL, GMA News