CPP warns vs extortionists using NPA’s name

MANILA, Philippines — The Communist Party of the Philippines has warned businessmen against falling victim to extortionists claiming to be from its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA). "The revolutionary movement has nothing to do with the extortion of honest-to-goodness businesses and ordinary earners and will act decively to end such lecherous activities that only serve to besmirch the good name of the revolutionary movement and enrich the heads of the military and police establishments and criminal syndicates," the CPP said on its website. It urged legitimate businesses and the people not to fall for this campaign of extortion by fake NPAs and urged them to report such activities to the "proper revolutionary authorities" for "prompt and decisive action." The CPP issued the statement after Philippine Army spokesman Col. Daniel Lucero distributed to media a press release claiming that the NPA is extorting millions of pesos from business establishments. It claimed that the military was trying to tarnish the NPA's reputation and isolate it, even though some military and police personnel were allegedly themselves misusing the NPA’s name for their personal ends. "The perpetrators' objective in this psywar-cum-extortion campaign is to tarnish the NPA's reputation and isolate it, and at the same time pocket the monies themselves," the CPP said. Criminal gangs pose as members of the NPA and send out crudely worded threat letters demanding money from small- and medium-sized businesses, entrepreneurs and even rank-and-file employees and ordinary people without distinction. As to the "voluntary contributions" of legitimate businesses and entrepreneurs, the CPP said it is in cooperation with local revolutionary mass organizations and organs of political power. On the other hand, it said the Arroyo government and its military and police officials have become "so desperate in the face of their impending failure to meet their deadline of defeating the armed revolution by 2010." Thus, they are desperately resorting to such vile psywar and self-enrichment campaigns, said the CPP. "We anticipate the Arroyo regime's military and police officials to hurry up with even more similar psywar and self-enrichment gimmicks as their frustration mounts with the failure of Oplan Bantay Laya 2 which is scheduled to expire next year," it added. - GMANews.TV