NSC respected junking of bid to declare CPP, NPA terrorist groups, says budget sponsor

The National Security Council will respect the decision of the Manila Regional Trial Court to dismiss the Department of Justice's petition for the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army to be declared as terrorist organizations.

Thus, said the sponsor of the NSC's proposed P343-million budget during the plenary deliberations in the House of Representatives of the proposed P5.3-trillion General Appropriations Bill for 2023.

"Of course, the NSC will respect the decision of the said RTC since it is a co-equal but separate branch of government," Negros Occidental Representative Mercedes Alvarez said on the question of House Deputy Minority Leader France Castro as regards the NSC's take on the said court ruling.

Alvarez made the remark in the presence of National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos.

The Branch 19 of the Manila RTC has dismissed the proscription case which sought to declare the CPP and the NPA as terrorist groups.

In a 135-page resolution penned by Presiding Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar, the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 said a perusal of the CPP-NPA’s program showed that it was organized not for the purpose of engaging in terrorism.

“[W]hile ‘armed struggle’ with the ‘violence’ that necessarily accompanies it, is indubitably the approved ‘means’ to achieve the CPP-NPA’s purpose, ‘means’ is not synonymous with ‘purpose’,” the court said in the resolution dated September 21, 2022.

“Stated otherwise, ‘armed struggle' is only a ‘means’ to achieve the CPP’s purpose; it is not the ‘purpose’ of the creation of the CPP,” it added.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) will file another proscription case seeking to declare the CPP and the NPA as terrorist groups, this time under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020 and before the Court of Appeals.

National Security Adviser Clarita Carlos was present during the plenary debate.

"Thank you for saying that they will respect the decision of the court, but they are also saying that they want to institutionalize a red-tagging agency which is the (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict)," Castro said.

"I want to reconcile this... Nilalagay sa alanganin ang buhay ng tao dahil trial by publicity ang nangyayari. Wala nang due process," Castro said.

(They are putting people's lives at risk because of trial by publicity. There's no more due process.)

Alvarez said the state did not engage in red-tagging.

"The government has no policy to red tag any individual or group. If ever the NSC has agreed to change its mind, it will be for institutionalization of NTF-ELCAC programs, not institutionalization of red tagging," Alvarez said.

"There is no existing state policy to weaponize any agency or office to villify progressive individuals or groups as communists or terrorists. The government would like to create partners, not enemies," she added. —NB, GMA News