THE United Nations (UN) has received a submission from the Philippine government, thru the Armed Forces (AFP), listing the atrocities committed by the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) since the last decade that resulted to destruction of both private and public properties worth billions of pesos.
In a statement, AFP public affairs chief, Capt. Jonathan Zata, said the list details the 532 “violent incidents” committed by the two terrorist organizations prepared by the AFP Human Rights Office (HRO, AFP).
The document was submitted to the UN last January 12, 2021 and was addressed to Signe Poulsen, Philippine Representative of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and, Gustavo Gonzales, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the Philippines.
A day previously, the AFP also submitted a similar document to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the statement added.
In a brief statement, AFP chief of staff, Gen. Gilbert Gapay, lauded the efforts of the HRO in raising public awareness of the atrocities being committed by the CPP-NPA and bringing them to the attention of international human rights bodies.
Gapay said this would shed light on the “persistent disregard of human rights and international humanitarian law” by the two group that have been categorized by the United States, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, among others, as ‘terrorist organizations.’
In a statement that elicited public derision and insults, the CPP, thru its ‘information officer,’ ‘Marco Valbuena,’ defended the NPA’s policy of attacking and burning civilian properties by claiming they have paid “compensation” to the owners.
“As regards civilian property destroyed or damaged in the course of an NPA military action, as a rule, the NPA always remunerates the owner,” Valbuena said, in a statement the CPP released last January 9, 2021.
“In mounting military offensives, the NPA always ensures that no civilian will be hurt or no civilian property will be damaged. Those who suffered damage are compensated,” Valbuena averred further.
There was not a single verifiable fact to support Valbuena’s claim of compensating any of their victims.
Also contrary to his claim, the documented assaults were not to “protect the environment” or “defend” the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples (IPs) but to force businesses to pay them ‘revolutionary tax’ for being ‘class enemies’ (rebolusyunaryong buwis sa kaaway na uri, RBKU), and for which the CPP-NPA had reportedly earned more than P1 billion each year.
Meanwhile, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) announced the schedule of the series of online seminars (webinar) it would be launching this year to help empower and inform the country’s local chief executives on the role they are expected to play at the local level.
The task force said that spearheading the whole-day activity are the joint regional task forces (JRTFs), where they expect an average of 642 local executives, to participate headed by the provincial governors of each region.
The total number of participants are expected to further increase to 892 persons per region, with the inclusion of other security stakeholders.
The following are the schedules as prepared by the NTF-ELCAC:
Jan 19 – Region 9; Jan 20 – Region 10; Jan 21 – Region 11; Jan 22 – Region 13; Jan 26 – Region 12; Jan 27 – CAR; Jan 28 – Region 1; Jan 29 – Region 2; Feb 2 – Region 3; Feb 3 – Region 4A; Feb 4 – Region 4B; Feb 5 – Region 5; Feb 9 – Region 6; Feb 10 – Region 7; Feb 11 – Region 8; Feb 12 – NCR; and, Feb 16 – BARMM.