Whole of nation

(part2)

In 2002, the United States and the EU had declared the CPP-NPA as a foreign terrorist organization. According to the Country Reports on Terrorism published by the U.S. Department of State in 2017, the CPP-NPA “primarily targets Philippine security forces, government officials, local infrastructure, and businesses that refuse to pay extortion, or revolutionary taxes.” The report also noted that the CPP-NPA has a history of attacking U.S. interests in the Philippines and “has continued to carry out killings, raids, kidnappings, acts of extortion, and other forms of violence primarily directed against Philippine security forces.”

In 2017, President Duterte signed an executive proclamation also declaring the CPP-NPA as a terror organization using Republic Act 10168 or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 as basis.

On the other hand, the European Commission had assured the NTF of a specific plan of action in response to the submitted reports on possible terrorism financing of Belgium and other EU members states in the Philippines.

“We will have an independent financial audit on this. You can be reassured that we will monitor the country’s expenditures and donors who may have given to the organizations for the same activity. We will share with you the outcome of the external audit,” said Gunnar Weigand, Managing Director of European External Action Service and European Commission South East Division of Development and Cooperation.

The NTF also met with the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels who confirmed that their government has been supporting community work in the Philippines and had allocated 15 million euros for a period of 5 years (2017 to 2021), released at 3 million euros per year to several civil society organizations. The Belgian officials identified the organizations they support, which are currently operating in rural communities in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Coincidentally, the identified groups appeared in the list of front organizations of the CPP-NPANDF as disclosed by officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“We received information from the Belgian government that they are actually providing funds to these organizations in the Philippines through Belgian NGOs. They are giving 3 million euros every year for five years, totaling fifteen million euros. That’s close to 1 billion pesos,” said Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., AFP Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations. “But we already have an idea where these funds are going. A list was provided by the Belgians and we realize that these groups are allies and front organizations of the CPP-NPA-NDF,” Parlade added.

With these first steps taken by the government, the country is on the right path of putting an end to this insurgency and, most importantly, making the Filipino public and the international community more aware of what is really going on in our communities. It took us 50 years to make this preliminary move of engaging the whole nation and while the armed forces still consider the CPP-NPA-NDF as a potent security threat due to its capacity to operate nationally and the ability to infiltrate government and private institutions, it cannot deny that they are struggling for survival.

And Rodrigo Duterte, with his whole-of-nation approach, is determined to subjugate them.