From the CPP Website (Apr 14): CPP slams Gazmin claim of NPA ties with drug trade
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) denounced as “an absolute lie” the Aquino regime’s claims yesterday that the New People’s Army (NPA) has links with and protects drug syndicates in the Philippines.
The statement was made yesterday by Aquino’s Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin who insisted that the NPA is involved in the maintenance and cultivation of marijuana plantations in the Cordillera and that it has an “unholy alliance” with the drug syndicates, claiming that the NPA is desperate for funds to procure weapons.
“On the contrary, it is the reactionary politicians and top military and police officials of the ruling regime, those who now profess treading the Aquino regime’s mythical righteous path, who are in collusion with the drug syndicates as well as with the biggest illegal gambling lords, kidnapping and carnapping rings, smuggling and other criminal groups in order to finance their political campaigns and pocket shares from the operations of these nefarious gangs.”
“Wherever the revolutionary forces and their people’s army succeed in establishing the people’s democratic government, drug syndicates as well as other criminal groups are expelled from the areas under the sway of revolutionary authorities,” said the CPP. “Under the people’s democratic government, leaders of these drug syndicates have been subjected to arrest, prosecution and judgment by the people’s courts and have been meted out appropriate punishment for their crimes.”
“Far from being desperate, the NPA enjoys the boundless support of the revolutionary masses who not only provide their army with material support, but actively engage in both unarmed and armed resistance to fight the exploitative and oppressive system and its armed protectors in the reactionary armed forces and police,” added the CPP.
“The pronouncements of Secretary Gazmin are nothing but a rehash of the baseless and unproven allegations made years ago by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) of the US government,” said the CPP. The CPP further pointed out that the US government has long been using such claims against the revolutionary forces in Colombia in order to justify its war of intervention as part of its “war on drugs.” The US government also uses the DEA to engage in interventionism in the Philippines in the name of “cooperation” with the local anti-drug agencies.
“The marijuana plantations in the Cordilleras have long been maintained by officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP),” added the CPP. “They draw in the poor peasant masses to engage in the planting and cultivation of marijuana plants and protect these plantations with their armed goons.”
“This is also the case in other marijuana-growing areas such as the Davao Oriental countryside. Military and police generals take advantage of the poverty and desperation of the rural masses who suffer from feudal and semifeudal exploitation and the low prices for their agricultural produce, by promising quick and big money in the marijuana trade,” said the CPP.
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20130414_cpp-slams-gazmin-claim-of-npa-ties-with-drug-trade
There has been fairly consistent reportage of NPA taxation and protection of marijuana trafficking, expecially in the Northern Luzon area, since the 1980s. As a result, the Philippine military has exploited the "drug issue" in its propaganda attacks against the CPP/NPA. Of course, the Maoist insurgents have been vigorous in their denial of any involvement with illegal drug trade.
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