Pieces of evidence and other documents showing how some militant groups are linked to communist rebels might be submitted on Wednesday to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), a ranking military official said Monday night.
"We hope to submit it Wednesday. (There are) a lot of witnesses. (There are) 20 for now but more than 100 want to give their statement. Many more affidavits are coming from the field," Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Deputy Chief-of-Staff for Civil-Military Operations, Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., said in a message to the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
Parlade expressed confidence that the pieces of evidence they will submit -- statements of witnesses, content analysis of IBON Foundation books, videos, pictures, and many circumstantial evidences – to the DFA, and eventually to the European Union (EU), would be decisive in proving the links of some militant groups to the communist movement.
"Certainly, this will convince EU and Belgium of these NGOs’ (non-government organizations’) links to CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines) organizations. They are now on panic mode, that's why Karapatan is doing everything to destroy our credibility,” he said.
“Their international allies/lawyers are also here to boost their effort to paint a very bad image about the government, as they have been doing in the past. They want to attribute the death of lawyers to this campaign vs. drugs. It’s the same tactic that NPAs (New People's Army) did in the past. They wore soldier’s uniform and attack civilians near encounter areas so people will blame (the) AFP. Former NPA, Father Balweg, admitted it in a video interview," he added.
Earlier, Parlade scored Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay for alleging that the military does not have solid evidence to link them to the communist rebels.
"We have a lot and Karapatan is worried about all these truth coming out now," he said.
Parlade belittled Karapatan's claims that it is a protector of human rights (HR) in the country.
"Where were you when the NPAs have been killing the IPs (indigenous peoples) in Mindanao, until now? Where is Karapatan when non-participating civilians were killed by NPAs? Karapatan is a kind of organization that is very selective in dealing with human rights.
Selective in a sense that it only uses human rights to defend its NPA allies," he said.
Parlade also asked where Karapatan was when the Alliance of Concerned Teachers(ACT) and Bayan Muna reportedly trafficked children in Davao last year.
"Karapatan is afraid of becoming irrelevant because the AFP has not committed any HR violation for the past five years or more. Even in the past, many of the HR violations and civilian killings attributed to AFP were in fact committed by the NPAs, disguised as soldiers in uniform, as admitted openly by former rebel Father Balweg," he said.
Karapatan, he said, has to fabricate reports of human rights violations by the AFP so that the United Nations (UN) and EU may continue to collect donations from European countries on its behalf.
Parlade added that Palabay is worried about the government’s success in unmasking the truth about the communist front organizations, which were tagged by CPP founder Jose Maria "Joma" Sison himself in all of its revolutionary websites, verbal pronouncements, and CPP publications.
"Please check the links and websites (ILPS website, Philippine Revolution Web Central, NDF International) and see for yourselves who identified Karapatan and IBON as CPP front organizations or part of the International League of Peoples Struggles' (ILPS) network of organizations, with 'Joma' as chairperson,” he said.
And with the Duterte administration's adherence to human rights, EU and Belgian funding for non-government organizations for the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP), IBON, Karapatan and all other CPP-front organizations using human rights as cover, will dry up.
Parlade's views were also shared by AFP public affairs office chief, Col. Noel Detoyato.
"Every bit of evidence is being consolidated and will be given to DFA for subsequent presentation to EU representatives. RMP, IBON and Karapatan connections to alias Ka Oris, NPA and their hand in the organization of ALCADEV (Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development), sworn statements and affidavits of rebel returnees and former students of Salugpungan, Lumads who were deceived are just samples of the evidence that will strengthen the government's position against these groups," he said in a message to PNA Monday night.
Also when proven through paper trails of foreign funding, Detoyato said certain party-list groups will face disqualification.
"We will withhold the details so as not to prematurely divulge ongoing and future efforts against these groups masquerading as 'legal fronts' of an illegal armed group whose ultimate objective is to bring down our established sovereign government and change our Filipino way of life through violence and armed revolution," the AFP public affairs office chief said.
"This is not an effort of the AFP alone but a collective effort of the whole government representing the whole nation who had been longing for peace and this is embodied in Executive Order (EO) 70 issued by the President as its basis," he added.
President Rodrigo Duterte issued EO 70 on Dec. 4, 2018, which institutionalizes a whole-of-nation approach in attaining peace and creates a National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
The CPP-NPA is listed as a terror organization by the United States and the EU.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1064944
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