An ecumenical peace group warned that the designation of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) as a “terrorist” organization “bodes ill for human rights, democracy and the quest for peace.”
The group Pilgrims for Peace said the “war hawks” in the government seem to be “hell-bent on killing peace negotiations” by pursuing an “all-out war” in the government’s counterinsurgency program.
“We call attention to how this designation of the NDFP as a “terrorist” organization can only intensify the nefarious red-baiting/terrorist-tagging,” said Rev. Ritchie Masegman, the group’s convenor, in a statement released on July 20.
He said the designation of the NDFP as “terrorist” will have “dire implications” on the “human rights situation and constriction of democratic space in the country.”
The Philippines Anti-Terror Council (ATC) has earlier announced that it has designated the NDFP as a “terrorist” group.
“Members of the NDF aka NDFP continue to lure and/or recruit people to join the New People’s Army (NPA), while the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) itself admitted and maintained, through public media releases as well as in CPP documents and revelations of former members, the direct and indispensable role of the NDF aka NDFP in its armed operations,” read the ATC resolution issued on June 23.
The resolution did not name any individual, except for CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison and wife Juliet.
The NDFP is a coalition of revolutionary social and economic justice organizations, agricultural unions, trade unions, indigenous rights groups, leftist political parties, and other related groups in the Philippines.
It was established in 1973 as a “revolutionary united front organization of the Filipino people fighting for national freedom and for the democratic rights of the people.”
In a statement, the Department of National Defense expressed support for the ATC resolution, saying that NDFP members “continue to lure and recruit people to join the NPA.”
“The department hopes that this development justifies and enables the defense sector to move forward in its efforts to address internal security concerns and lay the foundations of sustainable, lasting peace and national development,” read the Defense department statement.
The Pilgrims for Peace, however, said the designation “directly contravenes a basic tenet of peace advocacy,” that is, “to address the roots of the armed conflict through earnest peace negotiations.”
The group accused the Duterte administration “grievous and gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
“By designating those who have stepped forward to engage in peace negotiations as ‘terrorist,’ the Duterte administration is blatantly acting against the principle and practice of peace-building,” read the statement of Pilgrims for Peace.
The group said the designation of NDFP as “terrorist” only shows that the government “is not interested in building peace, but instead prefers to bloody the streets and fill the jails in a bid to cow the Filipino people and impose a dynastic, authoritarian rule.”
