PR/PNA
MANILA — The Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) “priority” to oust a sitting President in 2019 should be an added reason to tag the New People’s Army (NPA) as a terrorist group, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Thursday.
Lacson said so many lives had already been lost in the 50 years that the CPP and its armed wing, the NPA, had been trying to overthrow the government.
“(CPP founder Jose Maria Sison) has been at it for the past 50 years. So many lives lost already. DOJ (Department of Justice) should follow up with the court the proscription case vs. the NPA as a terrorist group as per Section 2 of Republic Act 9372,” Lacson said in a post on his Twitter account.
In February last year, the DOJ asked a Manila court to legally declare the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group, citing the Human Security Act of 2007.
Lacson noted that before Sison was quoted in reports as saying the CPP’s priority in 2019 is to oust President Rodrigo Duterte, the CPP-NPA had been attempting to overthrow past and present governments for the past five decades.
While the CPP-NPA had resorted to “peace talks”, these were “aimed at having a coalition government but still aimed at a takeover, violent or otherwise,” Lacson pointed out.
“They have not succeeded for the past five decades so I don’t see how they can. Right now, they are reduced to a band of extortionists, arsonists and robbers, even a terrorist group,” he added.
As such, Lacson urged the Executive Department via the DOJ to “follow up the judiciary the case that they filed calling for the proscription of the NPA as a terrorist group which is provided under Sec. 2 of the Human Security Act of 2007.”
