Bulatlat revisits the role of the government’s counterinsurgency plans in the increasing use of the terror financing law to quell and silence activists, critics, and development workers.
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Bulatlat.com
MANILA – For the human rights community in the Philippines, the Marcos Jr. administration’s silence on the human rights situation reflects how terror laws have been weaponized against dissenters and activists.
“This is not far from trumped-up cases based on false testimonies of so-called rebel returnees who were mostly either arrested or abducted and were convinced by state forces to testify against activists they want to silence,” said Josalee Deinla, secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.
The Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 is supposedly part of the country’s commitment to international efforts to combat the financing of terrorism, specifically the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing Terrorism and other resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
Read: Quezon rights defenders charged with terrorism financing
Read: 4 Cordillera rights defenders challenge ‘terrorist’ designation in court
The law defines terrorism financing as a crime that may be committed by any person who possesses, provides, collects, or uses property, funds, financial service, or other related services for the commission of any terrorist act.
Last year, Marcos Jr. signed the Executive Order No. 33 Series of 2023 which looks into the strengthening of the implementation of financial sanctions of terror financing. Headed by the government’s intelligence body, a “Terrorism Financing Sub-Committee” was organized to develop, implement, and monitor cases of terror financing.
According to Karapatan, 19 terror financing charges have been lodged before Philippine courts and nine complaints were filed before a prosecutor in various parts of the country.
Nearly all of the accused in these cases are either human rights or church workers. One of them is journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio who has been in detention since February 7, 2020.
Read: Detained journo asks Manila court to reconsider allowing her to defend herself
“It is so easy for the Philippine government to label bank accounts as either related accounts or if created solely for underground organizations. Another problem is the vague and ambiguous definition of what terrorism is,” Deinla said.
Impact of freezing of accounts
Deinla said they saw the “chain reaction” of the designation of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army in the filing of terrorism and terror financing charges against activists who have long been subjected to red-tagging.
“We now see more impacts of red-tagging to the human rights community,” Deinla said, adding that there have been calls for the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC) and the practice of red-tagging.
The terror financing law authorizes the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to investigate either upon its initiative or at the request of the Anti Terrorism Council any property or funds related to financing terrorism or those where probable cause is believed to be committed or conspired to commit finance terrorism or acts of terror.
The freeze order shall be effective for a period not exceeding 20 days. However, the AMLC may file for an extension of its effectivity but not exceeding six months upon order of the Court of Appeals.
The AMLC is also authorized to issue a freeze order of terrorist designated organization or individuals until lifted. The accused only has 20 days to question this freezing order before the Court of Appeals. This is supposedly anchored on Resolution No. 1373 of the UN Security Council as the terror law was not yet passed at the time.
Read: Peasant women’s group decries AMLC’s freezing of its bank accounts
Jobert Pahilga, lawyer of peasant women’s group Amihan, told Bulatlat in a previous interview that such cases are “already failing in the level of probable cause.”
“How much more in higher degrees of proof that the court can require?” he asked.
For one, the AMLC once froze the bank account of women farmers group Amihan as it claimed that it was being used to fund terror acts. In 2021, the Court of Appeals found no basis to freeze Amihan’s account. Then, a year later, a Manila court also lifted the provisional freeze order.
Read: Court finds no evidence women’s group bank account is used for terror financing
Deinla said that it is “easy and convenient” for the government to accuse groups of financing terrorism even if there are hardly any evidence at the expense of harming the development work of non-profits being accused of financing terrorism.
“The emerging pattern is that rebel returning would testify being a member of that organization, accuse key individuals of handing money to NPA (New People’s Army) units, or allocate funds from their project grants,” Deinla said.
Freezing of bank accounts is also one of the repercussions of either being designated or proscribed as a terrorist under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.
Role of counterinsurgency
In a statement, Karapatan denounced how Marcos Jr.’s so-called winning the hearts and minds of the people includes portraying civilians as terrorists and “forcing them to surrender and accept an amnesty program that does not in any way address the deep-seated social, political and economic roots of the armed conflict.”
Following the US 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Philippine government’s counterinsurgency plans have since shifted to further attacking “sectoral front organizations,” whom they consider as the so-called legal component of the armed resistance in the country. Such response to then US-led global call for governments to mount a war on terror has resulted in the gross human rights violations under the infamous and bloody Oplan Bantay Laya 1 and 2 of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Read: How the US meddled with PH gov’t war versus its own people
Such counterinsurgency move gave rise to human rights violators like the now convicted retired Maj. General Jovito Palparan.
In 2009, the Philippine government adopted the US Counterinsurgency Guide, which featured “winning the peace” through the “whole of nation approach.” The same framework practically continued under the Duterte administration but with anti-terror legislation as part of its arsenal.
Now under another Marcos Jr., the counterinsurgency plan to quell people’s resistance has stated how it would “strengthen its action” against what it referred to as “legal fronts” of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the NPA, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
“The Government shall enhance its capacity and capabilities in targeting the financial apparatus of terrorists in the country,” read the document titled, National Security Policy 2023-2028.
More than the amount that is stored in these bank accounts, Deinla said that she is more worried about the possible harm that can be done against development workers. “When you are named to be owners of these ‘related accounts’ or if a terror financing case is filed against a person, he or she is implicated in terrorism itself.”
Red-tagging must stop
For Karapatan, Marcos Jr.’s silence on the human rights situation in the country is “much more telling” of his “real priorities than his bombastic rhetoric.”
Watch: TEKA SANDALI | Terror Law at Terror Financing, absurd nga ba?
In a previous statement, the human rights group decried the continued use of these laws to attack activists and government critics. They also highlighted how red-tagging is a means of threatening, harassing, and intimidating those that the government perceives as “enemies.”
The group said, “We cannot allow the US-Marcos regime’s frenzied counter-insurgency drive to run roughshod over our most basic political and civil rights. We call on all freedom-loving Filipinos to forge the broadest possible unity and defeat all forms of state terror and fascist attacks.” (RVO) 
