FACT’s weaponization of social media to explicitly name organizations and…individuals is a well rehearsed counterinsurgency tactic of the Philippine government.
By Hannah Keziah Agustin
Bulatlat.com
NEW YORK CITY — Filipino Americans who come home to the Philippines to look into the reality of their countrymen is a decision they made on their own.
This is the assertion of the progressive groups in the United States after an organization called Filipino-Americans against Communist Terrorism (FACT) made a statement on what they call a “growing number of Fil-ams being recruited by the New People’s Army (NPA).”
“We know that young people who go back home to the Philippines are making a conscious choice to serve their community,” said Nieves Delgado, Bagong Alyasang Mabayan-USA secretary general said in an interview with Bulatlat.
Delgado said FACT spreads a false narrative such as Filipino Americans are being brainwashed and are not capable of critical thinking. “The material conditions are pushing Fil-Ams and Filipinos overseas to organize,” Delgado said.
Delgado first encountered FACT in 2021 while the group was distributing flyers against the Philippine Human Rights Act (PHRA) at small businesses in Little Manila, Queens.
FACT also handed out flyers in Jersey City, where there is a high concentration of working class Filipinos. Filipino small business owners who local mass organizations have built relationships with shared this information with Delgado.
Since then, FACT has been terror-tagging local chapters of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Anakbayan, and Migrante. This is in line with the international pillar of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
“FACT is an NTF-ELCAC-backed organization,” said Delgado.
The 2026 budget for the NTF-ELCAC is P8.1 billion ($138.4 million), a 314-percent increase from the past year.
The group, she said, has been especially active in the Northeast because former Consul General of the Philippine Consulate General in New York (PCGNY) Elmer Cato was appointed as the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Assistant Secretary for Civilian Security in 2025, and the head of the International Engagement Cluster of the NTF-ELCAC.
Bayan-USA believes that FACT was formed by the Philippine Consulate under Cato, especially since they have witnessed the group entering and exiting the PCGNY building during his tenure.
NTF-ELCAC Spokesperson Joel Sy Egco released a petition on behalf of FACT calling on the US government to do an investigation of American citizens and dual citizens involved in progressive groups. Egco went as far as urging the Department of Homeland Security to check the immigration status of activists and deport them.
‘Members of the Fil-Am community who want peace’?
On their Facebook page, FACT describes itself as “members of the Filipino-American community who want to help bring about peace and development in the Philippines by spearheading efforts in the United States to put an end to communist terrorism in our motherland.”
According to Bayan-USA, FACT was reactivated when Filipino-American activist Chantal Anicoche, 24, was allegedly found by the military days after the bombing in Sitio Mamara, Barangay Cabacao, Abra de Ilog. She was held under the custody of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for four weeks. After calls from the international community for the AFP to release her and uphold humanitarian law, she was returned to her family in Maryland on January 31.
There are also social media posts by FACT and the military calling on the NPA to release Cristina Pasion, a member of Migrante International. The call stemmed after 2nd Infantry Division of the AFP released a handwritten note, claiming it to be written by Pasion, that they supposedly retrieved from the battlegrounds in Mindoro.
The Compatriots-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the revolutionary organization of Filipinos overseas, released a statement saying that the AFP “spews lies to deter overseas Filipinos from joining people’s struggle.”
“Like many Filipinos abroad, she chose to reconnect with her homeland and understand the roots of poverty and injustice,” Compatriots-NDFP said in an earlier statement. “This stands in contrast to the government’s policy of forced migration, which pushes Filipinos overseas instead of addressing the structural causes of their suffering.”
Compatriots-NDFP called on Filipinos overseas to go back home in this time of extreme economic and political crisis. “Let us learn from and participate in the people’s struggle directly rather than be estranged from our homeland and worked to death abroad.”
FACT’s reactivation early this year also coincides with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ‘s bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in June.
“He is trying to set himself up as a champion of human rights and security but that security means counterinsurgency,” said Delgado. “Marcos is the biggest security threat to the Filipino people.”
Coming back home to learn
Last April 19, the 79th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army indiscriminately fired upon Toboso, Negros Occidental, and killed 19 people, including two Filipino American activists Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem who were integrating with peasant communities in the region.
“Lyle and Cristina are examples of kababayan who reversed the LEP [labor export policy],” said Kai Marie, chairperson of Migrante USA.
The LEP has pushed thousands of Filipinos to seek employment abroad, and has for decades kept the Philippine economy afloat. “They experienced what it was like in the US, and then went back to the Philippines to learn from the masses,” Marie said.
For Marie, the government would rather violently suppress those that are fighting for change rather than address the root problems of migration.
FACT released a statement claiming that the two were among those exploited and deceived by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
“They said they’re grieving our kababayan but they’re really part of the system that killed them,” said Delgado. She added that the terror-tagging of individuals and organizations becomes the basis for arrest, unlawful detainment, and extrajudicial killing.
Malaya Movement USA also condemned the red-tagging done by FACT to scare Filipino people to not speak up against injustice. FACT claimed that Malaya Movement, Bayan, Anakbayan, and Migrante are “run by CPP cadres”.
“FACT’s weaponization of social media to explicitly name organizations and…individuals is a well rehearsed counterinsurgency tactic of the Philippine government that has resulted in so many deaths of activists, journalists, students,” said Malaya Movement in a statement on Instagram.
Bayan-USA believes the existence of NTF-ELCAC is a desperate attempt by the state to quell resistance. “The resistance will always be there as long as the conditions are there—as the economic crisis worsens, as corrupt politicians get richer.”Delgado said, “It is not a crime to go home. The real terrorist is the Philippine military which attacks its own people.” (AMU, RVO)
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