Lot's of interesting things have been happening in the Philippines' war against the insurgency and the quest for peace in Mindanao. Here is something interesting:
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/regions/762029/westmincom-chief-vinluan-says-abu-sayyaf-leader-indama-already-dead/story/ |
Furuji Indama, the Abu Sayyaf group leader operating in Basilan, is already dead, Armed Forces Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom) chief Lieutenant General Corleto Vinluan Jr. said Friday.
In a phone interview with GMA News Online, Vinluan said the family of Indama already knew about his death.
"Of course we are monitoring his family ... his family already knows that he is really dead," Vinluan said.
"But he is really dead, of course he is 100% dead when his body is there ..." he added.
Vinluan said the military continues to look for Indama's body.
If they are looking for his body and he allegedly died in September 2020 then they won't find it as the Islamic custom is to bury it within 24 hours. Don't forget the AFP thought Hapilon was dead or wounded a few months before the Marawi siege when they bombed Butig. They were very wrong about that.
We all know that the Philippines relies heavily on the US military for weapons, equipment, and training in the fight against terrorism. But did you know that the EU is also involved in the peace process in Mindanao?
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1120755 |
The European Union (EU) reaffirmed its commitment to support the Philippines' peace process as it welcomed the designation of Heino Marius as the new chair of the Third Party Monitoring Team (TPMT).
“The European Union is pleased to note that the Peace Implementing Panels of the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have designated Heino Marius as Chair of the Third Party Monitoring Team," Thomas Wiersing, Chargé d'Affaires a.i. of the EU Delegation in Manila said in a statement on November 3.
Since 2008, the EU has been one of the biggest supporters of the Mindanao Peace Process through a comprehensive approach.
The EU supported political settlement by providing a Humanitarian and Human Rights Law Expert to the International Monitoring Team.
The EU is currently finding ways to further help vulnerable groups through its programs in Mindanao.
Under the program Peace and Development in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PD BARMM), around PHP1.4 billion have been allocated to improve the social cohesion and resiliency of communities in the region, as well as to address the health, social and economic impact of Covid-19 in the region.
The aid also seeks to consolidate the hard-won peace in Bangsamoro by supporting the new administration, the parliament, the judicial system, and civil society through the transition.
Rise Mindanao, a PHP2-billion EU initiative, meanwhile, focuses on the immediate priority of food security by supporting agro-cooperatives and strengthening the service delivery of local authorities.
In the last five years, the EU Delegation in Manila said it has provided a total of PHP1.4 billion in humanitarian aid operations as life-saving assistance to people affected by armed conflict or natural disasters.
The EU has spent billions and has been involved in the peace process in Mindanao since 2008. Really puts Duterte's whole FU, EU tirade into perspective. He cannot possibly be ignorant of their efforts with the peace process in his hometown province of Mindanao.
The Senate is conducting a red-tagging investigation instigated by NTF-ECLAC Chairman Gen. Parlade's comments in the past few weeks. When will they be investigating the Marawi siege? My guess is "Never!" There are some interesting revelations coming out of this event, even more so if they are true.
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| https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1356154/cpp-gets-a-cut-from-infra-projects-claims-alleged-former-rebel-celiz |
The Communist Party of the Philippines has been receiving cuts from the contractors of infrastructure projects, Jeffrey Celiz, who claims to be a former communist rebel, said on Tuesday in a Senate red-tagging investigation.
“If there is one single biggest mafia-style, highly organized, most prolific extortion machinery to come before the face of the earth, it’s the CPP-NPA-NDF,” Celiz said, referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, and the National Democratic Front.
“The government has not been able to stop that,” he added.
The CPP, he said, was able to get information about projects — their locations, costs, and project managers — from the Department of Public Works and Highways itself.
Celiz also claimed that the CPP could “make” the two largest telecommunication companies in the country pay them a combined P200 million “every year.”
He did not elaborate.
“Is that not a threat?” he said.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who led the hearing as chair of the Senate defense panel, said Celiz’s claims — both on the telcos and the infrastructure projects — were an “open secret.”
According to Lacson, the NPA takes a 2-percent cut on infrastructure projects.
“Nothing moves, especially in their areas of influence, without the 2 percent from the contractor,” he said.
“That’s in addition to the percentage of some congressmen,” Lacson added.
The communist groups, Celiz said, were able to “circumvent’ the Anti-Money Laundering Council by establishing a “network of conduit NGOs.”
These NGOs, he said, “channel funds” amounting to P300 million to P400 million from “partners” in European countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
Lacson instructed Celiz to submit to the Senate committee lists of NGOs supposedly acting as conduits for the CPP.
The implications of this testimony, if true, are very troubling. It would mean that the DPWH is actively working with the CPP-NPA alerting them to various projects from which they can then extort money. It would also mean that PLDT and Globe are also helping the NPA by giving them billions each year.
According to Senator Lacson everyone knows these accusations are an "open secret." That raises so many questions and places everyone in the DPWH under suspicion. Oddly enough neither the DPWH, Globe, nor PLDT has denied these allegations.
Earlier in the year Globe denied allegations they have been paying NPA taxes which had previously been made by Manila Times columnist Rigoberto Tiglao in 2018 and 2020. Tiglao claimed that the proof was found on flash drives recovered from the house of an NPA leader who was killed in March.
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| https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/06/10/opinion/columnists/topanalysis/communists-get-p1-9b-from-telcos-other-firms/730659/ |
THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has extracted P1.9 billion from private companies, the bulk of it from the country’s telecommunication (telco) firms, which explains to a large extent the survival of this armed insurgency.
The data was retrieved from memory flash drives found in the quarters of party Chairman Julius Giron — known in inner party circles as Ka Nars — who was killed last March 13 in a Baguio suburb, allegedly by a military intelligence unit supported by local police.
According to the data, “telecom” gave P1.4 billion to the CPP out of the P1.9 billion total from companies described as from the transport, manufacturing, tobacco and power industries, as well as from candidates for elective posts (“one-time deals”).
The huge funds the CPP has raised, ironically, have become a source of strife within the party, a military intelligence document claimed:
“In 2014, prior to their arrest, then-Chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife Wilma Austria [who is the party’s chief financial officer] were being questioned by the Central Committee for the millions of undisbursed funds collected by the party from the donations under the guise of disaster response and humanitarian assistance for the victims of Typhoon ‘Yolanda’ in 2013. The couple has not justified the distribution and whereabouts of the said millions of funds causing unrest and distrust among the central leadership of the party and its rank and file.”
December last year, Duterte drew flak when his pronouncement during a visit at the Communist Party of the Philippines quoted him as saying that he pays revolutionary tax. A youtube video later circulated accusing him of giving P125 million as annual revolutionary taxes.
He clarified that he attended the CPP anniversary at a Typhoon Pablo-affected area where he gave some amount for the typhoon victims; the funds were sourced out from private donors. He said he merely kidded that the funds were the taxes that he would pay to NPAs, but because there was no barangay captain around to receive the donation, he coursed it through local NPA leaders.
The fact that Duterte has been close to the NPA for his whole career and his open support for them is public knowledge yet he has faced no sanctions from the DOJ should sober anyone. It means that if the allegations against Globe, PLDT, and the DPWH are true and they are collaborating with the NPA then we should expect nothing to happen.
The so-called Senate Red-Tagging hearings are a joke. The AFP insists that the CPP has legal fronts operating in the country and the Makabayan Bloc is a part of those fronts. Their main source is Joma Sison who said in a 1988 speech:
That is the most progressive productive and political force in the Philippines. It is true that a minority class, especially only the party which represents it, cannot win there at the Philippine revolution all by itself. Any rate even while there are the forces around revolution there are the legal democratic forces in the Philippines the biggest of this is Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or BAYAN. It has a membership of more than 2 million members and more than 1,000 member organizations.
Its biggest component organizations are Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), which is the labor center; Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP); GABRIELA, the women’s alliance; League of Filipino Students (LFS); Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), Kadamay and so on.
Joma Sison claims this tape has been spliced and that it's all a lie.
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| https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/762669/joma-sison-denies-linking-orgs-as-legal-fronts-of-cpp-says-military-spliced-his-video/story/ |
"I spoke in Belgium, in Brussels in 1988 and the Philippine military was able to get hold of the video. They spliced the video to make it appear that I said that the legal democratic organizations are fronts in the sense that they are façades. I never used that kind of language," Sison told ANC.
"As a matter of fact, I differentiated the legal forces of the national democratic movement from the armed revolutionary movement. It's stupid of the military to splice this. I used to call them military morons but I call them idiots," Sison added.
The military has since denied the red-tagging accusations against them, insisting that it was Sison who had named these alleged legal fronts.
To claim the military has spliced this footage seems rather superfluous and silly as the footage was uploaded to Youtube 13 years ago on a channel that has only two videos and less than 20,000 views. The name of the channel is Drysison which could be an allusion to Luis Sison. Watching the video it's hard to determine if there is a splice or not because it is low quality VHS with bad tracking. Perhaps Joma Sison will provide the public with the full interview and transcript.
Here is where the joke part of these hearings come in. Despite the AFP claiming that Joma Sison has red-tagged the Makabayn Bloc they admit that nothing illegal is being done.
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| https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/11/05/2054777/makabayan-bloc-not-doing-anything-illegal-congress-esperon-admits |
National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon conceded Thursday that the leftist Makabayan bloc is not doing anything illegal in Congress, but maintained his allegation that they are controlled by the underground communist movement.
“They are not doing anything illegal in Congress,” Hermogenes told CNN Philippines’ “The Source.” “But there are underground organizations that they — whether wittingly or unwittingly — support that are connected with the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army and the underground National Democratic Front.”
They are not doing anything illegal but they are supporting terrorist organizations but we can't prove it! Very compelling. Not really. If the AFP has all the evidence then why not use it? Why not lodge the appropriate charges?
Aside from the Sison interview the other proof offered that the Makabayan Bloc operates as a front for the CPP is the membership list of the International League of People's Struggles.
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| https://ilps.info/en/organizations/ |
While Joma Sison did found this organization in 2001 to follow the logic of the AFP one would have to believe that every single organization on the list is fronting for the CPP. That would include groups from the USA, New Zealand, and elsewhere. Is the Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites really a front for the CPP? What's really interesting about this list is how many branches of these Philippine groups there are in each nation. Particularly Gabriela. Why are they there? That is something for the AFP to investigate.
After 50 years of rebellion one would think the AFP would be rather strict and decisive in targeting those who assist the CPP-NPA. Sadly this is not the case as one of the CPP-NPA's biggest supporters is the President and he has never faced any consequences for his support while being Mayor of Davao.
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