MANILA, Philippines — The groups tagged by the Philippine government as front organizations of communist rebels that allegedly received funding from the European Union and Belgium called the accusations “lies” and “baseless.”
Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief deputy chief of staff for civil military operations, said EU’s ambassador had admitted that the regional bloc was supposed to release about two million euros this year to the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines—an inter-diocesan and inter-congregational organization of religious, priest and lay people.
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Parlade also claimed that Belgium has also provided funds to seven Philippine organizations. Among these groups are Karapatan and IBON Foundation.
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These groups have been tagged by the Philippine government as front organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.
Parlade said that the supposed EU funding for some groups has been placed on hold and that the regional bloc has asked the Duterte administration to present evidence proving that these groups have ties with the rebels.
“We are not saying that all these NGOs are being exploited by the Communist Party of the Philippines. We are studying what organizations are benefiting from these funds. But (those are) only two entities, the EU and the Belgian government,” he said in a press briefing Wednesday.
But rights group Karapatan and think-tank IBON Foundation denied the allegations of government officials.
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‘Baseless, absurd’
Sonny Africa, executive director of IBON Foundation, called the Duterte administration’s accusations “malicious, baseless and absurd.”
“Its insistence on a self-serving fake narrative of the country makes it attack IBON for speaking the truth. This government is afraid of the truth and truth tellers. It should be—these always outlast lies and liars,” Africa said on Twitter.
Karapatan, for its part, reiterated that the human rights group is not a front organization of communist rebels.
“We are a non-profit non-government organization, registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights; and we do not receive funding from the European Union,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.
She added: “Our human rights monitoring and documentation work, national and international advocacy and services for victims of rights violations speak for our work - all of which we do with or without funding from foreign governments.”
‘Human rights work is not a crime’
In the same press briefing, Severo Catura, presidential human rights committee undersecretary, said that countering allegations of groups aligned with communists remains a challenge.
“The modern human rights narrative is really a result of the influence of many front organizations masquerading as NGOs and human rights defenders,” Catura said, adding that the government needs to “fix” the said narrative.
But for Karapatan’s Palabay, “human rights work and advocacy is a duty; it is not an act of terrorism, it is not a crime.”
“The Duterte administration is so hell-bent on cleaning up its mess, a bloody human rights record that has been condemned by the international community, that it relentlessly vilifies human rights defenders who are the most vocal critics of the Duterte administration,” Palabay said.
She added that the purpose of the government’s trip to Europe—which she dubbed as a “PR blitz”—was to make the Duterte administration look good amid allegations of extrajudicial killings, torture, illegal arrest and detention, hamletting and forcible evacuation.
The Philippine delegation to a UN session in Europe last month responded to claims of human rights abuses in the country.
“It is a misinformation campaign to mislead international actors from unravelling the truth—that it has always been the state who has acted as the real terrorist,” Palabay said.
Karapatan, RMP and Kabataan party-list on Tuesday filed complaints at the Commission on Human Rights over the red-tagging and terrorist-labeling of these organizations.
In the letter submitted to CHR chairperson Jose Luis Gascon, Karapatan said that attacks against the organization increased during the watch of President Rodrigo Duterte. It stressed that these attacks put the lives and liberty of the organization’s members at “grave risk.”
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