RESPONDING to a data released by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines claims to have compensated owners of civilian properties which were destroyed in the process of enforcing CPP’s laws to protect the environment.
“As regards civilian property destroyed or damaged in the course of an NPA (New People’s Army) military action, as a rule, the NPA always remunerates the owner,” CPP information officer Marco L. Valbuena said.
“In mounting military offensives, the NPA always ensures that no civilian will be hurt or no civilian property will be damaged. Those who suffered damage are compensated,” Valbuena said.
CPP’s statement came after the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claimed that 532 incidents of attacks on civilian properties were perpetrated by communist groups since 2010.
According to the AFP, most of the attacks were done through torching of private properties by members of the CPP-NPA-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
Further, it said that the incident list was submitted by the AFP Human Rights Office (AFP HRO) to the Commission on Human Rights on January 7, the military said.
But the CPP downplayed the AFP’s submission to the CHR as the body does not have jurisdiction over the communist groups.
“It would have been better if the AFP submitted their complaints to the NDFP section of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC), which is tasked to monitor violations of the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL),” Valbuena said.
“Complaints filed before the JMC can be acted upon by the NDFP and the CPP-NPA,” he added.
Further, Valbuena said the communist organization expressed doubt over the destroyed civilian properties the AFP is referring to, and slammed the military for making false claims.
“We would not be surprised if their report is dotted with false information or ‘fake news’,” Valbuena said.
“Just last year, the AFP concocted a story of a church supposedly burned down by the NPA in Opol, Misamis Oriental, when in fact, there was no NPA unit in that area,” he added.
If the AFP is referring to some equipment used by “destructive mining companies” or “logging companies” to “plunder and destroy the environment,” the CPP officer stressed that the NPA is enforcing the laws and policies of the People’s Democratic Government (PDG), which ranges from rules on the protection of the environment to rules on taxation.
“As the latter, the NPA at times is ordered to seize and optionally paralyze or disable the property of some enterprises that violate the laws of the PDG,” Valbuena pointed out.
“This is no different from how the Philippine government seizes properties of those who have violated its laws, which it also sometimes destroys to prevent them from being used to further violate laws,” he said.
Meanwhile, Valbuena said that it is fine that the AFP is holding the NPA to high standards of human rights and international humanitarian law.
“Indeed, as a revolutionary organization, the NPA holds itself accountable not only to its own set of rules and discipline, but also to the CARHRIHL [Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law], as well as to Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions to which the NDFP declared its adherence to,” Valbuena said.
“This accountability of the CPP and NPA are recognized by various humanitarian organizations as well as governments, who consider the CPP and NPA as revolutionaries and not as terrorists,” he added.
Nonetheless, he noted that the NPA gives primordial concern to the protection of the interests and welfare of the masses.
“A cornerstone policy that every NPA Red fighter takes to heart is: ‘Do not take a single needle or piece of thread from the masses’,” he said. “The NPA’s basic rules also require the NPA and its fighters to pay fairly for everything bought, to return everything borrowed, to pay for any damage to the people’s properties and to not damage their crops,” he added.