Why is the Marcos Jr. administration suing two women and accusing them of financing the New People’s Army (NPA) by selling them grocery goods serving guerrillas with rice and “adobo.” Theirs are landmark cases that the regime might replicate nationwide in its weird hope of uprooting insurgents from their areas by scaring small businesses and cutting off NPA supply lines. Nonetheless, the laws invoked by the regime were copied or borrowed from the United States or some banana republics.
On Oct. 16, 2024, the two women and their supporters will not only protest the absurd criminal complaints but also demand that the Anti-Terror Act of 2020 (ATA 2020) and the equally badly written Republic Act 10168, also known as the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA) of 2012 be consigned to the dungheap of history. They will be filing their counter-affidavits at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and denouncing what is clearly harassment and oppression by the regime. Their cases are a waste of time and both of them should be reimbursed for the losses to their businesses on account of the demented criminal charges.
Igorot woman and sari-sari store owner Marcylyn Pilala of Mountain Province is accused of supporting the NPA financially by selling merchandise from her store, Both ATA 2020 and TFPSA of 2012 were Invoked as the laws that the storeowner had violated. Serving customers has become a crime for the legal geniuses of the republic. Under the argument advanced by accusers, general merchandise stores must now check on customers and find out if they are guerrillas, civilians, cops, or soldiers. It may even be necessary for them to ask for identification (ID) cards since selling goods to the NPA is now equivalent to “giving aid and comfort to the enemy.” So flawed is this charge that a senior high school student could have the case dismissed for being “in restraint of trade.” The business of stores is selling goods and not donating them. So where is terrorism financing there?
Equally stupid is the waste of Alaiza Lemita’s time. She is accused of giving aid and comfort to the NPA by providing them with “adobo” to go with their rice. Carinderia and restaurant owners provide meals to those who are hungry and they get paid for doing so. The term “restaurant” is French and it refers to ambulant food vendors or food outlets that dispense broths to “restore” the diners. There is nothing subversive about “adobo” served perhaps with soup and a soupcon of “patis.” Yet, Lemita has been slapped with charges for violating ATA 2020 and TFPSA 2012. Do the accusers need to consume heaping servings of “dinakdakan,” which is made of pig’s brain, to understand that carinderias and restaurants are not into the business of checking the backgrounds of diners and neither can they ban anyone who can pay for his meal.
Lemita’s kin was one of the victims of the March 7, 2021 Bloody Sunday Killings in Calabarzon, when activists were simultaneously murdered in Laguna, Batangas and Cavite. Her kinship is not an aggravating circumstance and certainly is not a basis for tagging her as the Tandang Sora of modern-day Katipuneros. While 17 policemen were charged with the Bloody Sunday Killings, the relatives of the victims have yet to see justice. In fact, the same killings can be elevated to the International Crime Court (ICC) since those murders were summary killings committed not in the pursuit of the “war on drugs” but on Duterte’s war against the Filipino people.
The Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (Katribu) has condemned the filing of the charges against Pilala and Lemita, which sends a chill down the spine of every storeowner and carinderia operator and is so ludicrous that young prosecutors at the Department of Justice (DOJ) would be amused by the legal theory behind the accusations. The goods were paid, the meals were paid, so where is the purported “financing” of the purported NPA guerrillas. “This shows the absurdity of the Anti-Terror Law wherein its vague and overbroad provisions can be abused by authorities to subject ordinary and simple civilians to trumped-up charges based on acts which are evidently innocuous,” Katribu argued.
The filing of these counter-affidavits comes amid the snowballing demand for ATA 2020, which has been criticized for its weaponization against activists and marginalized communities, to be scrapped. TFPSA has also been used to target those who advocate the rights and welfare of the people, it added. “Both ATA 2020 and TFPSA 2012 have been used to red tag and wrongfully accuse and designate individuals and organizations as terrorists, leading to graver human rights violations. There will be a protest action in front of the DOJ. Indigenous Peoples, human rights defenders, and advocates will reiterate their call to repeal the ATA and TFPSA,” Katribu concluded.
If these DOJ blokes were more rational than their bosses, they would see their jaws drop to the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces as they read the allegations. Even store managers at Jollibee, Mang Inasal, McDonald’s, Tropical Hut, Max’s, Pancake House, and Burger King would feel threatened that they could be charged if they served burgers, chicken joy, “pecho,” “paa,” roast beef, fried chicken, pancakes and whoppers to guests suspected to be NPA members and leaders. These are food outlets, not checkpoints of the PNP, the military, and Comelec. Same thing goes to SM, Ayala Malls, and commercial centers that sell goods to suspected guerrillas. They can all be bunched up as supporters of “terrorism” for selling diapers and milk for babies, sardines and corned beef, and anything for the “panustos” of the people’s army. The stupidity of the Duterte regime is so pervasive that it has invaded the brains of its successor administration.
