Combined elements of the police and military illegally arrested couple Rey Claro and Corazon Casambre in Cavite, past midnight of December 6. Rey Casambre is a peace consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The arrest grossly violates his rights under the GRP-NDFP Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

To justify the arrest of the Casambres, PNP operatives shamelessly planted guns and explosives and filed patently trumped-up charges of murder and attempted murder in Davao Oriental. Casambre is the fourth NDFP consultant illegally arrested and detained by the US-Duterte regime.

The consecutive arrests of NDFP consultants form part of Duterte’s worsening fascist clampdown and de facto martial law rule to suppress the democratic groups and all opposition forces in a vain attempt to silence the Filipino people and make them submit to his tyrannical rule.

Casambre’s name was included in the proscription case against the CPP and NPA pending before the courts. Evidently, his arrest forms part of the ongoing suppression campaign in line with Duterte’s National Internal Security Plan with the aim of crushing the revolutionary armed movement and all mass struggles in order to manipulate the outcome of the 2019 elections and push his scheme to establish a fascist dictatorship.