Read in: Hiligaynon

Apolinario Gatmaitan Command of the New People’s Army in Negros Island (AGC-NPA) spokesperson Ka Juanito Magbanua remarked through a statement that the Joint Focused Legal Action Team (JFLAT) – 6 has no other aim but to persecute activists, mass leaders, the opposition and critics of the Duterte government in Western Visayas.

The JFLAT 6 of the Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF-ELCAC 6) in a conference last month declared stepping up its legal battle against communist rebels.

“Its purpose is to continue the harassment, red-tagging up to killings and prolong terror. This will only result to a long list of the Duterte regimes’ widespread abuses and violations of human rights,” said Magbanua.

Meanwhile, according to 3rd Infantry Division spokesperson Maj. Cenon Pancito III the JFLAT believes that strengthening their legal move will give life to the Anti-Terror Law (ATL).

But Magbanua argued that the ATL has placed the Philippines under de facto martial law controlled by retired generals from the AFP/PNP and their boss Duterte.

“JFLAT-6 using the ATL will twist the concept of justice. It will use the law to illegalize the legitimate interests and just struggles of the people. It will militarize the courts disrespecting due process and democratic rights,” he said.

The ATL, officially designated as Republic Act No. 11479 and signed into law a year ago, was passed in congress while the entire country was facing the Covid-19 pandemic.

“All of this exposes the treasonous, tyrannical, militarist and butcher character of the US-Duterte regime. It only proves the justness of the national democratic revolution waged by the people under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines,” said Magbanua.

He further stated that there is no bright future especially for the farmers and workers if the root of the people’s suffering that is the semicolonial and semifeudal rule of US imperialism, and the big compradors and landlords will not be changed.

He added that it is necessary to strengthen the revolutionary movement through collective unity of the entire people in order to frustrate the evil intent of the tyrannical regime to stay in power beyond 2022 and that the Filipino masses will make Duterte accountable for his crimes and blood debts along with the tactical offensives of the NPA to overthrow the Duterte regime.###