The Communist Party of the Philippines vehemently condemns the arrest of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Rey Claro Casambre and activist Corazon Casambre by combined elements of the police and military in Cavite, past midnight last night. The arrest grossly violates Rey Casambre’s rights under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) between the GRP and the NDFP.

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.

The arrest of the Casambres 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. More attacks against the legal democratic mass movement are imminent.

The Casambres’ arrest follow that of NDFP consultants Adelberto Silva and Vicente Ladlad and their companions over the past several weeks. Earlier this year, police also arrested and incarcerated Rafael Baylosis adding to several peace consultants of the NDFP in detention. Casambre, Silva, Ladlad and Baylosis are among the 600 names of activists and political personalities included in the proscription case against the CPP and NPA pending before the courts.

Their arrest form 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.