Mary, Comforter of the Afflicted Parish Church in Maricaban, Pasay City, in the Philippines. / Judgefloro via Wikimedia (CC0 1.0).More than a dozen people, including some Catholic nuns, have been charged with allegedly financing terrorists under the Philippines’ strict anti-terror legislation.
According to UCA News, sixteen persons have been charged by the country’s Justice Department for supporting the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military branch, the New People’s Army (NPA), which the Philippine government has designated as a terrorist organisation.
If proven guilty, the defendants – whose identities have not been disclosed – face up to 40 years in jail and a punishment of 500,000 to 1 million Philippine pesos, or $10,000 to 20,000 US dollars.
The nuns are affiliated with the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, a Catholic organisation that has been engaged in the Philippines since 1969, assisting and educating the underprivileged. According to the group’s website, RMP is neither an order or congregation, and religious members remain members of their individual communities and priests of their dioceses.
In 2019, the Philippines’ Justice Department blocked many of the group’s bank accounts after two witnesses claimed that RMP had transferred money to the country’s Communist Party. The RMP has repeatedly denied any involvement with Communist operations in the Philippines, claiming that part of their educational objective is to educate impoverished people about their rights, not communism.
“This is absurd. We are not a communist organization or a communist front. We are not financing terrorist activities through our projects. Our projects are all well-documented, audited, and accounted for,” Sister Elenita Belardo, RMP national coordinator, told Rappler in March 2019.
According to UCA News, “red-tagging” or “red-baiting” has been widespread in the Philippines since the 1960s. According to UCA News, “red-tagging” is the “malicious” practise of designating people or organisations as “terrorists” or “communists” because they have opposed the government. Human rights organisations have criticised the Justice Department of rushing the process and denying the nuns the ability to defend themselves.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte, who was in office from 2016 until June of this year, enacted the anti-terror statute under which the nuns have been accused. Duterte, who became well-known for his harsh methods in combating drug-related criminality in the Philippines, openly fought with the Church on multiple occasions.
According to NPR, anybody who authorities believe has incited terrorism by “speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, banners, and other representations” might face punishment under the statute in issue. The country’s Supreme Court affirmed the majority of the 2020 legislation as constitutional, but striking down a part that they felt was extremely wide in defining what constituted terrorism, potentially restricting the exercise of civil rights such as advocacy, rallies, and strikes.
The Philippines’ Catholic bishops have compared the anti-terror bill to the highly condemned national security regulations that took effect in Hong Kong in 2020 and that China imposed on Hong Kong to tighten control by criminalising broad definitions of “sedition” and “colluding with foreign forces.”
The country’s bishops noted in a July 2020 pastoral letter that the anti-terror law was rushed through during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and that it poses a “serious threat to the fundamental freedoms of all peaceful Filipinos” whose advocacy activities could be labelled as terrorism by unfriendly politicians.
“We know full well that it is one thing to be actually involved in a crime and another thing to be merely suspected or accused of committing a crime,” the bishops noted.
Former President Duterte suggested in a December 2019 address that people should “kill and steal” from Catholic priests, adding that “this stupid bunch serve no purpose – all they do is criticize.” He also referred to the bishops as “idiots” and “sons of wh-res,” and advised the people to remain at home and pray rather than attend church services. According to one spokesperson, Duterte’s antipathy to the Church derives from sexual molestation as a child at a Catholic school.
Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos Jr., the Philippines’ freshly sworn-in president, is the son of the late lengthy dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, whose frequently harsh authoritarian controlling style and corrupt activities also produced confrontations with the Catholic Church and contributed to his demise in 1986. The Catholic faith is practised by the great majority of the Philippines’ 103 million people.