BAGUIO CITY (August 3, 2021)— Government is spooking on congressmen, governors, vice-governors and even former senators for financially aiding communist guerillas.
Alex Paul Monteagudo, director general of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) bared at the start of the week, they ‘are now looking into individuals who provided support to the CPP-NPA including politicians.’
Begging off though their names could not be revealed as of yet as investigation is still ongoing, Monteagudo hinted that the politicians involved either gave arms like M16 rifles or rice to NPA rebels especially during election periods.
This, as government spooks found out that the CPP-NPA-NDF, according to the NICA, “have collected a whopping P5.8 billion from 2016 to 2018 alone to finance their terroristic activities in the country and to support the lavish lifestyles of their leaders.”
Government is also into deep in finding out about how 87 firms financially supported or “gave-in” rebel taxation.
“We will be running after them. We will hold them liable,” the NICA chief said, referring to the new Anti-Terrorism Act and Republic Act 10168 that outlaws financing terrorism.
But the CPP criticized the NTF-ELCAC for “setting the stage for its drive to extort and intimidate business firms and politicians”. This is clearly another case of the US-Duterte regime using its counterinsurgency campaign to secure the outcome of the 2022 elections and its scheme to perpetuate its dynasty in power, Marco Valbuena, spokesman of the CPP Central Committee said in a statement.
“Since assuming power, Duterte has been using every possible tactic to extort money from big businessmen by threatening or actually hitting at their operations with charges of tax fraud and other methods,” he cited, further adding, “over the past year, Duterte shut down the free broadcast operations of ABS-CBN and wrested control of water concessions from the Ayalas and Pangilinans in order to hand it over to his crony Enrique Razon.”
While, investigation has also been launched on 18 international Non-Goverment Organizations (NGOs) that allegedly funded CPP-NPA-NDF’s “project proposals bearing false advocacies with their allied organizations and the partylist groups”. Atty. Emet Manantan, Deputy Director and Head of Financial Crime Investigation Group of the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC) bared, donations varied from millions of ‘Euros’ to thousands of ‘Dollars’ based on what were asked from the donors. “These were remitted through banks and received in percentages.”
Manantan claimed they were able to trace the transactions when the amount of donation reached the AMLC threshold, enabling them to identify the countries where the money came from; determine the bank where the donations were coursed; and the people who withdrew the money.
“Based on information shared by our counterparts,” Manantan said, they were also able to identify the persons who processed with the bank and withdrew the funds. These people became the AMLC witnesses “dahil nandun siya sa mga documents, that she/he is part of the scheme.” The withdrawn money was then handed to local units of the CTGs, he added.
