KARAPATAN decried the filing of trumped-up terrorist financing charges against five Cagayan Valley-based activists, noting that there has been an uptick in such cases in the run-up to the visit to the Philippines of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global body that purportedly sets international standards to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. The FATF met with government officials on January 20 to 21, 2025.
Peasant activist and former political prisoner Isabelo Adviento was recently served a subpoena dated January 10, 2025 directing him to answer charges of violating the law against terrorist financing. Also accused with Adviento are fellow peasant activist Cita Managuelod, Karapatan human rights worker Jackie Valencia, Makabayan-Cagayan Valley coordinator Agnes Mesina and writer, photojournalist and environmental activist Deo Montesclaros.
Prior to this, warrants of arrest had been issued against development workers of the Paghidaet sa Kauswagan Development Group (PDG) in Negros facing similar charges. Trumped-up terrorist financing cases had also been filed against United Methodist Church pastors in Zamboanga Sibugay.
The Cebu-based Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET), Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) and the Leyte Center for Development (LCDe) are likewise among the development NGOs that have been slapped with terrorist financing charges, along with people’s organizations like the Cordillera People’s Alliance and the Amihan National Federation of Peasant Women.
“The Marcos Jr. regime has been accusing activists left and right of financing terrorism in its attempt to exit the FATF’s “grey list” of governments deemed to have fallen short of FATF’s standards of combatting money laundering and terrorism financing,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay. “Thus the flurry of arbitrary cases filed against activists and their organizations who have long been in the crosshairs of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).”
“Those accused have had their assets frozen and subjected to civil forfeiture proceedings, thus derailing their projects meant to alleviate the sufferings of poor and marginalized communities,” said Palabay.
“We demand the repeal of the terror laws that are being increasingly weaponized by the State against activists and other dissenters to comply with the FATF’s impositions,” asserted Palabay. “The NTF-ELCAC must be abolished for being the foremost red- and terror-tagger and instigator of such trumped-up charges,” she added. “The manufactured terror cases against activists must be dismissed, and the freeze orders on their assets lifted,” concluded Palabay.