A court order excluding four prominent leftist personalities from the Duterte administration’s terror list does not set back the government’s bid to legally declare the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, New People’s Army (NPA) as “terrorist” organizations, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said on Thursday.
The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 on July 27 declared former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, United Nations rapporteur Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpuz and National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultants Rafael Baylosis and Jose Melencio Molintas “nonparties” to the case.
The four were among the more than 600 individuals whom the Department of Justice had reported to the court as members of the CPP-NPA.
“The only real respondents are the CPP and the NPA … who are the party-respondents in the petition to declare them as terrorist organizations,” — DONA Z. PAZZIBUGAN