‘Sparrows’ may return in response to activists’ arrest – Joma

QC JUDGE ASSAILED Members of the human rights group Karapatan and their supporters protest on Wednesday against Executive Judge Cecilyn Burgos-Villavert of Quezon City Regional
Trial Court Branch 89, whose pictures they displayed (left photo) for issuing the search warrants that led to the arrest of 62 activists in Manila and Negros Occidental. —PHOTOS BY GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

LUCENA CITY, Quezon, Philippines — The Duterte administration is constricting the democratic space in the country by launching a crackdown on its critics, particularly from the legal leftist movement, unwittingly pushing them to armed resistance, according to Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Sison, who lives in exile in the Netherlands, said in response to a question that he could not tell whether the recent arrests of activists would prompt the communist New People’s Army (NPA) to resurrect its “sparrow units,” or hit squads.

“I do not know. I have no answer to that question,” he told the Inquirer in an online interview on Wednesday from the Dutch city of Utrecht. “But perhaps it could happen if there is no more space for patriotic and progressive forces in urban areas.”

Citing CPP and NPA publications, Sison said the communist insurgents were reviving armed city partisan units while preparing commando teams based in the countryside that could be deployed to cities on missions.

Active in ’70s, ’80s

The communist hit squads were notorious for assassinating abusive police, military and government officials and “enemies of the revolution,” particularly those with “blood debts,” in the ’70s and ’80s. They also engaged in “agaw-armas,” or snatching weapons.

Their operations have waned, but the NPA still maintains special partisan units called “sparu” or “sparrow.”

Sison said the military and police forces “of the de facto fascist dictatorship are running amok.”

“They are hell-bent on violating the national and democratic rights of the people, the social activists and their organizations under the pretext of anticommunism,” he said.

Sison said “state terrorism is running high” and many activists were being Red-tagged, abducted, murdered or arrested with planted evidence.

“Unwittingly, they are driving more people to join the armed revolution like during the period of the Marcos fascist dictatorship,” he said.

62 arrests in a week

In less than a week, at least 62 activists have been arrested in raids on the offices of leftwing groups in Manila and in Bacolod City and Escalante in Negros Occidental by police who served search warrants issued by only one judge—Executive Judge Cecilyn E. Burgos-Villavert of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 89.

The activists belonging to Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and their allies are facing charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives after guns and grenades were allegedly seized from their offices. They claimed the weapons were planted by the police.

About 20 members of the human rights group Karapatan and their supporters picketed the Quezon City Hall of Justice on Wednesday, slamming Villavert for her alleged role in initiating what they said was the “spate of raids and judicial harassment” that led to the “arbitrary arrest” of activists.

“Cloaked in seemingly lawful processes, we are seeing a blatant subversion and weaponization of the law,” said Karapatan deputy secretary general Roneo Clamor.

“Planting of evidence, political persecution of activists, filing of trumped-up charges, and continuing judicial harassment have been plaguing legal advocacy groups in the country,” he added.

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers had written Villavert requesting for documents related to the search warrants but the judge’s office responded saying she will only provide the papers if ordered by a court, according to Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.

Old formula

Minority lawmakers also denounced the mass arrest.

In a handwritten statement from her detention cell at Camp Crame, Sen. Leila de Lima on Wednesday said the arrests and raids were “another blatant attack on political dissent” in the guise of law enforcement operations in accordance with “Duterte’s manual on tyranny.”

“(This) is an old formula for repression, abusing and forcing the judicial processes to give way to the whims of this administration in order to muffle the growing opposition to Duterte’s quasi-dictatorial rule,” De Lima said.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, a former student leader, condemned the arrests as “an appalling continuation of the apparent state policy to decimate any opposition to its wrong-headed policies like the fake but nonetheless deadly drug war.”

House Minority Leader and Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr., whose coalition includes six Makabayan representatives, cautioned the government against going after legitimate activist groups.

“The minority bloc is united in condemning the attacks on the members of the Makabayan bloc, and demand that these be stopped immediately. Such attacks have no place in a democracy,” he said. —With reports from Mariejo S. Ramos, Marlon Ramos and Melvin Gascon