Satur tells court: ‘I’m a journalist, not a terrorist’

Former Bayan Muna representative Satur Ocampo has asked the Manila Regional Trial Court to exclude him from a petition filed by the Department of Justice which tagged him and about 600 other individuals as terrorists because of their ties to the leftist insurgency.

“It should be stressed at the outset that in filing this motion, movant Satur Ocampo is not speaking for and is not representing the respondents Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army,” Ocampo said in a 40-page motion filed in Manila RTC Branch 19 on Tuesday.

Ocampo, who worked as a business editor and served as vice president of the National Press Club in the early 1970s, maintained that he was a “journalist” and “not a terrorist.”

The motion was in response to a petition that DOJ filed last month asking the court to declare the CPP-NPA as terrorist organizations, following the collapse of peace negotiations between the Duterte administration and leftist rebels.

Senior Assistant State Prosector Peter Ong said the petition was in compliance with President Duterte’s Proclamation Order 374, which declared the CPP-NPA as terrorist organization last year.

Ong cited 12 alleged atrocities committed by the rebels in Bukidnon, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, Negros Oriental and Occidental in 2017, as well as recent ambuscades of government troops in the countryside.

Calling the DOJ petition “evil,” Ocampo said his “arbitrary labelling … as a known officer of the CPP-NPA is not without punitive consequence. The terrorist tag is used to stigmatize and villify the movant, a journalist of long standing and former popularly elected member of official of the House of Representatives.” —AIE BALAGTAS SEE