angelburst29
The Living Force
Philippines: Communist guerrillas said Thursday a Philippine government court petition to have them designated as terrorists is a desperate attempt to alienate them from the people, but insisted they are still open to talks to peacefully settle one of Asia’s longest-raging insurgencies.
Philippine rebels reject terror tag but still open to talks Thursday 22 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1251821/world
Regional rebel commander Jaime Padilla said by telephone that President Rodrigo Duterte would fail like past leaders to defeat the New People’s Army rebels so he’s resorting to “fake news” to undermine the Maoist guerrillas, who have managed to wage an insurgency for nearly half a century with what he said was the people’s support.
The Department of Justice asked a Manila court on Wednesday to formally designate the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing as terrorist groups. It cited deadly attacks and violence committed by the insurgents, including bloody internal purges of suspected military spies, in seeking the designation.
Padilla rejected the assertion that the New People’s Army was similar to extremist groups notorious for beheadings and other atrocities.
“The Abu Sayyaf is heaven and earth different from the NPA,” Padilla said, referring to the brutal Islamic militant group blacklisted by the US and Philippine governments. “Labeling the revolutionary movement as such is a big crazy act.”
He said rebels attack government forces who raid or infiltrate guerrilla zones but the guerrillas do not assault innocent civilians or ransack their properties like the Abu Sayyaf.
“If they withdraw the petition that will be good because it’s baseless,” said Padilla, who leads a rebel force that has a presence southeast of Manila.
Despite the government legal offensive, Padilla said the rebels remain open to a resumption of negotiations to end the hostilities.
Duterte resumed peace talks with the guerrillas after he rose to power in 2016. He granted concessions by appointing three left-wing activists to his Cabinet, but the cordial relations rapidly deteriorated when he protested continuing rebel assaults on troops and policemen, along with guerrilla extortion of mining firms and agricultural plantations.
Last year, he canceled Norwegian-brokered talks with the guerrillas and signed an order declaring the rebel groups as terrorist organizations in a prelude to his government’s formal move on Wednesday.
Duterte has upped his rhetoric against the rebels in recent days, saying troops should shoot female communist rebels in the genitals to render them “useless” and suggesting troops could decapitate the rebels. The comments have drawn condemnation from rights groups.
Senior assistant state prosecutor Peter Ong said the guerrillas were insincere in their talks with the government and only wanted to grab power.
If approved by the court, designating the communists as terrorists could serve as a legal weapon and basis for the government in securing court clearances to put rebel leaders and fighters under surveillance and freeze their bank accounts and assets, Ong said.
Companies paying the so-called “revolutionary taxes” to the rebels could be questioned, even though the military said such extortion demands have been done by coercion.
The communist rebel organizations are the second to be targeted by the Philippine government for proscription under a seldom-used 2007 anti-terrorism law. In 2015, a court approved a similar petition against the Abu Sayyaf, which has also been blacklisted as a terror group by the United States.
The communist rebellion has raged since 1969 and left about 40,000 combatants and civilians dead. It also has stunted economic development, especially in the countryside, where the military says about 3,700 Maoist insurgents are still waging a guerrilla war.
Philippine lawyer wants ‘death squad president’ in court Sunday 18 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1249186/world
Sabio, a stocky 51 year old, says he lives in constant fear of reprisals after filing a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the wildly popular Duterte, whose administration Filipinos rate as the best performing since opinion polls started in the 1980s. A little-known lawyer until he filed the complaint last April, Sabio argues that the deaths of thousands of Filipinos in a brutal war on drugs is Duterte’s method of controlling crime, and that he used the tactic effectively during his 22 years as the mayor of Davao City in the south of the country.
Duterte has repeatedly denied ordering extra-judicial killings while mayor or president and reiterated this month that he would “gladly” go before the ICC. Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had earlier said her office had started a preliminary examination into whether any crimes against humanity had been committed and if ICC had jurisdiction.
The step is the first in a process that could take years to complete, if at all. Since it was set up in 2002, the ICC has received more than 12,000 complaints or communications, just nine of which have gone to trial.
The Social Weather Station’s (SWS) latest quarterly poll shows Duterte’s trust rating bounced back to “excellent” in December from “very high” three months before. Another SWS poll gave his government the best rating so far for a Philippine administration
“When I went to The Hague I received so many threats,” Sabio told Reuters. “The (latest) announcement from the ICC, I’m also receiving threats. It’s many, I don’t want to read them.”
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque says “domestic enemies of the state” are behind Sabio’s complaint. Asked about Sabio’s safety, Roque said he should report threats to the police. “We have no ill will against him,” he added. “We know it (the complaint) will not proceed beyond preliminary examination.”
In an interview, Sabio described Duterte as a “death squad president” who bragged in public about killing criminals and promised voters he would kill thousands in an anti-drug crackdown if elected.
Duterte earned the nickname “the Punisher” because of allegations he operated a death squad that killed more than 1,000 criminals when he was Davao mayor. He suggested during a televised presidential election debate in 2016 that more would die if he became president.
Philippine labor ban to Kuwait stays, may be expanded, says Duterte Friday 23 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1252286/world
President Rodrigo Duterte made the remarks after attending the wake of Joanna Demafelis in the central Philippine town of Sara. He said he intends to file criminal charges against her employers, who are being hunted by Kuwaiti authorities.
Demafelis’s body was found stuffed in a food freezer on Feb. 6 in a Kuwait City apartment where it had reportedly been kept for more than a year. Duterte has said her body bore torture marks and there were indications she was strangled.
“The ban stays, no deployment of Filipinos whatsoever in Kuwait,” Duterte said outside the wake, where steamers and shirts worn by mourners bore messages demanding justice for the maid’s death. The ban applies only to new Kuwait-bound workers and the thousands already there, mostly maids, can continue working.
Duterte said the government is conducting an assessment to “find out the places where we deploy Filipinos and our countrymen suffer brutal treatment and human degradation.”
Her death is the latest overseas tragedy to befall workers from the Philippines, a major labor exporter with about a tenth of its more than 100 million people working abroad. The workers have been called the country’s heroes because the income they send home has propped up the Southeast Asian nation’s economy for decades, accounting for about 10 percent of its annual gross domestic product.
Duterte talked with the family of Demafelis and then briefly viewed her remains, gently touching her coffin with his hand.
Philippine officials are under increasing pressure to do more to monitor the safety of the country’s worldwide diaspora of mostly maids, construction workers and laborers.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III told a Senate hearing Wednesday that he has recalled three Filipino labor officers from Kuwait to face an investigation. They failed to act on a request by Demafelis’s family for help after she went missing in January last year, he said.
Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration reported that at least 196 Filipinos had died in Kuwait in the last two years, mostly for unspecified medical reasons but also four who committed suicide. That prompted senators to ask why labor officials did not immediately order a ban on the deployment of workers to Kuwait with the spike in deaths.
A Philippine labor delegation left for Kuwait on Thursday to seek better protection for Filipino workers that may prompt the Duterte administration to lift its ban, officials said.
They will demand a stop to the practice of many Kuwaiti employers to hold on to the passports, travel papers and cellphones of Filipino maids, which has prevented them from reporting abuses and calling for help, the officials said.
Kuwait’s ruling emir has reportedly invited Duterte to his country next month to resolve the labor issues but Duterte has not said whether he will visit.
The sheer number of Filipino workers abroad makes monitoring their wellbeing an overwhelming task. That is often complicated by workers not having proper travel and work documents, such as in Kuwait, where nearly 11,000 of the more than 252,000 Filipino workers are in the country illegally or are not properly authorized.
Many desperate Filipinos have also chosen to stay in countries where the Philippines has banned Filipinos in the past, such as in war-torn Iraq and Syria.
Philippine rebels reject terror tag but still open to talks Thursday 22 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1251821/world
Regional rebel commander Jaime Padilla said by telephone that President Rodrigo Duterte would fail like past leaders to defeat the New People’s Army rebels so he’s resorting to “fake news” to undermine the Maoist guerrillas, who have managed to wage an insurgency for nearly half a century with what he said was the people’s support.
The Department of Justice asked a Manila court on Wednesday to formally designate the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing as terrorist groups. It cited deadly attacks and violence committed by the insurgents, including bloody internal purges of suspected military spies, in seeking the designation.
Padilla rejected the assertion that the New People’s Army was similar to extremist groups notorious for beheadings and other atrocities.
“The Abu Sayyaf is heaven and earth different from the NPA,” Padilla said, referring to the brutal Islamic militant group blacklisted by the US and Philippine governments. “Labeling the revolutionary movement as such is a big crazy act.”
He said rebels attack government forces who raid or infiltrate guerrilla zones but the guerrillas do not assault innocent civilians or ransack their properties like the Abu Sayyaf.
“If they withdraw the petition that will be good because it’s baseless,” said Padilla, who leads a rebel force that has a presence southeast of Manila.
Despite the government legal offensive, Padilla said the rebels remain open to a resumption of negotiations to end the hostilities.
Duterte resumed peace talks with the guerrillas after he rose to power in 2016. He granted concessions by appointing three left-wing activists to his Cabinet, but the cordial relations rapidly deteriorated when he protested continuing rebel assaults on troops and policemen, along with guerrilla extortion of mining firms and agricultural plantations.
Last year, he canceled Norwegian-brokered talks with the guerrillas and signed an order declaring the rebel groups as terrorist organizations in a prelude to his government’s formal move on Wednesday.
Duterte has upped his rhetoric against the rebels in recent days, saying troops should shoot female communist rebels in the genitals to render them “useless” and suggesting troops could decapitate the rebels. The comments have drawn condemnation from rights groups.
Senior assistant state prosecutor Peter Ong said the guerrillas were insincere in their talks with the government and only wanted to grab power.
If approved by the court, designating the communists as terrorists could serve as a legal weapon and basis for the government in securing court clearances to put rebel leaders and fighters under surveillance and freeze their bank accounts and assets, Ong said.
Companies paying the so-called “revolutionary taxes” to the rebels could be questioned, even though the military said such extortion demands have been done by coercion.
The communist rebel organizations are the second to be targeted by the Philippine government for proscription under a seldom-used 2007 anti-terrorism law. In 2015, a court approved a similar petition against the Abu Sayyaf, which has also been blacklisted as a terror group by the United States.
The communist rebellion has raged since 1969 and left about 40,000 combatants and civilians dead. It also has stunted economic development, especially in the countryside, where the military says about 3,700 Maoist insurgents are still waging a guerrilla war.
Philippine lawyer wants ‘death squad president’ in court Sunday 18 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1249186/world
Sabio, a stocky 51 year old, says he lives in constant fear of reprisals after filing a complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against the wildly popular Duterte, whose administration Filipinos rate as the best performing since opinion polls started in the 1980s. A little-known lawyer until he filed the complaint last April, Sabio argues that the deaths of thousands of Filipinos in a brutal war on drugs is Duterte’s method of controlling crime, and that he used the tactic effectively during his 22 years as the mayor of Davao City in the south of the country.
Duterte has repeatedly denied ordering extra-judicial killings while mayor or president and reiterated this month that he would “gladly” go before the ICC. Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda had earlier said her office had started a preliminary examination into whether any crimes against humanity had been committed and if ICC had jurisdiction.
The step is the first in a process that could take years to complete, if at all. Since it was set up in 2002, the ICC has received more than 12,000 complaints or communications, just nine of which have gone to trial.
The Social Weather Station’s (SWS) latest quarterly poll shows Duterte’s trust rating bounced back to “excellent” in December from “very high” three months before. Another SWS poll gave his government the best rating so far for a Philippine administration
“When I went to The Hague I received so many threats,” Sabio told Reuters. “The (latest) announcement from the ICC, I’m also receiving threats. It’s many, I don’t want to read them.”
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque says “domestic enemies of the state” are behind Sabio’s complaint. Asked about Sabio’s safety, Roque said he should report threats to the police. “We have no ill will against him,” he added. “We know it (the complaint) will not proceed beyond preliminary examination.”
In an interview, Sabio described Duterte as a “death squad president” who bragged in public about killing criminals and promised voters he would kill thousands in an anti-drug crackdown if elected.
Duterte earned the nickname “the Punisher” because of allegations he operated a death squad that killed more than 1,000 criminals when he was Davao mayor. He suggested during a televised presidential election debate in 2016 that more would die if he became president.
Philippine labor ban to Kuwait stays, may be expanded, says Duterte Friday 23 February 2018
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1252286/world
President Rodrigo Duterte made the remarks after attending the wake of Joanna Demafelis in the central Philippine town of Sara. He said he intends to file criminal charges against her employers, who are being hunted by Kuwaiti authorities.
Demafelis’s body was found stuffed in a food freezer on Feb. 6 in a Kuwait City apartment where it had reportedly been kept for more than a year. Duterte has said her body bore torture marks and there were indications she was strangled.
“The ban stays, no deployment of Filipinos whatsoever in Kuwait,” Duterte said outside the wake, where steamers and shirts worn by mourners bore messages demanding justice for the maid’s death. The ban applies only to new Kuwait-bound workers and the thousands already there, mostly maids, can continue working.
Duterte said the government is conducting an assessment to “find out the places where we deploy Filipinos and our countrymen suffer brutal treatment and human degradation.”
Her death is the latest overseas tragedy to befall workers from the Philippines, a major labor exporter with about a tenth of its more than 100 million people working abroad. The workers have been called the country’s heroes because the income they send home has propped up the Southeast Asian nation’s economy for decades, accounting for about 10 percent of its annual gross domestic product.
Duterte talked with the family of Demafelis and then briefly viewed her remains, gently touching her coffin with his hand.
Philippine officials are under increasing pressure to do more to monitor the safety of the country’s worldwide diaspora of mostly maids, construction workers and laborers.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III told a Senate hearing Wednesday that he has recalled three Filipino labor officers from Kuwait to face an investigation. They failed to act on a request by Demafelis’s family for help after she went missing in January last year, he said.
Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration reported that at least 196 Filipinos had died in Kuwait in the last two years, mostly for unspecified medical reasons but also four who committed suicide. That prompted senators to ask why labor officials did not immediately order a ban on the deployment of workers to Kuwait with the spike in deaths.
A Philippine labor delegation left for Kuwait on Thursday to seek better protection for Filipino workers that may prompt the Duterte administration to lift its ban, officials said.
They will demand a stop to the practice of many Kuwaiti employers to hold on to the passports, travel papers and cellphones of Filipino maids, which has prevented them from reporting abuses and calling for help, the officials said.
Kuwait’s ruling emir has reportedly invited Duterte to his country next month to resolve the labor issues but Duterte has not said whether he will visit.
The sheer number of Filipino workers abroad makes monitoring their wellbeing an overwhelming task. That is often complicated by workers not having proper travel and work documents, such as in Kuwait, where nearly 11,000 of the more than 252,000 Filipino workers are in the country illegally or are not properly authorized.
Many desperate Filipinos have also chosen to stay in countries where the Philippines has banned Filipinos in the past, such as in war-torn Iraq and Syria.
Next thing we know Duterte is colluding with Russia against the US. 
