MANILA – Journalist and former lawmaker Satur Ocampo has asked a court in Manila to dismiss a petition by the Philippine government seeking the official tagging of 600 persons, including Ocampo, as “terrorists” for alleged membership in the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army.
Lawyers for Ocampo, from the Public Interest Law Center, filed the motion to dismiss before the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 where the proscription hearings are being held.
The counsel for the former Bayan Muna representative and former deputy minority leader said the court has no jurisdiction over him.
Speaking partly in Filipino, Atty. Rachel Pastores said Ocampo “cannot represent the CPP and NPA” as he is not an officer of these groups.
The supposed evidence against her client is recycled, Pastores added.
These had been used in the rebellion charge that was already dismissed by the Supreme Court, in the so-called Batasan 6 case. “The same affidavits were used in this petition.”
The prosecutors, added Pastores, “also used the affidavits of some of the witnesses of the Hilongos case” involving an alleged NPA mass grave in Leyte, where multiple murder charges were filed against Ocampo and several others.
The latter case “is still undergoing trial, so there’s no conclusion yet that the statements of these alleged witnesses are true and can be used as bases in impleading Satur Ocampo as one of the alleged officers of CPP-NPA,” Pastores argued.
Ocampo’s inclusion on the list of 600 people in the proscription case, tagging him a “terrorist,” is a clear violation of the former lawmaker’s human rights, according to Pastores.
[That is] labelling; they labelled him, they lay the ground in order to create in the people’s minds the conclusion that he is such a person,” Pastores said partly in Filipino.
“Although the only named respondent in the petition are the CPP and NPA, the petitioner (DOJ) with pure malice and evil intent included….Ocampo in the list of alleged ‘known officers’ of the CPP and NPA,” said the motion filed in his behalf by Pastores.
Under the law, it is only the regional trial court that can declare an organization as a proscribed organization.
Ocampo is a well-known journalist and activist, so this is clearly a case of political persecution by the Duterte administration against him and other activist leaders also named in the petition, said Pastores.
“It’s a shortcut — [that when the court declares] proscribed [the] CPP-NPA, by association, [everyone listed there can automatically be subjected to the arbitrary measures allowed] under the Human Security Law without going through the process?” the lawyer anxiously wondered aloud.
In his motion, Ocampo said the “arbitrarily labelling” of Ocampo “Is not without punitive consequences,” adding that such would “stigmatize and vilify” his person.
Officials of the Department of Justice, which filed the petition, did not attend the Manila RTC hearing, but the court gave them 15 days to comment on Ocampo’s motion.
