The old Philippine State claims to have detained the CPPh’s chairman. The CPPh denies such hoaxes
Past week, the National Security Adviser of the old Philippine State, Eduardo Año, praised the repressive forces and claimed that they had detained a leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPPh), and of the New People’s Army (NPA). Año claimed that Villarico assumed the leadership of the CPPh since August 2022. He even claimed that Villarico was able “commanding both the party and its armed wing, the NPA”. A 35 year-old woman was also arrested, accused of “providing false identificiation for the accused” and “obstructing the justice”. The old State claimed that “Villarico’s arrest would create a vacuum in the CPPh’s organizational and ideological leadership”.
Many reactionary Philippine media outlets were echoing these claims by the old State and were charging Villarico with numerous supposed crimes committed by him. But also they echoed contradictory statements by different repressive forces of the old State: for example the police claimed that Villarico “was the secretary of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee operating in Calabarzon and Mimaropa. He was also an alleged member of the CPPh’s Political Bureau (Politburo)”, but nothing like the chairman and leader of the CPPh and the NPA.
But the CPPh has quickly denied all of these accusations: Wigberto Villarico serves as peace consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). This is part of the “red-tagging” method carried out by the old Philippine State, which has been denounced even by organizations for the so-called human rights, non suspicious at all of being supporters of Maoists.
Regarding the true work of Villarico, the CPPh explains that he “has been actively drawing attention to the issues, concerns and demands of workers, peasants and minority people, students and other sectors in Southern Tagalog. His arrest and detention, along with his companion Marjorie Lizada, was carried out at the height of a tropical storm which he was closely monitoring to help advise the NDFP’s forces in organizing and mobilizing assistance and resources to those in need.” The CPPh also points out that he has documents identifying him as a peace consultant of the NDFP and he is protected by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), between the Philippine government and the NDFP, which guarantees the safety and protection of the involved people in the negotiations and gives them documents of identification or safe conduct passes. Therefore, it is a non-sense to state that he and his companion were hiding his identity.
The CPPh also points out that “Villarico is the third peace consultant of the NDFP imprisoned by the Marcos government over the past few weeks. Earlier this month, military and police forces arrested and detained NDFP Peace Consultant Porferio Tuna in Tagum City, Davao del Norte. A few days ago NDFP Peace Consultant Simeon Naogsan or Ka Filiw of the Cordillera People’s Democratic Front had been arrested in Ilocos Norte.” So the government is creating cases and red-tagging those peace negotiatiors, and Villarico is part of this targeting by the old State.
