Former Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee-executive committee member Ben Tepaet
MANILA -- The Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) has committed mass murder among its members in the 1980s, former members of the rebel group said.
In a documentary produced by Sambayanan, former Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee-executive committee member Ben Tepaet said it was CPP founder Jose Maria Sison’s successor, Benito Tiamzon, who initiated the investigation of all CPP-NPA members and summary killing based on mere suspicion.
“Yung pumalit kay Sison, Tiamzon, yan ang gumawa ng polisiya na lahat ng tao pinaimbestigahan sa bawat level ng unit, talagang patayin ka nila (The one who replaced Sison was Benito Tiamzon. He was the one who made that policy that all of the people were investigated in every level in the unit. They will really kill you),” Tepaet said.
In the same documentary, former NPA-Sandatahang Yunit Propaganda member Chito Herbolingo said "kangaroo courts" were established, which resulted in about 1,000 deaths in Davao.
“Pag punta ka doon, parang tapos na yung desisyon, formality nalang yung pagpunta mo doon. In Davao alone, tinataya na mayroong more or less one thousand ang pinapatay ng sarili nilang kasamahan (Even if you go there, the decision’s already done, it was just some sort of formality. In Davao alone, there were more or less a thousand that were killed by their fellow comrades),” Herbolingo said.
Sison is in exile in The Netherlands since 1987, after peace talks with then-President Corazon Aquino’s government failed.
The Department of Justice (DOJ), meanwhile, asked the Philippine courts to arrest Tiamzon and other CPP-NPA consultants for multiple murder cases.
Tiamzon went into hiding when their bail for temporary liberty was cancelled.
The DOJ also filed a pending motion in court to declare the CPP-NPA-NDF as a terrorist organization under the Human Security Act.
The US State Department and the European Union have both tagged the CPP-NPA as terrorist bodies. (PNA)
