The Philippine National Police backs the revival of the anti-subversion law to ensure the demise of the New People’s Army.
PNP chief Police Gen. Oscar Albayalde said this is the reason why they fully support the proposal of Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano to revive Republic Act 1700 which criminalizes membership to any organization that is deemed national security threat like the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the NPA.
“The Philippine National Police sees the local insurgency movement dying a natural death when its ideological foundation is criminalized,” Albayalde said.
“Because the CPP/NPA employs violence and terrorism to advance its cause to topple government, all its organizational components including ideological roots must be subject to the justice system as violations of law just like the criminal actions committed by armed fighters of the NPA,” he added.
By reviving the anti-subversion law, top police officers said this would augment President Duterte’s Executive Order 70 which is aimed at ending the communist insurgency.
“Such law will allow the PNP to effectively implement legal offensive actions against the CPP/NPA/National Democratic Front and all the criminal, economic, and organizational support systems that sustain its terrorist activities,” they said.
“Criminalizing subversion will empower government to exercise its inherent right to protect itself against forces that seek to bring it down,” they added.
Calls for the revival of the law came amid allegations of recruitment by some militant groups in various colleges and universities of students who would allegedly end up in the mountains fighting the government.
Año is standing firm on the proposed revival of the anti-subversion law. (Aaron Recuenco and Chito Chavez)