FILIPINO community leaders in Australia, the Middle East and the United States have accused members of the so-called ‘legal democratic forces’ of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) of harassment and bullying for siding with the government in their campaign to improve to the country’s image abroad.
Reports reaching Manila said that in Australia, Lis Quimora, a Filipina community leader based in Melbourne, received a menacing letter dated October 10, 2020, from Berlin Guerrero, chairman of Bayan, Australia.
A copy of the 2-page letter to Quimora was furnished Pinoy Exposé last week.
In the letter, Quimora was accused of “defamation” for airing her view that Bayan, its other allied organizations and its secretary general, Renato Reyes, as members of “terrorist groups connected to the CPP-NPA.”
Without offering any proof, Guerrero also accused Quimora of being an “overseas front-liner” for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
Guerrero also “demanded” that Quimora issued a “full, public written apology” to Reyes and for her to “cease and desist from making any further false, defamatory and hateful statements in any form,” including social media, “at any time in the future.”
For the record, it was not Quimora or any Philippine official who ‘red-tagged’ Bayan and its allied organizations as fronts of the CPP.
In an old, 1987 interview abroad, it was Jose Maria Sison who confirmed that Bayan, Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), League of Filipino Students (LFS), Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and the women’s group, GABRIELA, are among the CPP’s “legal democratic forces” in the Philippines.
In San Francisco, USA, Pinoy Exposé also learned that a Filipina doctor who is similarly vocal about the duplicity of Bayan and other CPP-founded groups, have also reported of intense harassment from Bayan and Migrante, another suspected CPP front focused in organizing Filipino migrant communities abroad.
“For four weeks now daily, this is my usual day, getting harassed by these bastards,” the doctor said, adding she was even forced to move out of her former residence to avoid being harassed by the members of Bayan and Migrante.
The Filipina doctor was referring to the manner by which still unidentified members of Bayan USA and Migrante would follow her vehicle and made harassing moves that could result to a car accident.
The mainland United States is starting to establish a reputation as a fertile “recruitment ground” for the CPP-NPA; two months ago, authorities belatedly learned that one ‘Fil-American,’ Amado Khaya Rodriguez, used to train fresh recruits of the CPP-NPA in Southern Tagalog, before succumbing to COVID-19 last August 4, 2020, in Mindoro Island at the tender age of 22.
Rodriguez, who was described as a “social activist” espousing the rights of colored peoples in America, was somehow convinced by Bayan USA to go to the Philippines in 2018 where he became a member of the CPP’s Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee (STRPC).
Using the alias, ‘Ka Allen,’ Rodriguez was remembered by former NPA guerillas in the region as the “foreigner” who helped in their military trainings.
In the Middle East, Filipino overseas workers also complained of being harassed by Migrante, also for taking the side of the government and for countering the propaganda line of the group centered in vilifying the country’s image and Pres. Duterte in particular.