TIME TO REGULATE ‘NGOs’ NSA TELLS GOVT.

NATIONAL Security Adviser Secretary Eduardo M. Año, is calling on Congress to finally create a law for the “due diligence” of all ‘non-government organizations’ (NGOs) operating in the country, of which a sizeable number are front organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that are being funded, knowingly or unknowingly, by foreign governments and international organizations in order to pursue its effort to bring down the government thru destabilization and armed terrorism by the New People’s Army (NPA).

“We urge our legislators to consider a legal framework that mandates due diligence for all foreign-funded NGO operations in the country.

“At the same time, we must build local civil society accreditation systems that validate the transparency and legitimacy of development organizations,” Secretary Año said in a long policy statement last May 4.

He noted that while the fight against the CPP-NPA is no longer “abstract” but already “within reach” with 89 NPA terrorist fronts dismantled since 2018 and only one remaining ‘weakened’ front remaining in the Bicol region, the government cannot be complacent with these gains.

“The harder task lies ahead, that is of sustaining the peace we have painstakingly won,” he said, adding:

“One of our biggest challenges now is dismantling the network of recruitment, support, and finance that allowed the insurgency to survive for decades.

“Though the armed component has been degraded, the ideological and logistical lifelines continue to attempt its regeneration.

“The CPP’s long-standing tactics of deception, particularly among the youth, remain active in urban centers, schools, and cyberspace.”

Will it be accepted by the West?

Secretary Año’s call for the regulation, registration, and monitoring of NGO activities is nothing new as it follows the policy of other countries mindful of their own national stability and foreign interference in their domestic affairs.

The United States, for example, has its own ‘FARA’ (Foreign Agents Registration Act). The law was enacted by the US Congress in 1938 primarily to counter Nazi activities and propaganda within the United States. The law seeks to instill transparency in the operations of foreign agents on Americal soil.

However, Secretary Año’s call may not be welcome news to Western agents and governments who have long been using their local NGOs to push for favorable policies in the executive branch and favorable laws in Congress such as making ‘red-tagging’ a criminal offense or destroying traditional values by allowing for same-sex marriage.

The small country of Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe, continues to be wracked by street protests financed by Western governments for passing a law in May 2024 inspired by FARA.

China continues to be slammed for ‘human rights violations’ for cracking down on the violent ‘pro-democracy’ street protests in Hongkong in 2019-2020 that were instigated by Western-funded NGOs, majority of which were subsequently shut down by Chinese authorities and their funding traced back to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that has long been acknowledged as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “in another form.”

NGOs are tools for Western intervention, destabilization

The creation of NGOs mostly in Third World countries funded by Western donors and governments have become effective instruments to promote Western agenda, support ‘regime change operations’ by Western intelligence agencies (Color Revolutions) and has been seen as a tool for modern colonization by global corporate interests.

Western-funded NGOs were instrumental in the so-called ‘Arab Spring Revolutions’ in the Middle East and North Africa in 2010-2011 that led to the illegal removal and murder of Libyan president Moammar Khadafy.

NGOs mostly funded by the United States and the United Kingdom also played a key role in the coup that swept Ukraine in 2014 that led to the rise of fascist forces (Banderites) and ended up with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to stop the ongoing massacre of ethnic Russians that has been going on since the success of the 2014 coup.

The Philippine Experience

In the Philippines, the successful interplay between CPP front organizations and their Western donors resulted to the country being the prime example of a successful ‘color revolution’ in 1986 with the illegal removal of President Ferdinand Marcos Senior thru the so-called ‘People Power Revolution’ marked by the color ‘Yellow.’

Western funded NGOs not only under the CPP but others such as those in the media are all in the forefront of their intervention in the country’s domestic affairs dating back to the election of President Ramon Magsaysay in 1953 with the help of NAMFREL (National Movement for Free Election).

They also took the leading role in the illegal removal of President Joseph Estrada in 2001, after Estrada turned down the United States’ request for a stop in his administration’s campaign against the terrorism of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in 2000.

Currently, government effort to stop terrorist financing is being thwarted by CPP front organizations and their Western curators such as the case of CPP Eastern Visayas leader, Frenchie Mae Cumpio, in jail for terrorist financing since 2020.

Significantly, not only are CPP front organizations who are twisting the issue on Cumpio’s true identity as a CPP cadre by portraying her as a ‘journalist.’ This narrative is also being supported by Western embassies in the country and by their appointed ‘special rapporteurs’ on media and human rights.