NTF-ELCAC DOWNPLAYS LEGAL SETBACK

After CA reverses forfeiture case against two CPP cadres

On Nov 10, 2025

THROWBACK: UNSR Irene Khan posing with the Frenchie Mae Cumpio and Mariel Domequil after their meeting inside the Female Dormitory of the Tacloban City Jail, January 27, 2024. Notice the welcome banner for Khan prepared by the BJMP as a show of respect but which she discarded as she went on to issue a pro-communist statement at the conclusion of her visit (stock photo).

THE National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) downplayed the reversal of the forfeiture case by the Court of Appeals (CA) of the money seized from two former top cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) who were arrested in Tacloban City in February 2022.

In a statement dated November 7, the Task Force’s Legal Cooperation Cluster (LCC) insisted that all its action taken that resulted to the arrest and incarceration of Frenchie Mae Cumpio and Mariel Domequil “(were) strictly grounded in law, evidence, and intelligence, intended to disrupt the financial and logistical networks of terrorist and insurgent groups that pose real threats to national security and public welfare.”

In a ruling on CA-G.R. CV No. 124860 last October 29, however, the CA’s Third Division headed by Associate Justice Apolinario Bruselas Jr. reversed the ruling of the Manila Regional Trial Court, which earlier granted the motion of forfeiture filed by the Task Force and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC).

“The Court cannot countenance the hasty labelling of human rights advocates as terrorists and the speedy confiscation of their funds and property in the name of national security.

“Measures to counter terrorism must not be done without due process, and at the expense of individuals, groups, and civil society organizations that are engaged in the promotion and defense of human rights,” the ruling stated.

A convincing ‘narrative’

At the time of her arrest, Cumpio, who claims to be a ‘journalist’ and even paid for a regular airtime at a local radio station in Tacloban (blocktimer) to cover he tracks, has been tagged by her former subordinates and comrades as the secretary general of the Regional White Area Committee (RWAC) of the Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee (EVRPC) of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Domequil, on the other hand, has been identified as a subordinate of Cumpio at the RWAC while also claiming to be a “lay worker” of the ‘Rural Missionaries of the Philippines’ (RMP) a known front of the CPP. One of its missions is to solicit money from gullible donors abroad.

Both are members of the so-called ‘Tacloban 5’ who were projected by CPP front organizations here and abroad after their arrest as “victims of state repression” targeting progressive members of the press and human rights workers.

Their narrative was so convincing that Irene Khan, the United Nation’s ‘Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression’ even include a visit to Cumpio and Demequil as part of her itinerary when Khan was in the Philippines in January 2024 (Pinoy Exposé, January 29, 2024).

During the operation that led to their capture, a CPP flag, other incriminating evidence such as firearms and explosives and cash amounting to P557,360.00 were found in their possession.

It was this money that was the subject of the forfeiture proceeding as evidence of terrorism financing filed by the Task Force and the AMLC more than one year after it was seized.

Despite the reversal, the Task Force noted that Cumpio and Domequil would remain in jail as they also face a separate case for murder before the Catbalogan Regional Trial Court.

“The existence of this ongoing criminal case underscores that these individuals have demonstrated a propensity to commit serious crimes,” the Task Force noted.