{"id":11583,"date":"2025-06-20T00:55:34","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T23:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=11583"},"modified":"2025-06-18T10:21:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T09:21:09","slug":"cernet-27-trial-stalls-as-amlc-fails-to-present-evidence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/cernet-27-trial-stalls-as-amlc-fails-to-present-evidence\/","title":{"rendered":"Cernet 27 trial stalls as AMLC fails to present evidence"},"content":{"rendered":"

The terrorism financing case against the Philippine non-governmental organization (NGO) Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET<\/a>) and 27 individuals who were affiliated with CERNET (referred to as \u201cCernet 27\u201d) has encountered<\/a> another legal setback as the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) once again failed to present documentary evidence at the latest hearing held on May 20, 2025, at the Cebu City Regional Trial Court Branch 74.<\/p>\n

The accused face<\/a> charges under the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 for allegedly providing 35,000 Pesos to the communist armed rebel group New People\u2019s Army (NPA) in 2012. However, during the May 2025 hearing, the AMLC\u2019s second witness relied<\/a> solely on oral testimony, offering no financial records or investigation reports to substantiate the allegations.<\/p>\n

The next hearing has been postponed<\/a> to July 31, 2025. More delays are expected as the presiding judge, Marlon Jay Moneva, announced a 10-month study leave.<\/p>\n

The defense maintains<\/a> that CERNET is a legally recognized NGO, citing documents submitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during an earlier hearing. The charges stem<\/a> from a complaint filed in September 2023 by Brig. Gen. Joey Escanillas of the Philippine Army\u2019s 302nd Brigade. The Department of Justice (DOJ) subsequently pursued the case, setting bail at 200,000 Pesos per accused.<\/p>\n

Local and international human rights organizations, among them the German Action Network Human Rights (Aktionsb\u00fcndnis Menschenrechte \u2013 Philippinen\/AMP), have denounced<\/a> \u00a0the charges. The AMP criticized<\/a> the charges against CERNET and other groups as part of a broader \u201cred-tagging\u201d strategy that labels civil society organizations and activists as communist insurgency or terrorist sympathizers in order to discredit or silence them.<\/p>\n

In an earlier statement, AMP reported<\/a> that the Philippine Defend NGO Alliance monitored cases of alleged terrorism financing charges against 24 NGOs between 2019 and 2024, often without substantive evidence. The number of cases reportedly spiked<\/a> during the Philippines\u2019 grey-listing by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which placed the country under increased monitoring. The FATF assesses whether countries are complying with international standards to combat terrorism financing and money laundering, among others. After four years, the Philippines was removed from the increased monitoring list or \u201cgrey list\u201d of the FATF in February 2025.<\/p>\n

The AMP and other human rights organizations believe<\/a> that pressure to demonstrate counter-terrorism compliance led to excessive and politically motivated prosecutions.<\/p>\n

For further information, please also see the case documentation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u00a9 Karapatan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The terrorism financing case against the Philippine non-governmental organization (NGO) Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET) and 27 individuals who were affiliated with CERNET (referred to as \u201cCernet 27\u201d) has encountered another legal setback as the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) once again failed to present documentary evidence at the latest hearing held on May 20, 2025, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63,58,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11583"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11598,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11583\/revisions\/11598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}