{"id":14177,"date":"2026-10-16T06:55:25","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T05:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=14177"},"modified":"2026-10-15T09:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T08:54:12","slug":"cagayan-valley-activists-arrested-on-terrorism-financing-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/cagayan-valley-activists-arrested-on-terrorism-financing-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Cagayan Valley activists arrested on terrorism financing charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six activists, including leaders of peasant, youth, and religious organizations, were recently served<\/a> subpoenas after being accused of violating the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act. Among<\/a> them is Renato Gameng, a farmer and leader of the peasant organization Danggayan Dagiti Mannalon iti Isabela (Dagami) in northern Philippines.<\/p>\n

Authorities have accused<\/a> Gameng and ten other Cagayan Valley activists of giving support to the rebel group, New People\u2019s Army (NPA), basing their claims on information reportedly provided by military informants. Subpoenas were issued<\/a> to six of them in August 2026 – Gameng, Jhames Paredes, Anne Pascual, Nelson Escalante, Marifel Macalanda, and Walter Villegas.<\/p>\n

Activists and human rights groups describe<\/a> the charges as judicial harassment, saying these are based on weak evidence, such as decayed rice supposedly buried for years.<\/p>\n

Local organizations see<\/a> the prosecution as politically motivated and targeting those who defend natural resources. Environmental activists say<\/a> most of the accused are environmental defenders and criticize the government\u2019s misuse of “anti-terrorism laws” to intimidate activists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis new wave of attacks against us is alarming because for them, our advocacy of providing services for the farmers, campaign for more budget in education and classrooms, and proper disaster response are terrorism,\u201d said<\/a> one of the accused Jhames Paredes during a protest.<\/p>\n

The Cordillera activists Isabelo Adviento, Agnes Mesina, Cita Managuelod, Jackie Valencia, and Deo Montesclaros faced<\/a> similar complaints in January 2025.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Commission on Appointments (CA) has concluded<\/a> its review of a sworn opposition from the non-governmental organization Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET) against the appointment of Maj. Gen. Joey Escanillas.<\/p>\n

CERNET challenged<\/a> Escanillas\u2019 involvement in a terrorism financing case against their board and staff and claimed he had brought the complaint in order to target their leadership. He<\/a> \u201cred-tagged\u201d CERNET at a press conference in April 2024. The practice of \u201cred-tagging\u201d means accusing an individual or organization of being a supporter or member of the NPA.<\/p>\n

Escanillas said<\/a> he had not violated any rights or deprived anyone of life, property, or liberty. The CA plenary later confirmed<\/a>\u00a0 his ad interim appointment to major general without opposition. Assistant Minority Floor Leader Rep. Antonio \u201cTonypet\u201d Albano backed the approval and dismissed<\/a> the complaints as unfounded.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

Six activists, including leaders of peasant, youth, and religious organizations, were recently served subpoenas after being accused of violating the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act. Among them is Renato Gameng, a farmer and leader of the peasant organization Danggayan Dagiti Mannalon iti Isabela (Dagami) in northern Philippines. Authorities have accused Gameng and ten other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":5302,"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-14177","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\/14177","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=14177"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14192,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14177\/revisions\/14192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}