The Other McCain

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Ed Driscoll Misses the Lead

Posted on | February 8, 2020 | 4 Comments

 

Did you know that the European Union is funding a Communist insurgency in the Philippines? Did you know that more environmental activists were killed in the Philippines than in any other country?

I didn’t know this either, but Ed Driscoll linked an article with the headline, “The climate movement is overwhelmingly white. So I walked away.” And I read that article by Karin Louise Hermes, a mixed-race (German-Filipina) activist who complains about being treated as a token by her fellow Greens in Germany. That’s an interesting angle, but way down in the story, I spotted this paragraph:

In recent years, the Philippines has had the highest number of environmental defenders murdered, where arrests and disappearances have been attributed to combating “communist insurgency.” Targeted groups include the Filipino research NGO I volunteered with during the UN climate conference in Bonn, Germany, and the Filipino women’s collective Gabriela, which I also worked with in Berlin before I stepped back.

Whoa! This is news, and I don’t know how Ed Driscoll missed it, except maybe he was in such a hurry that he didn’t read the whole article.

Communists in the Philippines? A news article from March 2019:

The Philippine government has asked the European Union and Belgium to cut funding for certain groups the Duterte administration alleges are “fronts” of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).
Posing this plea to European officials was among the objectives of the February 17 to 20 visit of military and Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) officials to Bosnia, Switzerland, and Belgium.
Brigadier General Antonio Parlade Jr, among the members of the delegation, said they asked the EU and the Belgian Foreign Ministry to stop financing around 30 groups claiming their funds are being used to fuel terroristic acts by the CPP-NPA.
“Maybe with the large amount they are getting, the insurgency we wish to end will be prolonged,” Parlade said in Filipino in a Palace press briefing on Wednesday, March 13.
Parlade claimed that the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) was among these CPP fronts receiving EU and Belgian funding. He described it as a group of nuns who supposedly “radicalize” children. . . .
Parlade claimed the EU had released P32 million to the RMP in December 2018 and is set to release another 2 million euros this year.
The Belgian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, supposedly said it was providing funds to 7 Belgian groups who work with groups the military says are CPP-NPA fronts. Among these groups are RMP, Ibon Foundation, Karapatan, and Alcadev (Alternative Learming Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development).
According to Parlade, Belgium has been providing 3 million euros for 5 years to the 7 groups.
The EU and Belgian officials were supposedly “surprised” to hear they were funding supposed “fronts” of the “terrorist” CPP-NPA, said Undersecretary Severo Catura. Catura is the executive director of the Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat.

Yes, of course, the Belgians are up to their eyeballs in this subversive activity, funding Communist front groups in the Philippines. But the thing is, until I read that article yesterday, I had no idea that the Philippines was dealing with a Communist insurgency. Here’s a report from last month:

Anti-communist groups, local government units and other non-government organizations denounced the violence and atrocities committed by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) and its allies as they staged a rally on Wednesday outside the Mendiola Peace Arc in Manila.
Julius Ursua, League of Parents of the Philippines (LPP) and Liga Independencia Pilipinas member, said protesters marched from the University of Santo Tomas going to Mendiola Peace Arc to condemn the alleged recruitment of minors by the leftist organizations and the killings of the innocent individuals.
The groups also expressed support to Angela Aguilar, a former CPP cadre, after she filed a petition before the poll body in April last year to revoke the registration of members of the Makabayan bloc.
“We are here to call for peace. The long-term violence brought by the communist groups and its allies is too much. We want to end terrorism to achieve a lasting peace because the future generation deserves it,” he added.

Communists! Recruiting minors! Committing violence and atrocities! And the Commies are being bankrolled by the European Union?

How has Fox News missed this story? Why isn’t Rush Limbaugh on it? And what about all those murdered environmentalists?

In 2018, 30 land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines, making it the country with the highest number of such killings in the world. As our new investigation shows, despite his election promises, Duterte’s administration is leaving defenders at the mercy of corporate greed.
Mining, agribusiness, logging and coal plants are driving attacks against environmental activists — with household brands such as Del Monte Philippines and Dole Philippines, and Filipino giants like San Miguel Corporation linked to local partners accused of attacks and murders of protestors.
Upon becoming President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte promised to safeguard the country’s rural and indigenous communities, tackle corruption, and protect the environment. Yet our research shows how Duterte has categorically failed to keep these promises, allowing business to continue as usual. And in the Philippines, this means business at all costs. Our report documents a trashing of indigenous rights, endemic corruption, and continued environmental damage — all with impunity
Furthermore, we show how internationally recognised firms including Del Monte Philippines, San Miguel Corporation, Standard Chartered, Dole Philippines, and the World Bank are connected to attacks against defenders through their business activities in the Philippines.

Oh, “corporate greed,” huh? Would it be too much of a stretch to speculate that these “environmental activists” are actually Communists? Because, really, what’s the agenda of environmentalism? In a country where you have a Communist insurgency, on the one hand, and environmentalists getting murdered on the other hand, it’s not a conspiracy theory to suspect there must be some kind of connection.  The Philippines are a U.S. ally, a nation of more than 100 million people, and I apologize for neglecting them so long until Ed Driscoll’s link brought this situation to my attention. What can Wikipedia tell us about this?

Rodrigo Roa Duterte . . . is a Filipino politician who is the 16th and incumbent President of the Philippines . . . He is the chairperson of PDP–Laban, the ruling political party. Duterte took office . . . on June 30, 2016 . . .
He . . . was a prosecutor for Davao City, before becoming vice mayor and, subsequently, mayor of the city in the wake of the Philippine Revolution of 1986. Duterte won seven terms and served as mayor of Davao for over 22 years.
Frequently described as a populist and a nationalist, Duterte’s political success has been aided by his vocal support for the extrajudicial killing of drug users and other criminals. Human rights groups have documented over 1,400 killings allegedly by death squads operating in Davao between 1998 and May 2016 . . . A 2009 report by the Philippine Commission on Human Rights confirmed the “systematic practice of extrajudicial killings” by the Davao Death Squad.

Ooh! “Death squads”!

It all makes sense now. The Philippines needed somebody to deal with a Communist insurgency, and so they elected the guy who has expressed “vocal support for . . . extrajudicial killing,” because when it comes to getting rid of Commies, you’re gonna need some “death squads.” And if a few environmental protesters start causing trouble . . .

Look, I’m all about the Rule of Law, due process, etc., but things always get messy when you’re dealing with Communist insurgents. Filipinos have been trying to get rid of these Commies for decades, so if they finally got frustrated enough to elect Mayor Death Squad as president, can you really blame them? Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe we can send some American environmental activists to the Philippines to . . . uh, investigate “human rights” under the Duterte government. Let these campus Antifa types see what real fascism looks like, and if some of them fall afoul of Duterte’s “death squads,” well, that would be bad.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

Category: Environmentalism, Philippines

Comments

4 Responses to “Ed Driscoll Misses the Lead”

  1. All hail Duterte – Adam Piggott
    February 8th, 2020 @ 12:51 pm

    […] The Other McCain has an interesting piece up about The Philippines. […]

  2. BIGLY Weekend Reads: The Left’s Ripping Apart of the Republic Continues | The Universal Spectator
    February 8th, 2020 @ 3:08 pm

    […] Ed Driscoll Misses the Lead […]

  3. Ed Driscoll Misses the Lead | The Other McCain – Wince and Nod
    February 8th, 2020 @ 3:08 pm

    […] terrorists in the Phillipines, but not about the EU funding or the murdered environmentalists. https://theothermccain.com/2020/02/08/ed-driscoll-misses-the-lead/rently the EU is funding Communist terrorists in the Philippines who are murdering environmentalists. I […]

  4. Reactivity. (The next war will censored, twitter included). - Dark Brightness
    February 14th, 2020 @ 7:36 am

    […] trying to destabilize those who reject them. One would think this would apply to England, but no, they are funding the communists in the Phillipnes, because of Global Warming or […]