Communist guerrillas in the Philippines have collected more than 1 billion pesos (US$22 million) through extortion in the past 13 years and plan to squeeze more money from candidates ahead of general elections this spring, the military said yesterday.
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the 120,000-strong Philippine military to defeat the 40-year-old Maoist insurgency by the end of her term in June.
Filipinos will vote for a new president, senators, congressmen and thousands of officials down to the village level on May 10. Past elections have been marred by bloodshed and fraud.
Documents seized from captured guerrillas show they plan to extort money and firearms from candidates in exchange for protection from rebel attacks, as well as help in gaining support in the countryside, military civil relations service commander Brigadier General Francisco Cruz said in a statement.
He said such demands are preposterous because the rebels do not control any territory or voters.
Candidates should immediately report any extortion demands from the 5,000-strong New People’s Army rebels because giving them funds or guns would bolster the movement, Cruz said.
“This is their moneymaking season,” he said. “Extortion is what’s keeping them alive, not their ideology.”
Maoist guerrillas have also attempted to extort money from a company contracted by the elections commission to supply automated voting machines nationwide, Cruz said.
Efforts to reach the rebels for comment were unsuccessful.
Since 1996, the rebels have extorted more than 1 billion pesos from construction, mining, telecommunications, transportation and logging companies, as well as from farmers, Cruz said.
Refusing to pay up can expose companies to rebel attacks, he said. Earlier this month, guerrillas destroyed banana saplings and a backhoe on a foreign-owned plantation in southern Surigao del Sur province after the company refused to yield to rebel extortion, he said.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS