Days before the new Anti-Terrorism Law takes\neffect, the Duterte administration continues to spread disinformation about\nIBON that suspiciously makes it fit into the law\u2019s definition of terrorism. The\ngovernment propaganda outfit Philippine News Agency (PNA) and National Task\nForce to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) both recently claimed that\nan alleged New People\u2019s Army (NPA) fighter killed in Iloilo was an \u201cactive\nmember\u201d of IBON Foundation and insinuated that IBON recruited him into the NPA.\nThese are obviously false, said the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PNA reported<\/a>\non July 6, 2020 that an alleged 21-year old NPA fighter killed in Iloilo at the\nend of June was an \u201cactive member\u201d of IBON Foundation \u201cprior to joining the\nrebel movement\u201d. On July 9, 2020, in its official Facebook page, the NTF-ELCAC posted<\/a>\na graphic saying that the same alleged NPA fighter was an \u201cactive member [of]\nIBON Foundation-turned-NPA terrorist\u201d. The same claim<\/a>\nwas made in the official Facebook page of the 61st<\/sup> Infantry Hunter\nBattalion of the Philippine Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The allegations are not just a failure of\nso-called military intelligence, said IBON, but maliciously fabricated. The\nclaim is on the face of it implausible. The PNA claims that the alleged NPA\nrebel was 17 years old and enrolled in an undergraduate course in Iloilo when\nhe was \u201crecruited into the communist-terrorist group\u201d during school year\n2015-2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON Foundation does not hire students and much less a student who is based over 600 kilometers away from its Quezon City office, said the group. A diligent search of staffing records and members of IBON Foundation also did not show the name of, or even a similar name to, the alleged NPA rebel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IBON said that the recent allegations are only\nthe most recent in a pattern of falsehoods intentionally and maliciously\npromoted by the Duterte administration. Among others, in February 2019, IBON\nwas accused of fabricating reports to the United Nations (UN) and European\nUnion (EU) and producing textbooks to \u201cradicalize\u201d youth. In March, IBON was\naccused of funding and being a \u201clegal front\u201d of the Communist Party of the\nPhilippines \u2013 New People\u2019s Army (CPP-NPA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n By February 2020, PCOO undersecretary and\nNTF-ELCAC spokesperson Lorraine T. Marie Badoy was implicating IBON in the \u201crape\nand sexual molestation of children\u201d and \u201c[teaching] 5-year-olds to be child\nwarriors [and] 8-year-old killing machines\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n