The April 19 massacre of 19 combatants and activists in Negros Occidental has stimulated calls for the resumption of the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed group New People’s Army (NPA) in the talks.

Asked for his reaction to such calls, National Defense Secretary Gilberto “Gibo” Teodoro Jr replied with a short rant against the underground left-wing organizations. He said the actions of the CPP-NPA-NDFP are “crimes” and “terrorism,” and rejected calls for the peace talks’ resumption by saying that such talks “would elevate the morality of their cause to something legitimate.”

Teodoro’s statement captures the essence of government policy towards the CPP-NPA-NDFP and peace talks with these groups. It reflects the US government’s line on terrorism, which the Philippine government has both followed and taken advantage of to try to quell the armed insurgency.

As Filipino scholar Jayson Lamchek has shown in his book Human Rights-Compliant Counterterrorism: Myth-making and Reality in the Philippines and Indonesia (2019), the discourse on “terrorism,” especially as originally formulated under US president George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” is deeply detrimental to human rights. Designating a group “terrorist” can mean suspending many of the human rights of its members and supporters, whether real or alleged. Lamchek argues that even “human rights-compliant counterterrorism” can be problematic for human rights.

The Philippines has seen the deadly and detrimental effects of terrorism discourse on human rights. First adopted by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, this discourse has resulted in the extrajudicial killing of more than a thousand labor and social movement activists during her regime. It unfortunately persists to this day and plays a significant role in the various human rights violations in the labor sector as well as the Negros 19 massacre.

Defining terrorism has been contentious, with the US government insisting that its enemies are terrorists and that it has the power to define which organizations are terrorists. Jeff Goodwin, an American scholar, provides the following definition: “Terrorism is the strategic use of violence and threats of violence by an oppositional political group against civilians or noncombatants, and is usually intended to influence several audiences.” He elaborates a theory about the kind of “complicitous civilians” that terrorists usually target for attacks.

One does not have to agree with the CPP-NPA-NDFP to say that these groups do not fit this definition. Their programs do not endorse violence or threats of violence against civilians, whom they claim to fight for and whom they seek to win over to their cause. Their actions across history have shown that they do not target civilians consciously or in a large scale. Many Filipinos, including scholars and intellectuals, recognize them as legitimate revolutionary organizations and not terrorists. They have been calling for peace talks even as the government has consistently rejected or scuttled these.

We therefore call on all individuals and organizations who are concerned about human rights and democracy in the Philippines: Let us call for justice for the Negros 19 and other victims of human rights violations. Let us speak out against the human rights violations carried out by the government under the banner of counter-insurgency, which it calls counter-terrorism. Let us call for the resumption of the peace talks between the government and the NDFP, and demand that the government address the root causes of the armed conflict.

On social media, trolls that champion the Dutertes’ “kill, kill, kill” rhetoric and platform are also the noisiest in rejoicing over the death of the Negros 19 and mocking them. All individuals and organizations, no matter the political alignment, should speak out for human rights and democracy against their avowed enemies, and even the US and the military which claim to champion these.