Philippine Insurgents Extort Funds To Ruin ASEAN Summit
Josephine Roque - All Headline News Staff Writer Cebu, Philippines (AHN) - Police meted criminal charges against two activists who allegedly extorted $5,000 and a new laptop computer from a cement company to help in the communist insurgency movement. Authorities explained that the "revolutionary tax" was collected to support an international conference of activists in December to transpire during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Cebu. Labor organizer Gerard Lavadia and fish vendor Sharon Abangan, involved with Bantay Dagat in Talisay, were arrested and presented to the media. The cement company representatives worked with police after receiving demand letters and death threats from the underground movement reports Cebu Daliy News. "During the investigation the suspects confessed their agenda," said Superintendent Jose Jorge Corpuz of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7. "The money will be used to mobilize sectoral fronts to embarrass us," he added. He explained that said the meeting dubbed Asia-Pacific Conference of the International League of People's Struggle was meant to ruin the ASEAN Summit. Arman Perez, secretary general of the party-list group Bayan Muna, admitted plans of militant groups to hold a "People's Summit" but rejected claims that it was to spoil the ASEAN Summit. "This would not be a violent conference. We are not going to emb |
