NDF official denies lawyers’ group a communist front

MANILA, Philippines — National Democratic Front (NDF) peace panel chairman Fidel Agcaoili said yesterday the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) is not a front of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

In a statement, Agcaoili said the determination of a person or group as CPP front should be conducted by the court and must be based on competent and admissible evidence. 

Agcaoili said the Feb. 27 press release of the Philippine News Agency linking him to NUPL is way off the mark.

He said for the record, he is not a lawyer and never had the ambition to be one despite coming from a family of lawyers.

“So I have nothing to do with the (NUPL), though some of its members happen to be legal consultants of the NDF negotiating panel even before the organization was founded, as well as legal counsels of detained NDF consultants and political prisoners,” Agcaoili said.

“Such happenstance does not make NUPL a so-called front of the (CPP) nor are the concerned lawyers members of the Party,” Agcaoili added. 

Agcaoili said that in accordance with due process, it is for any court of law, be it revolutionary or reactionary, to determine the truth of such allegations through competent and admissible evidence and not through manufactured witnesses or planted evidence like what is brazenly happening now.