Baguio activist group asks SC to lift assets freeze
The Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) on Monday filed a petition before the Supreme Court seeking to lift the year-long freeze order on its assets and bank accounts.
In its 34-page petition for review on certiorari, the Baguio City-based activist group asked the high tribunal to issue a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction on the freeze order issued by the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) in 2023.
Named respondents were the AMLC and the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC).
The group also appealed to the Supreme Court to overturn the Court of Appeals’ (CA) dismissal of their petition challenging the freeze order issued due to their association with Windel Bolinget, whom the court labeled as a “designated terrorist.”
Hampered operation
Bolinget, along with fellow activists Stephen Tauli, Sarah Abellon Alikes and Jennifer Awingan Taggaoa, was added to the government’s terrorist list by the ATC on June 7 of last year.
They learned about the council’s resolution a month later, after the CPA’s accounts were frozen through AMLC Resolution No. TF-67-2023.
Sarah Dekdeken, CPA secretary general, said the AMLC’s freeze order has hampered the operations of their group, particularly their program providing aid to typhoon and disaster victims.
“We are among those who immediately respond to the communities. So this is one of our programs that were lost because of the freezing of bank accounts. We can no longer receive funds,” she said.
The CPA also sought an oral argument on the merits of the case.
In addition, they asked the high court to declare as unconstitutional several provisions of Republic Act No. 10168, or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012, and RA 11479, or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.
The CPA specifically seeks to strike down the provisions in the law that grant the AMLC the authority to issue a freeze order on the property or funds of designated terrorist organizations or individuals.
The CA, in December last year, has dismissed the CPA’s petition to lift the freeze order, saying the group could not pursue a petition to determine the basis for a sanction freeze order “because such a procedural remedy is restricted by law to a designated person … which, in this case, pertained to Bolinget.”
“Coupled with the uncontroverted detail that Bolinget is the incumbent chair and president of CPA, this court was convinced that the AMLC was on the right track when it assessed there was sufficient evidence to prove that the petitioner was effectively and ultimately controlled by Bolinget, a designated person, which justified the implementation of the sanction freeze order against the corporate bank accounts of CPA,” the appeals court said in the Dec. 14, 2023, ruling penned by 10th Division chair, Associate Justice Eduardo Peralta Jr.
No judicial relief yet
Bolinget, last February, had told the Inquirer that they had hoped for “some judicial relief,” as they continued “to be victims of the false designation that has affected the livelihood and security of our families.”
Bolinget, Tauli, Alikes and Taggaoa have also filed a separate case against the ATC and the AMLC before the Baguio Regional Trial Court (RTC) on Nov. 23, 2023, questioning their designation as terrorists.
The petition, pending before Baguio RTC Branch 7 Judge Cecilia Corazon Dulay Archog, sought for a petition for a writ of preliminary injunction and petition for certiorari, saying that the four CPA members were declared terrorists “without due process.”
Bolinget earlier said they need a court action to stop the government from tagging them as terrorists and suppressing their access to their bank accounts, as it has victimized their families. —WITH REPORTS FROM VINCENT CABREZA
