The ruling of a Manila Regional Trial Court dismissing a government petition to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing New People's Army as a terrorist organization was not based on submitted evidence but on the sentiments of respondents.

Thus said the Department of Justice in its manifestation submitted to the RTC Branch 19 on 6 October 2022.

"Regrettably and with all due respect, the Honorable Court chose to close its eyes from the evidence presented before it," DoJ state prosecutors said of the court decision signed by Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar on 21 September 2022.

Contrary to the RTC Branch 19 decision stating present realities attest that terrorism does not flourish in a healthy and vibrant democracy, the DoJ said, "terrorist attacks were committed even in first-world countries and countries known to have healthy and vibrant democracies."

It cited the 11 September 2001 or 9/11 attacks in a very advanced New York in the United States, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the 22 July 2011 attacks in Oslo, Norway, the 15 April 2013 Boston Marathon blasts, the 13 November 2015 coordinated attacks in Paris and Saint-Denis suburb, 19 December 2016 attack in Breitcheid Platz, Berlin, and the 9 November 2018 attack in Melbourne, Australia.

Terrorist attacks, the DoJ said, were even committed right at the center of the country's democratic government where the Manila court sits such as the 30 December 2020 Rizal Day bombing of a Light Railway coach, and the 13 November 2007 blast at the Batasan Pambansa.

The 32-page DoJ manifestation said RTC Branch 19, in dismissing the former's petition, took a Machiavellian approach that "the end justifies the means."

"Be it as it may, while armed struggle with violence that accompanies it, is indubitably the approved means to approve to achieve the CPP-NPA's purpose, means is not synonymous with purpose. Stated otherwise, armed struggle is only a means to achieve the CPP's purpose; it is not the purpose of the creation of the CPP," the DoJ quoted Judge Malagar's ruling.

Disastrous

The manifestation said the court only conveyed a very clear, albeit erroneous and disastrous idea.