Rebels in Key Groups, Manila Cleric Says

Cardinal Jaime Sin of the Philippines acknowledged Thursday that several church-affiliated organizations have been infiltrated by Communist rebels and that these organizations have used millions of dollars in foreign donations to buy arms and other supplies for the rebels.

“We are now cleansing our own ranks,” Sin told a group of foreign reporters, adding that the church severed its ties last week with a social welfare agency that he described as little more than a Communist front.

Sin, who represents the conservative faction of the church and is closely aligned with President Corazon Aquino, used the occasion to rebut recent charges from within the church that there have been widespread human rights violations in the two years since Aquino came to power.

Asked about a statement from Task Force Detainees, an organization made up largely of nuns and priests, reporting widespread killings and illegal arrests, the cardinal implied that the task force has been infiltrated by “people who are trying to downgrade this new administration.”

The task force could not be reached for comment. However, Roman Catholic Archbishop Antonio Fortich, a longtime human rights advocate and primate of the island of Negros, defended the task force’s work and charged that Sin’s allegation was “very simplistic.”

Fortich said the task force’s statistics are reliable because “they go out where the killings take place.”

Sin had been an outspoken supporter of the task force before Aquino came to power. The group’s monthly reports under former President Ferdinand E. Marcos were instrumental in turning public support away from Marcos.

But since Aquino came to power, Sin has emerged as one of her key advisers. He denied allegations in the task force’s most recent report that an average of 22 human rights violations take place every day in Manila alone.

Sin conceded that the task force is a Catholic organization, but he charged that “these are people that are funded by other governments to downgrade our government.”

Last November, before the task force’s report appeared, the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates, a group of liberal lawyers and priests, issued a report sharply criticizing Aquino’s human rights record.

The alliance reported that under Aquino, 668 civilians have been held as political prisoners, 18,000 families have been forced from their homes by military operations and the government’s military and civilian vigilantes have been responsible for 26 massacres, 208 individual political killings and 512 incidents of torture.

Aquino, whose husband was held for more than eight years as a political prisoner and later was killed, reportedly at the hands of Marcos’ military, has denied the charges. In recent speeches, she has said she will stand by the military in its campaign against the Communist insurgents.

A presidential commission on human rights, which Aquino appointed when she took office, has been disbanded, and Cardinal Sin said the church has received no formal, independent reports of any human rights violations in the last two years.

In acknowledging that several church organizations have been infiltrated by the Communists, Sin backed up longstanding charges by the armed forces that millions of dollars has been funneled to the rebels from organizations overseas.

A 23-page report last December by Aquino’s civilian intelligence agency charged that the Communist umbrella group, the National Democratic Front, has enlisted financial aid from dozens of so-called solidarity groups in foreign countries including the United States.

Cardinal Sin said the Philippine National Alliance of Social Action has received millions of dollars from overseas each year.

“This money is being used to buy weapons and to develop and to strengthen the New People’s Army,” Sin said. “We cannot go on this way.”