THERE are just too many concepts that we teach in political science that are being bastardized and cannibalized by how we actually practice politics in this country. Our party-list system is one of these, where we provided an opportunity to give marginalized parties that cannot compete in districts the chance to have representation, only to turn this into a wide field to be mined by opportunistic political families and interests to have seats added to their advantage.

And then we have this anomaly in the Senate where minority senators are assigned committees to chair, which is unheard of in normal parliamentary practice. In the House of Representatives, we also witness the spectacle of the majority having a say in the selection of the minority leader, which is a gross violation of any decent interpretation of how legislative bodies in a democracy should operate.

And even in the way we label, there are audacious attempts to simply jettison what is fairly established in our academic discipline and appropriate this to acquire new meaning with reckless disregard for the fact that it violates what is held to be scientific or disciplinal knowledge.

Take the case of rebellion and terrorism. As one who teaches a course on political violence, I have judiciously imparted to my students the fine distinctions between these two. And I did not invent these distinctions. These were molded and framed by scholarly inquiries and validated by the internal processes which academic disciplinal knowledge normally undergo before they gain acceptance and are used.

Rebellion and terrorism may be both considered as types of political violence. However, they possess a distinct set of attributes. In fact, we already adopted the academic definition of the crime of rebellion in our legal system with a clear definition provided in the Revised Penal Code. Article 134 of the Penal Code as amended by Republic Act 6968 defines rebellion or insurrection as being committed “by rising publicly and taking up arms against the government for the purpose of removing from the allegiance to said government or its laws, the territory of the Philippine Islands or any part thereof, of any body of land, naval or other armed forces, depriving the chief executive or the legislature, wholly or partially, of any powers or prerogatives.”

It is clear that rebellion is already punishable by law. It attaches when there is a public uprising where some people take up arms with the main purpose of toppling the government. A clear distinction was made by the court in GR 1186 where an armed band attacking the seat of power of a town, while still a crime punishable by law, does not constitute rebellion if there is no clear intent that rises to the level of being part of a larger attempt to overthrow the government.

On the other hand, terrorism is framed in academic literature as the use of violence with the main goal of creating a climate of fear, and not necessarily to overthrow government. In fact, Section 4 of RA 11479, or the “AntiTerrorism Act,” already reflects the essence of this definition, as it enumerates the acts that can be construed as terrorism but predicated these on the prerequisite which states that the purpose of such act “by its nature and context, is to intimidate the general public, or a segment thereof, create an atmosphere or spread a message of fear, to provoke or influence by intimidation the government or any international organization, or seriously destabilize or destroy the fundamental political, economic and social structures of the country, or create a public emergency or seriously undermine public safety.”

Thus, the attempt to consider the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) as a terrorist organization is not only a frontal negation of what is already established in the academic literature but also what is provided for by law. In academic and legal terms, the CPP-NPA-NDF is not engaged in terrorism. And this is not to exonerate it from the crime of rebellion which is still punishable by law.

But then again, making this assertion would draw the ire of the right-wing elements of our society so driven by their anti-left rhetoric, often made by considering the actual atrocities committed by the CPP-NPANDF and blindly transposing this as a blanket judgment on anything that is ideologically left. These voices, lustfully egged on by the rah-rah squad led by former undersecretary Lorraine Marie Badoy, would undoubtedly not only bash academics as too theoretical, but worse, even red-tag them as communist sympathizers, or worse, as terrorist coddlers.

These people forget that we are not saying that the CPP-NPANDF is not guilty of any crime. But theirs is rebellion and not terrorism not only by academic and legal definition, but as a matter of fact. And this is further amplified by the fact that the government, while not granting them belligerent status under international law, has engaged them in peace talks as de facto rebel forces. It is tempting to label them as terrorists because it sounds more atrocious and demoniacal. Unfortunately, even the law that criminalizes the act of terrorism says otherwise.

Now, the court has ruled that indeed the CPP-NPA-NDF is not a terrorist organization. Naturally, this has been met by loud protests from the rightwing sections of our society, which unfortunately is in the majority, who are frothing with rage. The judge is now being pilloried as a communist coddler and an enabler of terrorists when all she did was to fairly interpret and apply the law, and that she did not exonerate the CPP-NPA-NDF from possible prosecution under the crime of rebellion or insurrection stipulated in the Revised Penal Code, as amended.

And now the Department of Justice will file another proscription case presumably because the law that was allegedly applied in the court ruling has now been replaced by RA 11479. We cannot bend the law and disciplinal knowledge just to feed the bloodlust of the political right wing. RA 11479 defined terrorism and it is clearly different from rebellion.