MANILA – The Tacloban Regional Trial Court dismissed three counts of terrorism financing violation against Leyte Center for Development and Empowerment (LCDE) Executive Director Jazmin Jerusalem.
In a decision dated February 27, 2026 by Judge Georgina Uy Perez, the cases against Jerusalem were dismissed.
Jerusalem was initially accused of violating Republic Act No. 10168 or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act (TFPSA).
“Without an operative and legally effective designation at the time of the alleged acts, an essential element of the crime is wanting,” Perez wrote, emphasizing that Jerusalem was accused of crimes during the time when there is no official terrorist designation of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA). Jerusalem was accused of providing material assistance to the CPP and NPA on March 15, 2013, December 23, 2014, and June 5, 2016.
However, the first publication designating CPP-NPA as a “terrorist organization” was dated on December 5, 2017 by former president Rodrigo Duterte under Proclamation No. 374. The Anti-Terrorism Council’s resolution was published on February 18, 2021.
The lack of mandatory publication by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) designating the CPP-NPA as a “terrorist organization” therefore makes Jerusalem’s alleged crimes from 2013 to 2016 baseless.
“As such, there was no operative designation that could validly serve as the basis of the criminal liability under Section 8 (ii) of RA 10168, at the time the alleged acts were committed,” the court decision added.
Jerusalem’s case was initially dismissed by the prosecutors due to insufficient evidence. It was revived when the appeal from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) was granted.
According to National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) National President Ephraim Cortez, one of the legal consequences of the recent dismissal of the charges against Jerusalem is that the prosecution is precluded from seeking a review of the dismissal and from filing more financing terrorism charges based on the same set of facts.
Read: No evidence | Prosecutor junks financing terrorism charges vs Tacloban NGO
Jerusalem also won a separate case when the Regional Trial Court Branch 128 dismissed the civil forfeiture case against her on February 20, 2026. The decision was due to the failure of the petitioners to link the questioned bank accounts and transactions to unlawful activity.
“We do have to go on even despite all these judicial attacks. Tayong mga development workers, humanitarian workers, human rights defenders– we have to go on serving our people. We are leaving a huge gap by being hindered by these attacks, and our people need us,” Jerusalem said in a Defend NGO Alliance statement on February 23, 2026. (AMU, DAA)
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