Marzan

MEMORANDUM **

Lead petitioner Leoncio P. Marzan, his wife and son, natives and citizens of the Philippines, petition for review of the Board of Immigration Appeals’ (“BIA”) decision affirming an immigration judge’s (“IJ”) denial of his application for asylum, withholding of removal and protection under the Convention Against Torture (“CAT”). We have jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. § 1252 . Where, as here, the BIA affirms without opinion, we review the IJ’s decision. See Falcon Carriche v. Ashcroft, 350 F.3d 845, 849 (9th Cir.2003). We review for substantial evidence, INS v. Elias-Zacarias, 502 U.S. 478, 481 , 112 S.Ct. 812 , 117 L.Ed.2d 38 (1992), and we deny the petition for review.

Substantial evidence supports the IJ’s finding that Marzan failed to establish that the threats he received, both over the phone and in person, from the Nationalist Army of the Philippines (“NAP”) and the New People’s Army (“NPA”) constituted past persecution. See Lim v. INS, 224 F.3d 929, 936-37 (9th Cir.2000) (holding that threats, standing alone, constitute past persecution in only a small category of cases, and only when the threats are so menacing as to cause significant actual “suffering or…