Archive for March 23rd, 2007
Military claims more proof of party-list links to NPA
MANILA, Philippines — The military claims to have uncovered more evidence that communist guerillas are helping in the campaign of left-wing party-list groups for the May mid-term elections.
“We have strong evidence that the NPA [New People’s Army] and these party-list groups are connected,” Lieutenant Colonel Benigno Antonio, chief of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Battalion, told a news conference in Camp Aguinaldo.
He cited an alleged campaign plan for the party-list groups Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Kabataan, Anakpawis and Suara Bangsamoro seized the backpack of an NPA guerrilla, Allan Villare, who was slain during an encounter with Army troops in Juban town, Sorsogon province on March 20.
The seizure of the purported campaign plan came barely a month after campaign posters and calendars of Bayan Muna were seized from the NPA following an encounter in Davao del Sur province on February 28.
According to a summary of the seized documents that the military prepared, the NPA’s campaign plan for the five party-list groups in Sorsogon province is broken down into three phases.
Phase one, from February 13 to March 13, included a house-to-house campaign, putting up campaign posters, forming “alliances” with local officials, identifying possible poll watchers, and setting up municipal headquarters.
It also includes identifying candidates and supporters of party-list groups allegedly fronting for Malacañang, which the rebels supposedly listed as the Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy (ANAD), Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PDSP), Akbayan, Sanlakas, Partido ng Manggagawa (PM), Akap, and Aksa.
Phase two, from March 14 to April 14, involves the deployment of “propaganda teams” on jeepneys and tricycles, on top of posting campaign posters and house-to-house campaigns.
The rebels will also make a list of municipal candidates, launch a “party congress” in municipalities, and send delegates to the provincial conventions of Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Kabataan, Anakpawis and Suara Bangsamoro.
They will also collate reports on alleged “harassment” that the five party-list groups were suffering.
During the third and final phase, from April 14 to March 14, the rebels will send delegates to a “miting de avance” or final campaign rally on May 1, simultaneous with nationwide protest actions.
The mobile “propaganda teams” will stage a one-day caravan around Sorsogon province. On the day of the elections, results would be reported “immediately,” the military summary said.
The summary also listed the minimum votes the party-list are expected to get. Bayan Muna, for example, would likely get 15,000 votes in Bulan town, 7,000 in Gubat town, and 3,000 in Prieto Diaz town.
The Juban clash occurred after former NPA captive Jesus Lasala led authorities to the rebel lair the same day he escaped, just hours before he was set to be executed for alleged rape.
Lasala said he fled under cover of darkness after using a glass shard to cut the ropes binding him. Lasala said he was handcuffed and blindfolded, but he could move his blindfold up when his guards were not looking.
He said he was kidnapped at 6 p.m. on March 18. When he arrived at the NPA camp, a fellow captive, whom he identified as Marlon, informed him another captive had been executed earlier that day.
The next morning, the rebels shot dead a captive named Bunso, but not before asking him to take a bath, Lasala said. The following morning, the rebels executed yet another captive, identified as Arnold, also after asking him to take a bath.
Lasala said he did not see his fellow captives being killed but heard two to three gunshots shortly after they were removed from their detention quarters.
After Arnold was executed, Lasala said one of his captors told him: “Tomorrow morning, take a bath, do it early, so you will be clean.”
“I couldn’t speak. I knew I was going to die,” Lasala said.
Lasala said his guards appeared tired and slept too soundly, allowing him to escape until he reached a detachment of the 2nd Infantry Battalion.
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
Army chief says Metro deployment to deny rebels ‘foothold’
Claims NPA reactivating urban death squads
MANILA, Philippines — The chief of the Philippine Army has offered yet another justification for the deployment of troops to Metro Manila communities — to deny communist rebels a “foothold” for their urban death squads, more popularly known as “sparrow units.”
“We have intelligence reports that the enemy of the state is trying again to have a foothold here in Metro Manila. Like in the past, the sparrow unit, we do not want that to happen,” Lieutenant General Romeo Tolentino told reporters.
“We’re saying that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. We are preventing [the New People’s Army or NPA] with us going there [poor communities],” he added.
The small teams of rebel assassins earned the nickname “sparrow” for the speed with which they carried out their hits and then blended into the populace to escape.
Their sparrows first became known in Davao City in Mindanao in the mid-1980s but were soon operating in Metro Manila as well up until the early 1990s. Among their more prominent targets were American military adviser James Rowe, ex-police officers Joe Pring and Timoteo Zarcal, several businessmen and suspected military informants.
Asked about the degree of NPA infiltration in the metropolis, Tolentino said: “It’s still low. The rebels are just making their presence felt.”
Tolentino also said that the Philippine National Police (PNP) lacked the manpower to secure Metro Manila from the alleged rebel threat, thus the need to beef them up with soldiers.
“The PNP is good but it is undermanned. We are contributing because the PNP is our partner in seeking peace and stability,” he said.
Tolentino’s justification for the troop deployment came in the wake of a recommendation from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) that soldiers be pulled out of the national capital region and other urban centers to erase the impression the country was under martial rule. A military spokesman said the Chief of Staff, General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., is “seriously studying” the recommendation.
Left-wing party-list groups have accused the soldiers deployed in Metro Manila communities of campaigning against them and threatening their members but an internal military investigation and the CHR found no evidence of electioneering against the troops.
Tolentino said intelligence reports also revealed that the NPA was establishing sparrow unit footholds in other urban areas such as Cebu City in the Visayas and Davao.
He disclosed that peacekeepers returning to the country from an overseas mission could be deployed to Cebu City.
Since November 2006, the Army has deployed nine-man teams to 26 villages in Manila, Quezon City, and Caloocan City.
When the troop deployments and their alleged campaign against leftist party-list groups were first revealed by activists, the military gave conflicting reasons for sending soldiers into the communities — ranging from training them for overseas peacekeeping missions to helping maintain peace and order.
Last week, however, Esperon admitted that the deployment was part of Oplan Bantay Laya 2, the military’s latest counterinsurgency campaign plan.
Esperon added that NPA guerillas have been monitored in Quezon City’s Payatas district.
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
3 communist rebels hurt in Batangas clash
MANILA, Philippines — Three suspected communist guerillas were wounded following an encounter with government forces in Batangas province on Friday morning, a Philippine Army spokesman said.
At around 8:30 a.m., patrolling troops from the 740th Air Force combat group, which is under the operational control of the Army’s 202nd Infantry Brigade, chanced upon four New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas in Libato village, San Juan town, sparking a brief gunbattle, Major Ernesto Torres Jr. said.
The soldiers suffered no reported casualties. Two pistols were recovered from the rebels as they retreated, Torres said.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has set a 2010 deadline for security forces to finish off the nearly four-decade-old guerilla campaign of the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
