The revolutionary Left dismissed anew latest government claims of imminent victory against the New People’s Army (NPA), saying the counter-insurgency operation is shooting itself in the foot with spurious numbers.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict’s (NTFC-ELCAC) claim that the NPA is a “spent force” with only one remaining “active front” is bogus.
CPP Marco Valbuena chief information officer said in a statement Thursday that the government is in the habit reporting fantastic numbers.
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla, in a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, said 407 alleged NPA members surrendered to government forces from January to May of this year.
Forty-one were apprehended and 43 were killed in military operations, Padilla added.
Padilla also said 332 firearms and 233 anti-personnel mines were either seized from or surrendered to government troops while 68 encampments were reportedly captured from January to May.
The military earlier said that 88 out of the 89 NPA guerrilla fronts were neutralized, leaving only one “weakened front.”
“Every so often, the NTF-ELCAC comes up with these numbers to justify the millions of funds that their officials are embezzling and squandering,” Valbuena retorted.
‘Counter-insurgency is not development’
The CPP official said the Filipino masses still turn to the NPA when it comes to fundamental issues and demands of farmers such as free land distribution.
Valbuena said counter-insurgency projects under the Barangay Development Project are mere showpieces and ostentatious infrastructure, unsuitable livelihood projects that are often left abandoned.
In some barangays, ducklings were distributed, instead of the promised pigs while fish fingerlings were given to villages without fishponds, he reported.
The NTF-ELCAC set up bread-making facilities in farming communities where farmers barely earn enough to buy rice. Sewing machines that were distributed corroded because there are no orders. These are just some of the projects launched by NTF-Elcac to claim they are doing something in the barangays, Valbuena chided.
“Contrary to the masses’ demands, NTF-ELCAC and the AFP are the ones driving farmers off the land to give way to the plunder of the country’s wealth by corporate plunderers,” he said.
Government’s counter-insurgency operations “shamelessly use” civilians to repeatedly parade as surrenders and present weapons that have been’seized several times to inflate the bounty money that goes straight to their pockets, Valbuena added.
Valbuena revealed receiving reports from “surrenderers” who did not receive the promised funds and who are now detained in camps and used as slaves by soldiers.
“They are not allowed to return to their families and are treated like animals, fed only a few times a day,” Valbuena said. “Forcing them to surrender and treating them as prisoners are serious violations of international humanitarian law.”
The CPP called on “forced surrenderers” to refuse to be used in the soldiers’ propaganda campaigns, refuse to guide combat operations that put their lives at risk, and insist that they be allowed to return to their respective barangays. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
