PRWC
The 303rd Brigade was preparing to initiate a bloodier and more violent counterrevolutionary campaign last month thus Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Andres Centino was hinting their time table of possibly defeating the New People’s Army (NPA) in Negros Island by year end during his visit here in late May.
As early as May 16, BGen. Orlando Edralin, 303rd Infantry Brigade Commander, dug up an antiquated psywar tactic and told local media that NPA Negros is conducting “internal cleansing” following the death of top NPA leaders on the island and then claimed to be “winning the peace.”
Edralin was already laying down the ground work for intense and violent focused military operations mobilizing not only their own foot soldiers but also incorrigible, bloodthirsty and money-hungry traitors to the revolution especially in Central Negros where they believe the NPA forces on the island are strongest.
In past fascist regimes, the military first launched vilification or red-tagging campaigns against their targets and then send its death squads to kill them. After they were killed, military and paid propagandists proclaim that they were victims of an “internal purge” by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA despite contradictory statements from the victim’s family, friends and neighbors.
Edralin must have thought reviving the “purge” plot would be their trump card to survive the people’s hatred over bloody and merciless killings of innocent civilians and children as what the 303rd Brigade’s 94th Infantry Battalion did to members of the Fausto family last June 14 at Sitio Kangkiling, Brgy. Buenavista, Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental.
Edralin was outright mistaken. Peddling intrigues is a known psywar tactic of state forces especially the AFP. Edralin and his lower commanders must think highly of themselves, but really they are stupid to think that recycling debunked intrigues will dampen the masses’ rage towards them.
The brutal murders of the Fausto family and other innocent farmers resulted from the arrogance of Edralin, his battalion commanders, 3rd ID Commander MGen. Marion Sison and Visayas Command Chief Lt. Gen. Benedict Arevalo up to Gen. Centino that the masses will just cower in terror before their armed might and will not fight back, thus they unleash increasing violence expecting impunity.
Edralin will be proven to be more foolish and deserves the full outrage of the people if the presented witnesses in the Fausto family massacre are the collaborationists and traitors directly involved in the massacre of the Fausto family and other extrajudicial killings and human rights violations perpetrated in the name of the AFP’s anti-insurgency campaign.
Since Edralin signalled the beginning of their intensified bloody counterrevolutionary campaign in mid-May, 14 farmers have been salvaged in Negros Island, 11 of them in Central Negros. The Negrosanon masses now anticipate escalating bloody attacks and human rights violations by state forces in the remaining months as another silly deadline expires.
The Apolinario Gatmaitan Command, the NPA’s Regional Operational Command in Negros, with all its guerrilla fronts from the northern to southern portions of the island, is prepared to confront and defend the people from the state force’s rabid rampage by launching an extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare in an ever widening and deepening mass base.
The AGC-NPA challenges Marcos Jr to accept command responsibility in the massacre of the Fausto family and other 36 summarily killed farmers, National Democratic Front (NDF) Consultants and hors de combat in Negros and 60 other victims of extrajudicial killings in the rest of the country perpetrated within the first year of his regime. The rest of the AFP’s chain of command must be held accountable as well for all human rights violation it has committed.
If the current Marcos regime continues its bloody campaign of suppression against the people and repeat lies and intrigues to evade accountability, it will only generate conditions for the people’s war to intensify and expand.
State-sponsored killings on the island enrich the land with the blood of its own people. The conditions are ripe for the NPA in Negros, under the absolute leadership of the CPP, guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and with the people’s ceaseless support, to persevere in exceeding its highest peak in the 1980s of around 800 forces and set the stage for the social volcano on the island to erupt.###
