NPA insurgents step up assault, extort activities

From the Manila Times (Jan 30): NPA insurgents step up assault, extort activities

THE communist New People’s Army (NPA) has stepped up its attack against government forces and intensified its forced taxation on civilians, including the collection of permit to campaign fees from candidates in the coming May polls.

Reports reaching Camp Aguinaldo on Tuesday showed that the rebels launched two separate attacks against elements of the Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu) in the provinces of Agusan del Sur and Surigao del Sur that left one dead.

Second Lt. Hazel Tabago, commanding officer of the Fourth Civil Military Operations Battalion and the Fourth Infantry Division, identified the slain Cafgu member as Danilo Bacudan, who was off duty when killed by four alleged rebel group members in Purok 12, Barangay Awao, Santa Josefa, Agusan del Sur.

A day after Bacudan was killed, a Cafgu detachment in Sitio Greenfiel, Barangay Santa Juana, Tabgina, Surigao del Sur, was attacked by rebels belonging to the NPA’s North Eastern Mindanao Regional Committee.

First Lt. Jolito Borces, civil military operations officer of the 75th Infantry Battalion and the Sixth Infantry Division, said that one was wounded on the government side and an unknown number on the rebels’ side during the encounter.

Over in Samar provinces, Captain Gene Orense, spokesman for the Eighth Infantry Division, said that they have recovered subversive documents showing that the rebels were collection campaign permit fees from candidates ranging from P50,000 to P5 million.

Orense said that on top of the campaign permit fees, the rebels were also requiring each candidate to give one high powered firearm, or an equivalent amount of P180,000.

Documents, he added, showed that candidates for governor are charged P5 million; lawmaker, P500,000; vice governor, P500,000, board member, P1000,000; mayor, P100,000; vice mayor, P75,000; and councilor, P50,000.

Orense said that the Maoist rebels have also intensified its extortion activities to businessmen and farmers to generate more funds for their armed violence.

Col. Arnullfo Marcelo Burgos Jr., said that in 2011 alone, the rebels have collected some P300 million from extortion activities and possibly much more during election periods.

Samar, the Negros provinces, Davao and the Caraga and Bicol regions are among the remaining NPA-infested areas in the country.

Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Noel Vestuir, commander of the 201 Infantry Battalion based in northern Samar, said that government security forces have seized another NPA camp in Sitio Camaalad, Barangay McKinley, Catarman. The camp, he said, has 15 hastily destroyed bunkers, a kitchen and a comfort room.

According to Vestuir, the rebels were forced to abandon their camp to evade armed engagement with the operating troops of the 201st Battalion (201B).

“The operation of the 201B troops has disrupted the impending terroristic activities that are being hatched by the NPA,” Vestuir said. “The government troops have disloged them from their guerrilla camps and cut-off their supply support lines that they forcibly take from the residents in the area.”

http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/regions/40427-npa-insurgents-step-up-assault-extort-activities