PNP planning crackdown on NPA operations despite limited resources

From the Manila Bulletin (Apr 23): PNP planning crackdown on NPA operations despite limited resources

With limited personnel and resources, the Philippine National Police (PNP) wants to strategize operations against the communist rebels in eastern part of Mindanao.

And as far as he is concerned, PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima wants to make the police presence felt in areas where the New People’s Army (NPA) is getting its funds and other supplies.

“They are engaged in extortion activities and they would naturally go in areas where they get their resources like mining and plantations in eastern Mindanao,” said Purisima.

Purisima made the statement in reaction to the series of tactical offensives of the NPA in eastern Mindanao, from harassments of police and military detachments, ambuscades, to abduction of policemen and militiamen.

On Monday, no less than President Aquino ordered the crackdown on all checkpoints set up by the communist rebels in response to the ambush on the convoy of the mother of Teofisto Guingona III, Mayor Ruth Guingona, in Gingoog City that left two people dead and two others wounded, including the local chief executive herself.

Purisima, however, admitted the difficulty in tracking down the “checkpoint” set up by the communist rebels, saying the NPA checkpoints are usually being set up in areas and during the time that they know government troops could not easily catch them.

“Their so-called checkpoints are not permanent compared to the ones being set up by the PNP and the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines). They usually do it in the absence of policemen and soldiers,” said Purisima.

As such, the official wants to focus police operations and intelligence build up in the companies and establishments that are usually being victimized by the communist rebels in their alleged extortion activities.

Chief Supt. Generoso Cerbo, Jr., PNP spokesman, said they are expecting the deployment of elite police forces to run after the communist rebels in eastern Mindanao.

On Monday, the military said a battalion of soldiers, composed of roughly 500 people, will be deployed in Misamis Oriental to track down and contain the movement of the local communist rebels. Gingoog City is in Misamis Oriental.

“We have forces dedicated for that job (operations against NPA) and these will certainly be tapped with the order of the President,” said Cerbo.

The official is referring to the Special Action Force and Public Safety Battalion and Company whose personnel are all trained in counter-insurgency operations.

The 4,000-strong NPA has been waging more than four decades of armed struggle against the government. The group reached its peak in the 1980s with some 26,000 members across the country.

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