CPP/CPDF/NPA: Salute the Leonardo Pacsi Command of the NPA-Mountain Province for the Victorious Tactical Offensive in Tadian

Posted to the CPP Website (Jul 1): Salute the Leonardo Pacsi Command of the NPA-Mountain Province for the Victorious Tactical Offensive in Tadian

Simon Naogsan (Ka Filiw)
Spokesperson
Cordillera People's Democratic Front

The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front commends the Leonardo Pacsi Command (LPC) of the NPA in the Mountain Province for the successful tactical offensive last June 28 against the 103 counterinsurgency trainees and trainors of the Cordillera Regional Public Safety Batallion (RPSB) that netted 14 high-powered firearms.

With only one casualty on the side of the PNP, the NPA was able to exercise restraint in carrying out a precisely-planned operation, targetting only the fully armed escorts and the responding support vehicle.

The success of the tactical offensive can only be attributed to the support of the masses, mastery of the terrain by the Red fighters and the firm resolve of the NPA to defend the democratic interests of the oppressed Filipino masses including the national minorities against the armed and police forces of the fascist state. Despite the superiority in firepower and number of the PNP, the NPA was able to utilize the element of surprise as well as command and control. The target of the attack was the fully armed escorts who advanced themselves and took positions at conspicuous locations. They were way ahead from the “trainees” when ambushed. Precise and minimum firepower together with the call to surrender was enough to neutralize the target. That accounted for the least casualty. If it were the so-called “trainees” that had been targetted, the result would have been different.

Under Oplan Bayanihan, the Internal Security Operation (ISO) of the present US-Aquino Regime is dictated by the US Counterinsurgency Guide to bolster security forces. The PNP is now being transformed and trained as active combat force to augment the AFP in the implementation of counter-insurgency operations. The troops of the Regional Public Safety Battalion (RPSB) ambushed are not new recruits but were undergoing a 45-day course on Special Counter-Insurgency Unit Training (SCOUT).

In the earlier training courses conducted in the same training ground at Babalaan, Tadian, Mountain Province, the LPC reported that although they were fully aware of such training they just let it pass hoping that the PNP would honor earlier assurances in discreet meetings that they would not engage themselves in counter insurgency operations. However, not long after these trainings they would figure in the ambush at Asipulo, Ifugao by the Nona del Rosario Command of the NPA-Ifugao in April this year. Documents obtained by the Red fighters during the battle indicated that the PNP unit had just freshly graduated from the same training ground in Babalaan,Tadian.

It is preposterous to elevate “jogging” as justification to downgrade armed trainees as “unarmed” combatants preparing to be pitted against the Red fighters. If such logic is to be followed, Ms. Abigael Valte of Malacanang and the PNP spokespersons should well be reminded that the unit of the LPC that was ambushed in the early morning of June 2 in Aguinaldo, Ifugao, wherein comrades Artus “Ka Libre” Talastas and Ronelson “Ka Renan” Balatines perished as martyrs, were unarmed while exercising when attacked by the 54th IB. This was also the same case when another unit of the LPC was attacked at Sitio Tappo, Barangay Banawel, Natonin, Mountain Province in the early morning of April 21, 2012 while undertaking stationary jogging and temporarily unarmed.

Since the US-Aquino regime took power, the former PNP Regional Mobile Group renamed and deodorized as RPSB has been increasingly utilized to augment the AFP’s counter-insurgency campaign in the Cordillera region. It has been involved in numerous incidences of human rights violations. In early 2011, a drunken RMG officer ran amoc that resulted in the massacre of innocent civilians including the host of a birthday party in Tinoc, Ifugao.

The CPDF commiserates with the family of the slain Police Officer Denver Balabag and the wounded PNP. It has never been the practice of the NPA in the Cordillera to raid police detachments unless the station is notoriously involved in anti-people activities. However, recent events have proven that the units of the PNP-RPSB are training themselves and allowed themselves to join the AFP in counterinsurgency operations. The SCOUT training and other counter insurgency trainings has intentionally divided the national minorities, pitting local police in counterinsurgency campaign when previously the indigenous people stood as one in defending ancestral land, resources and livelihood.

The CPDF calls on the people of the Cordillera not to join the counter revolutionary forces of the US-Aquino regime – the Philippine Army, CAFGU and the PNP. You will just be serving the interest of the ruling system whose sole purpose is to plunder the resources of the Cordillera. Let us not be victims of the divide and rule tactics of the enemy of the masses. To those who have already enlisted in the Army, PNP and CAFGU: desist from enlisting in counterinsurgency units like the RPSB and refrain from joining combat operations. We reiterate our call for the progressive rank and file of the PNP and the AFP to join the underground revolutionary mass organizations such as the Crispin Tagamolila Brigade. Likewise, continuing talks by the field operational units of the NPA with local police officials at the field level has yielded discreet tactical favorable arrangements before and must continue.

In time, the advance of the people’s war to a higher strategic stage will bring about numerous daring and successfull tactical offensives to arm the swelling ranks of the New People’s Army. #

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20130701_salute-the-leonardo-pacsi-command-of-the-npa-mountain-province-for-the-victorious-tactical-offensive-in-tadian