AFP’s Bayanihan campaign a ‘complete failure’ — Reds

From the Daily Tribune (Jul 13): AFP’s Bayanihan campaign a ‘complete failure’ — Reds

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) yesterday declared the military’s internal peace and security plan (IPSP) “Bayanihan” a “complete failure.”

 The CPP made the declaration days before Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, regarded as the chief architect of the IPSP “Bayanihan,” retires from the military service. Bautista is reaching the mandatory retirement age of 56 on July 20.

“General Bautista’s Oplan Bayanihan is a complete failure,” declared the CPP.

 The AFP launched IPSP “Bayanihan” in January 2011 aimed at rendering the insurgency problem posed by the New People’s Army (NPA) to inconsequential level.

 The IPSP “Bayanihan” shifted military paradigm from the body count syndrome, or operations focused on combat score, to whole-of-nation approach of winning the peace through civil military operations.

 The IPSP “Bayanihan” succeeded Operation Plans Bantay Laya 1 and 2, which were heavy on military combat operations.

 While declaring more provinces ready for development, meaning the threat of communist insurgents is very minimal, during the implementation of IPSP “Bayanihan,” the last estimated number of NPA fighters released by the AFP remained at 4,000 level throughout the country.

This year, the AFP has not issued an estimated strength of the NPA.

The CPP, however, stressed that the military failed to decimate the strength of the NPA.

“The AFP has failed, not only in its declared objective of decimating the NPA in three years’ time, but also in putting a stop to the nationwide growth and strengthening of the NPA,” it added.

 The CPP also said that IPSP “Bayanihan” was a brutal as the two Oplan Bantay Laya.

“In waging a brutal war, the AFP has succeeded only in subjecting entire communities to militarization, occupying barangay halls and other civilian structures, violating the people’s domiciles, hampering production and commerce, obstructing school activities and traumatizing children and subjecting community leaders to harassment, illegal arrest and murder,” the CPP said.

“Behind the signboard of ‘peace and development,’ the AFP’s Oplan Bayanihan operations have proven to be equally as brutal as all previous campaigns of suppression carried out by the AFP against the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces,” it added.

Contrary to claims by Bautista that the military is gaining ground against the NPA, the CPP said that the communist armed wing is continuously expanding in rural areas where injustices to the masses are common.

“Across the entire Philippines, the New People’s Army continues to expand and grow in strength amid the worsening exploitation and oppression of the toiling masses who suffer widespread poverty, unemployment, low wages, land grabbing and spiralling costs of food and basic services even as the ruling classes continue to enrich themselves through plunder and corruption,” said the CPP.

“With increasing frequency, units of the NPA are carrying out ever bigger tactical offensives against the AFP, police forces, paramilitary units, private armies of big despotic landlords, armed security forces of big mining companies and other armed groups that suppress the people,” the communists added.

Only last Thursday, the NPA attacked the Alegria Municipal Police Station in Surigao del Norte, carting away firearms and taking four policemen as hostages.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/nation/afp-s-bayanihan-campaign-a-complete-failure-reds