Communist rebels in the Bicol region mocked the military’s presentation last week of what they said were “fake” New People’s Army surrenderees.
“This tall tale of NPA surrenderees was highlighted during scripted press conferences and interviews they conducted to inculcate in the minds of the people that the military has been successful in ‘dismantling’ the revolutionary movement, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA at the provincial and regional levels,” Maria Rosa Banua, spokeswoman of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in the region said in a statement.
She dismissed the exercise a “psy-war (psychological warfare) offensive was supposed to please foreign investors who attended the recently-concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (summit)” in what she described as “an assurance that they can freely continue to plunder the nation's natural resources without any of popular opposition and armed resistance.”
Banua acknowledged that “Ka Rolex,” the only surrenderee introduced openly by the 9th Infantry Division, was a former rebel but said he “had to quit since he was indecisive and ill-prepared to face the trials and sacrifices of waging a people’s war.”
She also said he could not stand the rebels’ discipline and left to become a “kaingero” (slash and burn farmer) in Bacon, Sorsogon, where he was arrested “and forced to weave tall tales and cast aspersions on a top NPA military cadre in the province that the AFP had targeted.”
She added that it was also in response to “successful tactical offensives” mounted by the rebels in the latter part of this year.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/120622/bicol-rebels-scoff-at-fake-surrenderees-presented-by-military
NPA rebels routinely seek to discredit reports of their cadre surrendering to Philippine military forces. The old "fake" NPA surrenderees is a recurring theme in NPA counterpropaganda directed against military reports of rebels "returning to the folds of the law."
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