Opinion: NPA’s popularity fast declining

From the On Target column by Ramon Tulfo in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Aug 16): NPA’s popularity fast declining

MALACAÑANG has denied the claim of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that the Duterte administration’s war on drugs is “antipeople and antidemocratic.”

The CPP fails to see the beneficial effects of the antidrug campaign on the people in the barrios where members of the New People Army (NPA) hold sway.

Many farmers in remote barrios or barangays have stopped raising chickens, pigs or goats because drug addicts steal them to buy “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride).

Even the carabao, a farm animal used in plowing the field, is not spared by drug-driven thieves.

Many a barrio lass would rather go to the city to find employment as housemaids than marry the barrio swain who has become addicted to shabu.

Worse, these young maidens leave their rural homes to escape being preyed upon by drug addicts.

Most crimes of rape or murder in remote barrios were committed by men who were “high” on shabu.

The NPAs, who used to be the refuge of barrio folk victimized by people who stole their cattle, carabaos, pigs, goats and chickens, are now too busy collecting “revolutionary tax” from big plantations and mine sites to go after village villains.

***
From where I sit, I can see the popularity of the NPA fast declining among the barrio folk.

Its raids on plantations and mining sites which refuse to pay them revolutionary tax are affecting the barrio folk who work in those facilities.

The closure of the Dole-Stanfilco banana plantation in Surigao del Sur because of NPA attacks has rendered 3,000 people jobless.

Multiply Dole-Stanfilco by 100 and you will see the gravity of the problem the NPAs have created among barrio folk.

They are beginning to realize that the NPAs are no longer their saviors but oppressors.

Soon, barrio people will stop hiding the NPAs from government troops and instead report their presence in their locality.

***
Mark my words: Very soon, the same barrio folk will ask the government to arm them so they can shoot down the NPAs who come to their village to forage for food.

Also very soon, the NPAs will seek to talk peace with the government to escape the wrath of the barrio people.

The government will just have to wait for that time to come because it will surely come. Very soon.

***
The Duterte administration will give much more credence to its antidrug campaign if politicians and media or show biz personalities linked to the illicit drug trade are not treated with kid gloves.

If reports of their involvement are found to be reliable, why should they be treated differently from the unshod drug pushers?

In fact, these politicians and showbiz personalities have destroyed more lives than smalltime pushers because they use their power and influence.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/806476/npas-popularity-fast-declining