NDF/NDF-Mindanao: Generating fake surrenders, a lucrative source of corruption for promotion-hungry AFP officials

NDF-Mindanao propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front (NDF) Website (Nov 17): Generating fake surrenders, a lucrative source of corruption for promotion-hungry AFP officials

Ka Joaquin Jacinto
Spokesperson
NDFP-Mindanao

Press Statement
14 November 2018

Churning out and parading fake “surrenderers” through the so-called E-CLIP scheme is nothing but a lucrative money-making venture and a source of corruption for ambitious AFP officials gunning for promotion and privileges. The more “surrenders” they stage, the more likely it becomes for these corrupt AFP officials, especially those in Mindanao, to get their commander-in-chief Duterte’s favor, which practically hands them the license to dip their hands not just into funds allocated for E-CLIP but into the billions of pesos that can be minded from DILG, OPPAP and Duterte’s intelligence funds as well.

Under these AFP official’s lust for rank and privileges, the basic rights of hundreds of innocent civilians from different barrios all over Mindanao are waylaid as they are coerced, often at gunpoint, to appear or play-act as “surrenderers.” The AFP often targets former Red commanders and fighters who have left the revolutionary movement ages ago, pressuring and harassing them with arrest or death should they resist or refuse to yield to this deceptive scheme. Other individuals who may have relatives in the NPA or who are in the process of clearing their names as “suspected enemies of the state,” are also forcibly induced as “surrenderers.”

Hundreds of individuals are being duped with the promise of “cash assistance, free housing, risk-free loans, livelihood, and even, stable jobs.” Evidently, this is a sick joke because the US-Duterte regime has done from inanely poorly to virtually nothing to resolve the country’s problems on unemployment, hunger, lack of decent housing and so on. While millions of Filipinos continue to wallow in poverty, it is quite unimaginable for Duterte and the AFP to favor so-called “surrenderers.” The money or livelihood, if indeed there are any, are only for show as part of the drama, virtually a one-time, big-time “pasikat” to lend the ECLIP scheme “credible reality,” which is pure and utter deception.

There have been a few Red fighters who may have actually surrendered themselves to the AFP, but did so under heavy pressure from their families and relatives. In many cases, the AFP also employs the dirty psy-war tactic of holding the families and relatives of NPA fighters hostage in order to force their son, daughter, sibling or cousin who are with the NPA to leave the revolutionary movement.

Red commanders and fighters and the revolutionary masses, however, will never surrender to the fascist US-Duterte regime! If Duterte and the AFP think that it can decimate the national democratic revolution by 2019 after 50 years of hard and dedicated struggle, they should think again and keep on dreaming. AFP pronouncements of mass neutralization and the decimation of 7 fronts in Eastern Mindanao are nothing but pure lies and braggadocio and, again, for promotion and more money. Reports from the field confirm that not a single NPA front nor unit in Mindanao has been wiped-out due to AFP military operations! Despite heavy enemy attacks, all NPA fronts remain in fighting form.

Thus, the NDFP-Mindanao calls upon the people, especially in Mindanao, to expose and oppose the E-CLIP scheme of “fake surrenderers” and resist its deception and attack against basic human rights and welfare!

https://www.ndfp.org/generating-fake-surrenders-a-lucrative-source-of-corruption-for-promotion-hungry-afp-officials/