Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benjamin Madrigal Jr., said he is looking forward to the operationalization of the Executive Order No. 70 or the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict in 2019.
File photo of AFP Chief of staff and former Eastern Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen Benjamin Madrigal. (Keith Bacongco / FILE / MANILA BULLETIN)
In an interview, Madrigal stressed the need for all government agencies – both national and local government units – to come together to totally eradicate the root causes of conflict and violence.
“We have made significant progress and have headways in our campaign to end insurgency, but to reach what we can call a complete victory, we need to create communities that are conflict-resilient and we need local and national government agencies to attain this,” Madrigal said.
In 2018, consolidated data from ground units of the AFP indicate a total of 12,017 CPP-NPA members and supporters have been neutralized.
The figure includes 130 that were killed and 264 that were apprehended in legitimate security and law enforcement operations.
A total of 11,623 have also surrendered including 1,227 regular NPA fighters. AFP units also confiscated 1,920 assorted firearms and seized 316 enemy encampments.
Madrigal added that a series of meetings and plannings is on-going to operationalize E.O. Nr 70 and create a National Peace Framework anchored on the Whole-of-Nation approach institutionalized as a national policy.
“Aside from focusing on our enemies, we also have to look at our people and communities through a people-centered strategy to make our communities resilient from communist recruitment, propaganda, and exploitation,” Madrigal said.
Sison ‘hallucinating’
Meanwhile, AFP Public Affairs chief Colonel Noel Detoyato, said that Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria Sison is “hallucinating” when he made a statement on Wednesday saying that the communists’ “principal work” in 2019 will be the ouster of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“He must not only be dreaming, he is hallucinating,” Detoyato said.
“From here on, any moves by the CPP/NPA/NDF and its allied organizations to oust the president will be attributed to Mr Sison. This consultant is not advising his clients properly,” he added.
In his statement, Sison said despite seeking the ouster of President Duterte, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the CPP’s political arm, is still “authorized to be open to peace negotiations” with the government.
“The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) will further strengthen itself as the most consolidated realization of the national united front but will be able to cooperate with all possible allies in the broad united front in order to isolate and oust the Duterte regime from power,” Sison said.
“The NDFP is authorized to be open to peace negotiations with the current and prospective regime of the reactionary government but its principal work now is to work for the ouster of the Duterte regime,” he added.
The CPP leader has been calling for Duterte’s ouster from power after the Chief Executive terminated peace negotiations with the NDFP in November 2017.
Since then, the Duterte administration has been pushing for localized peace talks with the communists.
“Duterte is not interested in serious peace negotiations to address the roots of the armed conflict and make comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms in order to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace. He has issued proclamations and executive orders in order to terminate peace negotiations and further render them impossible during his rule. What he wants is the impossible, which is the surrender of the revolutionary movement of the people,” Sison said.
“We expect that the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces will win ever greater victories in the next year and thereafter. The accumulated victories of their struggle in the 50 years of revolutionary struggle since the founding of the Party under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism ought to inspire them to confront and defeat the US-Duterte regime and make further advances in the struggle for national and social liberation against the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system,” he added.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2019/01/03/afp-chief-vouches-for-national-task-force-vs-insurgency/
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