The creation of a joint anti-Red committee by Metro Manila’s Regional Development Council and Regional Peace and Order Council is “another lesson not learned” by the government, former lawmaker Neri Colmenares said on Monday.
Colmenares, who is perceived as a vocal leftist, stated that the government’s “intolerance of dissent” is leaving it open to making the same mistake that former president Ferdinand Marcos committed.
Former representative Neri Colmenares. PHOTO BY ENRIQUE AGCAOILI
“They didn’t learn their lesson from Marcos. Marcos precisely did that, binira niya ang lahat ng (he hit all) existing organizations nuon (then)… But in the end, hindi naman nila natalo ang NPA (he did not win against the NPA),” he said.
The NPA is the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Colmenares said the government’s idea of defeating the communist insurgency in the country is to focus attacks on leftists in the urban areas.
This approach, he noted, is problematic because the “strength of the NPA is not here, but there [in the countryside].”
The two regional councils last week created the National Capital Region (Metro Manila) Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NCRTF-ELCAC), which aims to counter activities of left-leaning groups in the nation’s capital city of Manila.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order 70 ordered the creation of the NCRTF-ELCAC to enable a whole-of-nation approach in ridding the country of the communist insurgency.
The joint committee zeroes in on inclusive and sustainable solutions to the communist insurgeny such as implementation of the Enhanced Comprehensive Localized Integration Program, which encourages rebels to return to the fold of the law through livelihood support.
“They didn’t learn their lesson from Marcos. Marcos precisely did that, binira niya ang lahat ng (he hit all) existing organizations nuon (then)… But in the end, hindi naman nila natalo ang NPA (he did not win against the NPA),” he said.
The NPA is the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Colmenares said the government’s idea of defeating the communist insurgency in the country is to focus attacks on leftists in the urban areas.
This approach, he noted, is problematic because the “strength of the NPA is not here, but there [in the countryside].”
The two regional councils last week created the National Capital Region (Metro Manila) Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NCRTF-ELCAC), which aims to counter activities of left-leaning groups in the nation’s capital city of Manila.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order 70 ordered the creation of the NCRTF-ELCAC to enable a whole-of-nation approach in ridding the country of the communist insurgency.
The joint committee zeroes in on inclusive and sustainable solutions to the communist insurgeny such as implementation of the Enhanced Comprehensive Localized Integration Program, which encourages rebels to return to the fold of the law through livelihood support.
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