Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr.
JOSE Maria “Joma” Sison, what now that the planned grand anniversary celebration of your New People’s Army (NPA) fell flat on your face?
Counting from the time you and Bernabe Buscayno dared organize armed rebellion against the government in 1969, you have been at it for 51 years already. My God, that’s more than half a century and yet you remain no better than the ragtag Hukbalahap remnants with which you formed your so-called people’s army in the beginning.
Take a close look at the history of revolutions. All successful people’s uprisings have been those that didn’t take so long to triumph. The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which gave rise to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, is a classic example. Remember the movie “Ten Days That Shook The World”? It’s all about that upheaval and it’s so titled because, indeed, 10 days was all it took for the Bolsheviks to crush the centuries-old Romanov dynasty of Czar Nicholas 2nd.
With the time history has given you for your revolution, you should have by now achieved gains 150 times grander than the Soviet Union’s!
Coming down to the second half of the past century, we see the forces of Che Guevarra and Fidel Castro ousting dictator Fulgencio Batista in an armed revolt that consumed the longer part of more or less a year. With that as benchmark, you should have established by now a socialist state in the Philippines 50 times as big as that in Cuba.
Instead, what have you got? Mobile ragtag elements sadly incapable of establishing political hold over not even a minuscule territory.
Oh, yes, you always say, protracted people’s war. Mao Zedong did it in China, sure. But that was in the 1920s to the 1930s. No central government in place. The vast China country splintered among warring feudal lords, later partitioned among Western powers. Mao Zedong was correct in his semi-feudal, semi-colonial conception of Chinese society at the time. This validated his national democratic program of government and a strategy of wave-by-wave encirclement of the cities from the countryside.
In the Philippines, which has long achieved democracy, what national democracy are you talking about? What bureaucrat capitalism when we have a president that has social welfare at the heart of his government for which, in fact, he persists in fighting corruption, which has been the lifeline of oligarchic control of public utilities in the past. Water. Energy. Infrastructure. What have you?
Where are the cities and where is the countryside in an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands?! My god, Mr. Sison. Enough of your Mao Zedong copycat protracted people’s war.
What 51 years of struggle has to tell you is that you have not gotten anywhere.
Or is that precisely what you want, for it to keep going? Just keep the pretense of struggle, keep funds coming from your terroristic collections of so-called revolutionary tax or from donations of Western groups, which you have swindled to fund your secret ventures in capitalism like running a remittance business out of billions donated by your Western cohorts.
I tell you, with me at the Southern Luzon Command (SolCom), you will see the end of the road.
Sure, you did launch attacks on government troops, beginning March 21, in Kabansalan, Sibugay, Zamboanga; Lianga, Surigao; and Kapalong, Davao del Norte; and you did kill a number of indigenous people supportive of localized initiatives and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF Elcac).
Rest assured that we at the Armed Forces of the Philippines were not surprised. We knew quite early on that such would be the tactical offensive to be carried out nationwide by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Central Committee leading up to your intended grand commemoration of the founding of your army 51 years ago.
No matter that the troops you attacked were on a humanitarian mission, frontline responders against the menace of the coronavirus disease 2019. Sheer Sison arrogance in not reciprocating the suspension of military operations declared by President Rodrigo Duterte to support the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Rest assured, as well, Mr. Sison, that you won’t go unpunished.
On March 27, the CPP-NPA terrorists in the provinces of Rizal and Quezon were poised to launch an attack on our communities in Puray, Rodriguez, Rizal. For sure the area had been your mass base, but painstaking efforts by the NTF Elcac had, for a time now, won over the Puray folk to the government’s side.
Acting on the community’s info that the NPA was planning to attack, the troops executed a community defensive posture a kilometer away from the village. It resulted in the preemption of enemy attack; the killing of a high-ranking officer of the rebels; and the recovery of an M16 rifle, a hand grenade, a rifle grenade and several CPP and Militia ng Bayan group paraphernalia.
Sure, one government soldier died in the encounter. But that just is the way it should be. In this fight, it’s impossible not to have heroes.
But for that one single death of a government serviceman, how many of your terrorists have fallen, albeit for the better — back to the folds of the law.
Count, Mr. Sison.
Army commanders in Quezon Province have reported the voluntary surrender of three CPP-NPA terrorists (CNTs), including Arnel Merenio Abrencillo, aged 23 and resident of Barangay Malabahay, Macalelon, Quezon. Confiscated by the 85th Infantry Battalion (85IB) and the 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) from the surrenderers were with M16 and caliber 30 M1 Garand rifles.
The day before, March 2020, the 80IB and 1IB assisted the Provincial Task Force Elcac in facilitating the voluntary surrender of two CNTs: Jayson Alpahora Capatasan, aka Alwin/Aldrin/Oka/Oca, and July Pepito Penaverde, aka Erwin/Endong. Capatasan was the vice squad leader of platoon 4A2 of Barangay Magsikap, while Penaverde was a member of the same platoon.
On March 27, the Municipal Task Force Elcac facilitated the voluntary surrender of two high-ranking CNTs to Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro Mayor Andres Dangeros and municipal local government operations officer Bernadette Encina. Dominador Penciano Jr., aka Totsie/Jai/Jess/Nari, and Joel Mejaro y Dapok, aka Lenny/Libby, surrendered upon seeing the government’s sincerity with its implementation of the Executive Order 70 program.
That’s not the end of the sad story of your NPA members in the SolCom area, Mr Sison.
On the eve of the NPA anniversary, 40 regular NPA and Militia ng Bayan members surrendered to the government as a result of the Regional Task Force Elcac collaboration in the areas of General Nakar in Quezon, and Kalayaan and Sta. Rosa in Laguna.
The group turned in 14 FAS and war materiel, including one M16, one M14, two Carbine and one Garand rifles, as well as five pistols, rifle grenades and ammunition.
Topping the surrender of all the above was the killing of Julius Giron, whom Armed Forces chief Felimon Santos Jr. identified as chairman of the CPP and of its military commission, the position held by Benito Tiamson before being arrested in Cebu City in 2014. The top CPP-NPA honcho was killed in Barangay Queen of Peace, Baguio City in a firefight with soldiers of the Northern Luzon Command and city police. Also killed in the same incident was Lourdes Tan Torres, a member of the CPP executive committee and the CPP national health bureau, and an unidentified bodyguard of Giron.
With the death of your top stooge in the Philippines — stooge because you actually run the show from your armchair in the Netherlands — need I stress it to your face: your envisaged grand NPA anniversary celebration just went pfffttt…
Quo vadis from here, Joma?
As for me, I’m sworn to end your terrorism in my turf within my term.
[Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. is the newly designated commander of the Southern Luzon Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Email:parladejr@gmail.com.]
https://www.manilatimes.net/2020/04/01/opinion/analysis/quo-vadis-joma/708372/
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