Ilocos Region now free from insurgency: NTF-ELCAC

From the Philippine News Agency (Mar 14, 2022): Ilocos Region now free from insurgency: NTF-ELCAC (By Lade Jean Kabagani)

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. (File photo)

The Ilocos Region has been declared insurgency-free after a significant number of New People’s Army (NPA) guerilla fronts have been overpowered by government troops, an official of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said.

In a video interview posted on NTF-ELCAC's Facebook page on Monday, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said 34 members of the Komiteng Larangan Guerilla (KLG) South Ilocos, including two secretaries, were neutralized.

KLG’s former chairperson and a member of the NPA Ilocos-Cordillera regional committee was also captured by government troops in Samar on February 18.

“Wala na talagang NPA doon sa Ilocos, except kung nagpapanggap na nag-lie low na, but ‘yung apat na natitira pa sa Ilocos Sur ay tumakbo doon sa Abra at hinahabol-habol namin (There are no more NPA members in Ilocos [Region], except for those who are pretending to lie low but there are four members from Ilocos Sur who fled to Abra and we’re chasing them now),” Esperon said.

He expects more opportunities for Ilocos Region communities to develop further.

“Really, development is fast coming in, of course, ever since it was, but what more now, that’s the effect if guerilla fronts will be diminished,” he said.

NTF-ELCAC and Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy said the long-standing atrocities of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, NPA, have been interrupting the tourism industry in the region.

Areas that have been declared as peaceful and secured regions can achieve further progress, such as welcoming big players in the tourism industry as well as bringing other business opportunities, she said in a statement.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

The Anti-Terrorism Council also formally designated the National Democratic Front as a terrorist organization on June 23, 2021, citing it as “an integral and inseparable part” of the CPP-NPA that was created in April 1973.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1169707