NPA executes member in own drug war

From the Manila Bulletin (Jan 26): NPA executes member in own drug war

The New People’s Army has executed, as part of its own war on drugs, a paramilitary member and a suspected supplier of drugs to CAFGUs in the hinterlands of Davao City.

In a statement, NPA southern Mindanao regional spokesperson Rigoberto Sanchez said that the NPA killed Alberto T. Sablada and Neptali Alfredo Pondoc in two separate operations last January 16 and 23, respectively.

NPA members killed Sablada in the afternoon of January 16 in Brgy. Saloy in Calinan, while Pondoc was slain in his “farm-turned-drug den” in Taboan, Malabog, in Paquibato District.

The NPA said that Sablada was an organizer of the Alamara militia, which has been accused of human rights violations against peasants and indigenous peoples in the region, allegedly as a part of the Armed Forces of the Philippines counter-insurgency campaign.

Sablada was also identified as one of the culprits in the April 15, 2002 massacre of Apolio “Tatay Poloy” Enoc, a peasant leader; and Rosha Icatan, Charles Bayanban, Edgar Bias, Jaimae Daculo and Warlito Bayanban in Sitio Pangyan, Tamugan, Marilog district, Sanchez said.

Meanwhile, Pondoc reportedly supplied drugs to AFP detachments from as far as Diwalwal, Compostela Valley; Panabo in Davao del Norte; and Paquibato and Calinan in Davao City.

“His farm, in fact, sits in between two AFP detachments in Sitio Binaton and Sitio 24 and he supplied drugs to CAFGUs and cadre man of both detachments,” the NPA said.

Pondoc has a warrant of arrest from the GRP reactionary police in Calinan, according to the spokesperson.

Red fighters also confiscated various drug paraphernalia such as weighing scales and other equipment in Pondoc’s farm.

Sanchez said that the killings were in line with the stipulations of the unilateral interim ceasefire that was issued by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Operational Command of the NPA.

Part of the ceasefire reads: “While ceasing offensive military operations, the NPA will continue to enforce policies and laws of the people’s democratic government, perform appropriate functions of governance, and mobilize the people and resources in territories under its authority, including: maintaining peace and order including suppression of criminal groups such as drug traffickers and operators of the drug trade and large-scale gambling, private armies and private armed groups of warlords, local tyrants and vigilante groups, as well as spies.”

However, Sanchez decried the evolution of the PNP’s anti-drug campaign into an anti-people drug war.

Authorities have used the drug war allegedly as a mask to “encroach” on NPA territories.

“Similarly, AFP units smokescreen their offensive military operations, as what happened on January 21 in Makilala, North Cotabato, with claims of “anti-criminality” operations in order to wantonly subvert their ceasefire order and engage the Red army in armed combat,” Sanchez said.

http://news.mb.com.ph/2017/01/26/npa-executes-member-in-own-drug-war/