NPA inflicts p2-b losses on e. mindanao, says AFP

From The Standards (Nov 26): NPA inflicts p2-b losses on e. mindanao, says AFP

NEW People’s Army’s atrocities have caused damage to property and equipment worth P2.17 billion in Eastern Mindanao in 2017, a scourge tantamount to “economic sabotage,” the Armed Forces of the Philippines said Saturday.

AFP spokesperson Maj. Gen. Restituto Padilla Jr. in an interview on Super Radyo dzBB said the over P2-billion figure represented an accumulated damage from NPA attacks in “more than 50” incidents of burning and destroying business implements from January to November 2017.

“This was based on field reports submitted and duly validated” on the ground,” Padilla said in a message to GMA News Online.

In the radio interview, he also said there was a 2,000-percent increase in the rate of destruction from the 2016 accumulated figure estimated at “more than P100 million” in 36 hostile incidents.

And this is on top of the AFP’s “modest estimate” of P2.2 billion in “extorted money” from mining companies among other businesses that the rebel group has collected in the Mindanao area, he pointed out.

He told GMA News Online the estimate was based on a study by the Eastern Mindanao Command.

Meanwhile, a policeman was killed and 10 others wounded when they were ambushed by communist rebels in the town of Maasin, Iloilo on Friday evening.

Maasin is the same town where, in June, New People’s Army guerrillas took control of the municipal police station without firing a shot and carted off several weapons and other equipment.

The Friday ambush took place a day after President Rodrigo Duterte signed Proclamation No. 360 formally terminating peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front, and two days after three policemen were wounded in a rebel ambush in Sibalom, Antique.

News reports said the police personnel, belonging to the 6th Regional Public Safety Battalion, were on a patrol vehicle and a private car when they were attacked early Friday evening. The lone fatality was identified as Police Officer 1 Jofer Odon.

Most of the wounded policemen were taken to Iloilo City.

On Saturday, the Coronacion “Waling-Waling” Chiva Command of the NPA on Panay acknowledged the attack, which it said was carried out in Barangay Bolo by a unit of the Jose Percival Estocada Jr. Command in Central Panay, although it claimed 12 policemen were wounded.

It also called the Sibalom incident an ambush pulled off by the Napoleon Tumagtang Command of Southern Panay.

On the same day as the Maasin ambush, Concha Araneta, spokesperson of the NDFP on Panay, issued a statement belittling Duterte’s branding them “terrorist,” saying this was no different from what past presidents since the late President Ferdinand Marcos had done.

President Duterte on Thursday signed a proclamation declaring the end of peace negotiations with the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA-National Democratic Front of the Philippines

The reason, the presidential spokesperson said, was the “engage[ment] of the NDFP-CPP-NPA in acts of violence and hostilities.”

This was echoed by Padilla, who alluded to a “lack of sincerity” on the part of the CPP-NPA-NDFP even amid peace negotiations.

Also, he said the NDFP should be blamed for Duterte’s decision to cancel the peace talks.

Earlier, CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison accused Duterte of “sabotaging” the negotiations.

Military operations against “criminal and lawless elements” have continued after the proclamation, said Padilla, their focus trained on Eastern Mindanao, where Padilla said NPA forces were concentrated and have been recruiting Lumads (indigenous people).

Other NPA atrocities constituting “economic sabotage” include seizure of livestock and raids on fish-and-crab farms in some areas.

On the other hand, some peoples’ organizations have accused the AFP of killing Lumad and human rights advocates and displacing communities in their military operations.

But Padilla said that while the national level peace negotiations had been terminated, local level peace efforts were continuing.

http://thestandard.com.ph/news/top-stories/252559/npa-inflicts-p2-b-losses-on-e-mindanao-says-afp.html