AFP: Death of ranking leader highlights Reds' leadership vacuum

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 8, 2024): AFP: Death of ranking leader highlights Reds' leadership vacuum (By Priam Nepomuceno)

MANILA – The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Monday said the death of ranking New People's Army (NPA) official Martin Colima during a clash with government troops in Borongan City, Eastern Samar will further highlight the growing leadership crisis in the insurgency movement.

"The death of communist terrorist group (CTG) leader Martin Colima in an encounter in Borongan City, Eastern Samar on January 6 exacerbates the leadership vacuum in the CTG," AFP public affairs office chief Col. Xerxes Trinidad said in a message to the Philippine News Agency.

Colima, also known as "Moki", is reportedly the Secretary of the Sub-Regional Committee Sesame of the NPA's Eastern Visayas Regional Party Committee.

The NPA leader was killed following an encounter with soldiers at the remote area of Barangay San Gabriel, Borongan City.

"This (Colima's death) also further erodes their capability to plan and execute atrocities in the province and sends a strong signal to their members to surrender," Trinidad said.

Meanwhile, AFP spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar said the neutralization of ranking NPA leaders like Colima signals the end of the NPA.

"It is leading to that," he added.

In 2023, the AFP announced that it had dismantled eight NPA guerilla fronts aside from weakening 14 others.

Last year, the military also neutralized 1,399 members of communist and local terrorist groups, seizing 1,751 firearms of the communist movement.

Eye opener

Meanwhile, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) said the neutralization of Colima should serve as an eye-opener for the remaining insurgents to lay down their arms, peacefully surrender and avail the government’s amnesty program.

"Colima, who was facing a string of multiple heinous crime charges before the courts, and his men entered Barangay San Gabriel, Borongan City oblivious to the strong vigilance of residents in the community against the presence of CTGs," NTF-ELCAC executive director Undersecretary Ernesto Torres Jr. said in a statement.

He also called the remaining members of Colima’s group to peacefully surrender and abandon the senseless armed struggle so as not to suffer the same fate like what happened to their leader.

"The politico-military spectrum of the NPA in Samar was the last in the entire archipelago to be weakened from being an active guerilla front. Colima’s death is proof of the weakened state of the NPA and the waning political influence of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on the Filipino masses in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAS)," Torres said.

He also said the CPP-NPA should accept the fact that in Samar every single barangay liberated by the government from their clutches through the “whole-of-nation and whole of government" approach has been transitioning to become a haven of peace wherein economic development is being effectively spurred by the government.

"Let the CPP-NPA also know that their presence in these communities is no longer welcome and what happened to the group of Colima should serve as a strong warning against the CTGs. There are no more “NPA mass bases” to speak of that for decades the CTGs had exploited to the detriment of poverty-stricken residents in such communities," he added.

Torres said the NTF-ELCAC, through the cohesive leadership of President R. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the NPA scourge in the country will be totally eliminated.

He also expressed hope strongly that all the weakened guerrilla fronts will be dismantled within this year.

"For the sake of peace, unity, and development, we reiterate our ardent appeal to all the CPP-NPA remnants to choose life rather than face senseless death over a senseless and irrelevant ideology. Go back to your families and become productive and law-abiding citizens and actively participate in nation-building. Over the past five decades, your so-called Maoist-inspired revolutionary ideals became irrelevant if not totally obsolete in contemporary times," Torres said.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1216520