Philippines rebels suffer major losses in attack | Asian Correspondent

Philippines rebels suffer major losses in attack | Asian Correspondent
 Edwin Espejo Jul 15, 2014

At least 13 New People’s Army rebels were killed in a failed attack against a former comrade early Tuesday morning in the Mindanao province of Agusan del Sur, the military said.

The rebels reportedly targeted Calpito ‘Datu Calpit’ Egua, who has turned into gold mining and is said to be maintaining his own militiamen.

Datu Calpit’s gold mining operations are based in Sta. Irene village in Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur.

Fierce encounters were also reported in at least two more locations in the province as the rebels engaged government troops sent to pursue the rebels.

One NPA rebel was killed in Hamogaway in Baygugan when they encountered government rebels as they retreated.   An M16 Armalite rifle with M-203 grenade launcher was recovered from the dead rebel.

The military source later said in a text message that the rebels left 12 dead bodies in Sta. Irene.

The same source said the rebels had already withdrawn from the area but fighting still rages in the mountains where the rebels who have broken into smaller units fled.

Also reportedly recovered from the encounter site were 3 M-16 rifles and 4 AK-47s.

Datu Calpit was slightly wounded after he and his men fought off the attacking rebels, according to the military spot report.

“Basta daghan patay, lakip na ang mga goons ni Datu Calpit,” said civilian source who requested anonymity for security reasons. (There were many dead, including goons of Datu Calpit)

Residents said they heard loud explosions and gunfire.

The national near the encounter site along the Agusan-Davao road are now open to vehicular traffic after it was closed early in the morning when the fighting spilled over to the national highway connecting the cities of Davao and Butuan.

There are no immediate statements from the rebel forces.

The attack came a week after NPA rebels also attacked Alegria town in Surigao del Norte.

The communist rebels overran the town’s police station but 2 NPAs were slain in the attack.

The NPAs however took 4 police officers as hostages.

Maria Malaya, spokesperson of the NPA’s North Eastern Mindanao Command said one rebel died during the siege and another was slain when the escape truck they were riding ran out of gas along the highway where policemen caught up with them.

The Maoist-inspired NPAs have been conducting a guerrilla war in the Philippine countryside for over 45 years.

It is Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency.

At 45, the NPAs are still a long way to ‘victory’ | Asian Correspondent

At 45, the NPAs are still a long way to ‘victory’ | Asian Correspondent
Edwin Espejo, Dec 29, 2013

They are not yet ready to show their faces – at least that’s the leadership of the Far South Regional Party Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing the New People’s Army.

That is the reason they gave to explain why TV cameras were not allowed inside the ‘guerrilla zone’.  On December 26, on the day the CPP celebrated its 45^th founding anniversary, Mindanao’s fastest growing regional command of the communist underground movement opened up a little of its strongest five guerrilla fronts to a few General Santos City-based reporters somewhere in Cotabato.

Ka Efren, spokesman of the rebel group’s umbrella organization, the National Democratic Front (NDF), said the time will come when they will be ready to give their regional command a “face” – similar to the more vocal and open Ka Oris of NDF Mindanao who also held a similar press conference somewhere in Agusan del Sur.  (The Southern Mindanao region of the CPP-NP-NDF likewise invited members of the local press in Compostela Valley).

Ka Efren: "We will persevere no matter how long it takes."

He said the Far South is making inroads and rapidly expanding their influence in the region which includes the whole of South Cotabato and Sarangani, portions of Sultan Kudarat, Cotabato and Davao del Sur provinces.

The area where they celebrated their founding anniversary is part of its Guerrilla Front 72 , one of the oldest in Mindanao and is also the strongest in the Far South region.

It has a company-size formation of young guerrilla fighters, most of them sons and daughters of peasants and farmers.  

Its main regular unit, also called ‘sentro de grabidad’ or SDG, headed by Ka Dencio Madrigal, was said to be in another guerrilla front.  Ka Dencio is Far South’s most wanted man by the military.

Young fighters

Ka Jam, commanding officer of the Mt. Alip Command (Front 72), can easily pass himself off as a college student about to get his diploma.

But at 33, he is the oldest among the ‘Red’ fighters of Front 72.

“The average age is about 25.  Our youngest is 19.  I am 33,” Ka Jam said.

Jam started as a church worker and was influenced by an older brother into joining the NPA.

“I began as an activist in 1999 and got into integration with the (NPA) unit in 2000,” he narrated.

Jam said he decided he wanted to be a red fighter right then and there.  When he went home, his only purpose was to tell his parents of his decision to join the NPA.

It was a slow rise for Jam, frail at about 5’4” tall, who became the commanding officer of the Mt. Alip Command.

A political officer of the NPAs explains to Erning  and Eden the task of their son Ka Diego in the guerrilla movement.

After the anniversary program, 22-year-old Ka Diego had a reunion with his parents who had to walk, travel by bus, then walk again to meet their eldest son.  Erning and Eden came all the way from a remote village in Banga, South Cotabato to see Ka Diego who they have not seen in seven months.

Erning was teary-eyed, holding the AK-47 issued to his son.  Erning and his wife brought along their six-year old youngest son.  Their only daughter was left behind to tend to their home.

Not far away, a young woman Red fighter is carrying – nay, hugging – her son not even a year old.  She has to leave her child to the care of relatives as she and her husband have opted to pursue the 45-year-old armed struggle of the CPP-NPA-NDF.

Such sacrifices are not uncommon for fulltime guerrilla fighters.

Ka Efren and his wife, who is also a fulltime communist cadre, had their Grade 7 son as their special ‘visitor.’

Ka Jam said the biggest ‘victory’ they achieved this year was the ambush of soldiers belonging to the 38^th Infantry Battalion in Bituan, Tulunan in Cotabato province.

The NPA detonated a command controlled land mine just as a military semi-truck passed the ‘killing zone.’  Six soldiers and three militiamen were killed following a volume of fire from the NPAs waiting by the roadside as the landmine exploded.

The military claimed the NPAs used excessive fire to dismember some of the dead soldiers.

Ka Jam however said the soldiers were directly hit by the explosive and this explained the mangled faces of the soldiers.

He said they just fired three M-203 shells and used less than 500 rounds of ammunition.  In the aftermath, Ka Jam said they were able to confiscate seven high powered rifles.

Capt. Ernesto Aguilar, the highest ranking officer who was with the semi-truck, managed to survive and escape capture. 

There were at least four other major encounters in Front 72.  Ka Jam said they inflicted considerable casualties to government soldiers while suffering one ‘comrade’ killed in action in 2013.

Still a long way

In 2008, Ka Oris, NDF Mindanao spokesman, said they were aiming at a strategic stalemate in five years.

In the Rappler story by Karlos Manlupig, Ka Oris did not make any reference to his 2008 statement as their target is coming to pass this year.  

But Ka Efren said they are prepared to bring their revolution to the next level (strategic stalemate) no matter how long it will take.

Like Ka Oris, he noted the steady rise in the number of tactical offensives, new recruits and armaments over the last few years.

“Our tactical offensives will became bigger, more frequent and in more locations next year,” said Ka Efren.

It is a veiled warning shared by Ka Jam who said while the NPAs perform their revolutionary tasks of implementing the rebels’ own brand of ‘agrarian revolution’ and building their mass base, they have not lost sight of their principal function and that is engaging in guerrilla warfare.

Ka Efren later addressed their supporters, numbering about 1,000, and laid down their ‘tasks’ in the next few years to include building organs of political power – a euphemism for their “shadow government.”

NPA strength

After 45 years of guerrilla warfare, the CPP-NPA-NDF is the oldest ongoing communist-led insurgency in Asia.

It is nowhere near the strategic stalemate stage – a stage where they are supposed to be in parity with the Philippine government in warfare capability. They are not necessarily at parity in arms and strength but at the point when the government cannot defeat it while the communist is not yet capable of overthrowing the existing order.

In a statement, the Central Committee of the CPP however said it has reached a point where the military cannot sustain offensive operations “for six months to one year on more than 10% of the guerrilla fronts.”

The communist rebels said they now have a total of 110 guerrilla fronts in substantial portions in 71 of the country’s 81 provinces.  Forty-six (46) of these guerrilla fronts are in the Mindanao mainland where the NPAs are strongest.  A typical guerrilla front has at least a NPA-level company size formation which include two regular platoons and a detach unit.

The CPP said it needs to increase its armed regulars to 25,000 and its party membership to 250,000 in order to advance its ‘revolution’ to the next stage.

Ka Oris said there are now 10,000 party members in Mindanao.

But in an unprecedented admission, the CPP also conceded the communist movement throughout the world is “in a period of temporary defeat and strategic retreat…because of the sabotage and betrayal carried out by the modern revisionists.”

It took China and Russia to task for joining the world ‘capitalist order’ in full – a reality that is not lost to the military.

The NPAs claim they are getting even stronger despite military claim to the contrary.

Belittled

Maj. Gen. Rainer Cruz, head of the Mindanao Eastern Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, however belittled the anniversary celebrations of the communists,

“Are they still there?” he said in jest.

The Philippine military said the NPAs are now down to less than 4,000 nationwide and no more than 1,500 in Mindanao.  

Cruz said the rebels are no longer getting fresh recruits and have reduced themselves to thugs and extortionists.

Incidentally for the general, it is in his area of responsibility where the communists and the NPAs are at their strongest nationwide.  

The guerilla fronts of the Northeastern, Southern, Northcentral and Far South Mindanao commands of the NPAs are among the resilient and most active in the country today.

“From only 250 TOs (tactical offensives) in 2010, this has increased to 350 in 2011, to 400 in 2012 and to more than 400 in the entire year of 2013,” Ka Oris said in a statement read before members of the press in Agusan del Sur.

December 26 also marked the first time in the history of Mindanao’s communist movement that these regions – Northeast, Southern and Far South –  held simultaneous press conferences.

In 2010, Ka Oris said they have almost reached the 1980s level of armed strength when the CPP-NPA-NDF were at their strongest.  At that time, during the Marcos dictatorship, the military placed their armed strength at 25,000.

CPP statements however said, their armed regulars at that time were less than 10,000.

The communists defined the stages of their armed struggle in three – strategic defensive, strategic stalemate and strategic offensive.

But on its 45^th anniversary, the CPP said it is still on the verge of completing the requisites to advance its ‘armed struggle’ to the strategic stalemate.

Philippines: Abducted soldiers now prisoners of war – NPA | Asian Correspondent

Philippines: Abducted soldiers now prisoners of war – NPA | Asian Correspondent
By Edwin Espejo, Jun 20, 2013

The communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) has confirmed the capture of five Philippines government soldiers belonging to the 60^th Infantry Battalion abducted at a checkpoint in Paquibato District in Davao City on Monday.

In a statement posted on the rebel website Wednesday Leoncio Pitao a.k.a Kumander Parago said the soldiers are now “prisoners of war” and “currently undergoing investigation for possible serious human rights violations”.

Pitao heads the 1st Pulang Bagani Battalion of the NPA in Southern Mindanao Region.

The NPA rebels named the captured Army soldiers as Cpl. Emmanuel Quezon, privates first class Vernie Padilla, Ronald Gura and Pfc. Donato Estandian and Pvt. Marteniano Pasigas.

Their commanding officer, a certain 1Lt. Neven Canitan, escaped capture by jumping into a ravine upon seeing the NPA rebels. The rebels, however, accused Canitan of abandoning his men.

The soldiers were on board two motorcycles and were on their way to Panabo City when they were held by heavily armed rebels reportedly led by Pitao’s son Ryan.

Seized from the government troopers were three cal .45 pistols and a hand grenade, according to the rebel statement.

Pitao warned the Philippine military against any armed rescue attempt.

“Further intensification of the military operations in Davao City hinterlands under the cover of pursuit and rescue operations will only endanger the lives of the POWs,” Pitao said.

He added that the “NPA custodial force will continue to take active defensive stance to protect its troops while ensuring the safety of its captives.”

The NPAs are known to release captured soldiers for “humanitarian consideration.” But they had demanded suspension of military operations in wide areas where their captives are to be released.

The most celebrated NPA captive was Brig. Gen. Victor Obillo who was also abducted by Kumander Parago in February 1999.  Obillo, together with his aide army Capt. Eduardo Montealto, was later released to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) after two months in captivity.  The event was widely covered by the international press.

The latest government soldier also captured and released by the NPA rebels was Pfc Jesus Tomas who, together with Senior Police Officer 1 Alan Pansoy, was seized at a rebel checkpoint a week before the May 13 elections.  They were turned over to Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in an undisclosed village in Maco, Compostela Valley.

The NPA, however, has not set any demands for the release of the 5 Army soldiers. In the past, they have been in touch with Duterte regarding the status of their ‘prisoners.’ Duterte is set to assume office as Davao City mayor on June 30.

The public affairs office of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has condemned the abduction.

Philippine Reds still eye stalemate | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent

Philippine Reds still eye stalemate | Asia News – Politics, Media, Education | Asian Correspondent
Edwin Espejo Dec 26, 2012

In 2008, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) boldly declared that it was aiming for a strategic stalemate in its guerrilla war with the Philippine government in five years.

In its statement to observe its 44^th founding anniversary posted on its website Sunday but dated December 26, the CPP is saying “it is making substantial progress in carrying out the strategic plan to advance the people’s war from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate.”

Today, however, its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), is still far away from that armed parity with the Philippine military.

New People's Army in Northern MIndanao. KEITH BACONGCO

“It currently operates in more than 100 guerrilla fronts and is striving to increase these to 180 within the next five years since 2010 or for a longer period if need be. There are efforts to assist regions that are lagging behind in order to keep them apace with the overall advance,” the CPP stated in reference to its 2008 target.

For the first time also, the CPP-NPA and its political umbrella, the National Democratic Front (NDF), is putting to rest military claims that the armed regulars of the communist have been reduced to a little over 4,000 from a high of 25,000 fully armed NPAs in the 1980s.

“The Aquino regime and its retinue of military officers keep on boasting that most areas of the Philippines have become insurgency-free…(the) fact is, that NPA armed strength in 1986 was only 6,100 rifles,” the CPP central committee said Monday.

But in Mindanao, the NPAs are gaining grounds where comrades elsewhere in the country are still struggling to rebuild their forces after two decades of ‘rectification movement.’

Rebel spokesman Jorge Madlos, a.k.a Ka Oris, said in an e-mailed statement that despite massive military operations in rebel strongholds in the island, they were able to increase the number of guerilla fronts from 39 in 2008 to 44 this year.

Ka Oris said 40 percent of its 44 guerrilla fronts now have company sized formations in addition to its 5 main regional guerilla units (sentro de grabidad).

He said the NPAs are growing at the rate of 10 percent every year over the last three years.
The CPP in Mindanao is also now building regional and sub-regional operational commands for the NPA, something that it used to have in the 1980s but decided to disband following ideological debate which led to the decimation of rebel ranks nationwide in the 1990s.

Rebel forces in the island, especially those in the Davao and Caraga regions, are again capable of launching undersized battalion formations for tactical offensives as they did in raiding Taganito Mines more than a year ago.

Lt. Gen. Jorge Segovia, commanding general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Eastern Mindanao Command, however said rebel forces in the island could not be more than 1,500 fully armed regulars.

The CPP was re-established in December 26, 1968 led by University of the Philippines professor Jose Maria Sison and a motley group of intellectuals.

It is waging a Maoist-inspired protracted guerilla warfare that goes into “3 strategic stages” namely, strategic defensive, strategic stalemate and strategic offensive.

Forty four years after, the CPP is still in the strategic defensive stage.

The Philippine insurgency is the longest running of its kind in Southeast Asia.