CPLA and AFP: Rivals in illegal logging in Apayao
On the whole, the reactionary military and the counterrevolutionary group that calls itself the Cordillera People's Liberation Army (CPLA) collude in criminal and counterrevolutionary activities and purposes, but their rivalry is intense when it comes to illegal logging in the Cordillera. Several bloody clashes have already erupted between the two groups as they protect their respective interests.
On July 10, elements of the AFP and the CPLA clashed in Luna, Apayao. The reason they fought it out: extortion activities against Furniture Group Inc (FGI). The FGI refused to shell out the P10 million that the CPLA demanded from it, so CPLA elements burned down a truck and a number of bulldozers owned by the company. The 17th IB which provides protection to the FGI, shot it out with them. Eight CPLA elements were wounded and two civilians were killed in the firefight. After defeating the CPLA, the AFP smuggled 70 truckloads of timber, which it could do even in broad daylight.
To cover up their involvement in the incident, the 5th ID spread around the lie that it was the NPA they had a firefight with. Comrade Martin Monta�a, spokesperson of the NPA Chadli Molintas Command in the Ilocos-Cordillera Region has strongly refuted this claim.
Both the CPLA and the AFP pose as NPA not only to cover up their criminal activities but to malign the NPA in the eyes of the people.
Claims by the CPLA that it protects the ancestral lands and forests of Apayao are also a lie, said Ka Martin. Reports of NPA units and the organized masses show that CPLA factions are involved in illegal logging, marijuana cultivation, jueteng (an illegal numbers game) and other criminal activities in the Cordillera.
The Mailed Molina faction continues to rake in money from illegal logging in Bucloc and other nearby towns in southern Abra. Meanwhile, the Balweg faction led by Michael Suguiyao Jr. connives with illegal loggers in Luna, Pudtol, Conner and Sta. Marcela in Apayao.
Extensive areas of forest lands and other terrain have been devastated due to decades of indiscriminate logging by the AFP, CPLA and rapacious companies, warlords and illegal logging syndicates. The obtaining crisis and depleted national resources are pushing these groups to intense rivalry and bloody clashes.
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