Correspondence Reports:
AFP utilizes bandits in Northeastern Mindanao

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The Philippine Army 4th ID and the Philippine National Police (PNP) systematically use bandits in Northeastern Mindanao to spread counterrevolutionary terror among the people and malign the NPA. The AFP and the police usually order the bandits they coddle to target thriving retail cooperatives set up by lumad mass organizations in highland villages. They also rob some businessmen and passenger vehicles.

Whenever robberies are reported to the police, the PNP has only one thing to say: it is NPA guerrillas who carried out the holdups. The police immediately tell the bandits to surrender and pose as Red fighters.

In a statement, NDF-Northeastern Mindanao spokesperson Ka Maria Malaya denounced the terror being unleashed by the bandits and the big disruptions they create in the masses' livelihood. She said that the lumad are forced to guard their cooperatives and individual properties instead of tending to their farms. Rather than pursue the bandits who are a bane to the masses, the AFP and PNP tell the people to join the CAFGU, set up AFP and CAFGU detachments in their areas, and allow the intensification of military operations to put an end to disorder. The people refuse because they know that it is all a ruse to enable the military to unleash terror more freely and launch large-scale operations to destroy the revolutionary movement.

Malaya cited a break-in in the second week of April at a lumad retail cooperative in the uplands of Diatagon, Lianga, Surigao del Sur. Prior to this, five peasants had been robbed and massacred in Cabadbaran, Agusan del Sur on December 1, 2003 after a series of robberies and massacres in the barrios of Butuan City and San Antonio, Agusan del Norte and in Cabadbaran in November 2003. On February 27, a retail cooperative in Sitio Sinaka, Antikala, Butuan City was also broken into but the people were able to prevent the retail cooperative in the tribal sitio in Kalidan, Mahaba, Cabadbaran from being robbed.

The perpetrator of this series of crimes is an eight-man lumad group controlled by Sgt. Marlito Boholps of the AFP-CAFGU detachment in Mahayahay, Antikala, Butuan City. The group is led by Loloy Mandag, an active asset of Boholps. In March 2004, the bandits were made to pose as Red fighters who supposedly surrendered in the 401st Bde camp in New Leyte, Prosperidad, Agusan del Sur.

The AFP recruits lumad tribesmen to become bandits to destroy the unity of the lumad people. One four-man bandit group is led by Peter Iligan, a Manobo from Poblacion 1, Santiago, Agusan del Norte and an asset of Santiago police chief Heros Morales. Another group that operates along the Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur border is led by Jack Anilao and Junior Ampo, members of the Lumadnong Pakigbisog sa Caraga or Lupaca, a counterrevolutionary group set up by Gen. Ernesto Carolina, former AFP Southern Command chief. Anilao's group was also made to pose as NPA and surrender.

Malaya explained that the revolutionary movement strives to disband these bandit groups by punishing their leaders and conducting all-out reeducation among ordinary members who have committed no grave crimes against the masses. The NPA and the lumad are partners in fighting these bandits.

Malaya also called on the people, both in the uplands and plains areas, to strengthen the NPA in order to defend the gains of the people and the revolution and unite against the bandits coddled by the AFP and PNP.

07 May 2004
English Edition

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