Reports from Correspondents: Military operations in Bicol condemned
The Romulo Jallores Command (RJC) of the New People's Army (NPA) in Bicol condemned the unbridled militarization of the region.
In a statement released on August 6, RJC spokesperson Comrade Jose Buenaobra assailed the encirclement on July 28 by the 42nd IB Alpha Company of a house in Sitio Naposte, Barangay Amomokpok, Ragay, Camarines Sur where Red fighters were allegedly staying.
Killed in the reactionary troops' offensive was Jesus "Ka Lito" Emeros. A youth named Matias Rafael Padilla Din was also arrested. Ka Lito, a native of Ragay, was accused of being an NPA fighter. Matias Din is a former student of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City living among the peasantry.
AFP: Promasses in word, butchers in deed
According to Ka Jose, the 42nd IB conducted the encirclement despite its challenge to the NPA to temporarily stop all military actions in the region to help the victims of the Mayon volcano eruption. "The actual nonstop operations of the AFP's troops even in the province of Albay are a violation of its own hollow posturing," said Ka Jose.
Ka Jose disclosed that in reality, the AFP's much ballyhooed "assistance" to victims of the Mayon volcano eruption is nothing but a deceptive ploy foisted on the people and the revolutionary movement. Posing as promasses, the AFP obeys without fail, orders to protect the properties of the ruling classes such as banks, shopping malls and rice and food warehouses. Meanwhile, its successive offensives continue to sow terror and wreak havoc on the lives of the toiling masses. "The maintenance of 'peace and order' are operations to 'control the people'," said Ka Jose. "Thus, their armed and uniformed presence in the towns comprises terrorism against the masses, even as there is an ever present threat of fascist attacks with the minimum declaration of a red alert status".
The spokesperson drew a line between the revolutionary NPA and the reactionary AFP. "Contrary to the reactionary AFP's dubious 'civic action'," he said, "it is integral to the character and orientation of the NPA to assist the people at all times, whether or not a calamity exists." He explained that the NPA constantly serves as a partner of the peasant masses and of all oppressed people in fighting for their own land to till, raising incomes from production, launching education, health, environmental and many other campaigns. "Most of all," he said, "the NPA is the people's partner in the revolutionary struggle to completely eradicate poverty and injustice due to exploitation and oppression by foreigners and the local ruling classes of landlords and the comprador bourgeoisie."
The RJC, in its statement, stressed that the reactionary military were fascists and butchers to the bone. He cited the brutal killing of Ma. Graziella "Ka Sisa" Miranda, 25, a fine CPP and NPA cadre in Albay and also a former student at UP Diliman before she decided to work fulltime in the NPA in 1998. Ka Sisa was captured alive, tortured and killed by troops of the 22nd IB in retaliation for the sniping of two soldiers when the AFP raided an NPA camp in Barangay Bololo, Guinobatan, Albay on June 10.
The RJC also exposed the rabid fascism of 42nd IB commander Col. Danilo Lim. Colonel Lim, said Ka Jose, who graduated from the imperialist West Point military academy, has incurred blood debts from the revolutionary movement. One of them involved the torture and killing of an NPA cadre in the mid-1980s, when Lim was still a lieutenant.
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