PRESS STATEMENT

Rigoberto F. Sanchez
Spokesperson
Merardo Arce Command
Southern Mindanao Regional Operational Command
New People's Army
September 26, 2002

The Merardo Arce Regional Operational Command of the New People's Army -Southern Mindanao commends the 3rd Pulang Bagani Company for its daring and ingenious disarming of the Maco municipal police force on 24 September 2002.

With clockwork precision and without firing a single shot, the police station was overran and its personnel disarmed. The Red fighters seized a total of 34 high-powered firearms consisting of 17 M16 Armalite rifles, three M14 rifles, one Browning Automatic Rifle, four Garand rifles, two Carbines, seven assorted pistols, a sizable number of ammunition and two communication equipment. The actual operation took no more than 17 minutes.

The disarming was part of the NPA's overall strategy of launching a people's war. In particular, it was a response to the national leadership's call for basic and special tactical offensives vis-a-vis the Arroyo regime's harsh and intensive militarization of the countryside.

In Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's all-out war policy, the GRP's military and police are the main instruments of state repression and terrorism that have victimized a considerable number of mass activists, revolutionaries and ordinary civilians. The Maco municipal police force is an integral part of the regime's war machine that has brought suffering upon the people. As such, it is a legitimate target of the NPA.

In line with the NPA's policy and practice of abiding by the rules of engagement, the disarming of the Maco police force was the product of meticulous planning and preparation, which demanded that no employee or civilian be harmed in the process. Thus, the tactical offensive would have been carried out even without Mayor Miller Alaba's presence.

The mayor's visit to an upland barrio on the day of the siege was providential. The Red fighters were already on their way to conduct the raid when they chanced upon Mayor Alaba. They saw him as an immediate security threat, hence the decision to disarm him and his two bodyguards and to take away their communications gear. They were then taken into custody.

Mayor Alaba was unwilling to cooperate but was under pressure to follow the orders of the Red fighters. Because he is more a doctor than a politician, Mayor Alaba did so with this main concern: to prevent a possible bloody confrontation between the NPA and his men. That he is now being accused by the state of treason and being used as a scapegoat for the police's security lapses reflects the system's innate unfairness and injustice.

For as long as this unjust system prevails, the basis for armed struggle will always be there.

Long Live the Revolution! Long live the New People's Army!

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