Black propaganda will not suffice (The truth behind the PNP's Task Force Abra and the 503rd Brigade's Propaganda Offensive Against the NPA in Abra)
January 29, 2007
The second phase of Oplan Bantay Laya, the ambitious Internal Security Operation Plan of the AFP and the PNP, is already in it's early stage of implementation, after miserably failing to achieve its objectives during the first phase. For the next 3 years, the AFP, PNP, and it's para-military forces, along with some government agencies and private/non-government organizations, will implement a fascist operational plan that will intensify attacks on unarmed activists and dissenters, militarize further not only the vast countryside but also the town and urban centers, and commit more human rights violations against the peasants, workers, students, women, national minorities, church people, and other professionals , and waste billions through unproductive military spending and corruption. All these because of the ambitious, self-defeating, and impossible objective of "defeating the CPP-NPA-NDF before the end of 2010," before the end of GMA's term, if she is not ousted or impeached.
Aside from intensification of armed attacks, the state's politico-military machineries are also initiating propaganda offensives, also known as information campaigns, in it's frantic effort to "break the will of the enemy," and project to the public that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) is winning the war against the national-democratic revolutionary movement. But the basic requirement for the effectivity of propaganda can never be achieved by the GRP, i.e. it should dwell on truth and not on lies or fabricated materials, evidences and stories. Such is the case in the black propaganda efforts of the PNP's Task Force Abra and the AFP's 503rd Brigade, particularly that of the 41st IB.
Contrary to press statements released by the 503rd Brigade, the 38th Anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was commemorated in 4 different sites in the guerrilla zones of Abra, with an aggregate attendance of more than a thousand Party cadres and members, NPA Officers and Red Fighters, and activists and revolutionary masses from the urban and town centers and from the localities. The anniversary commemoration allegedly monitored by the 503rd Brigade in Bangilo, Malibcong, Abra was incidentally held as Jovencio "Ka Rudy" Balweg attended to a clan caucus last December; but even devoid of preparations, the anniversary commemoration was attended by a significant number of masses in the locality on December 26, 2006, and not on December 29 as claimed by the 503rd Brigade.
FACT #1: the wide participation of the masses in the CPP anniversary commemorations in the province and in other guerrilla zones nationwide indicate their undwindling support to the revolutionary movement.
FACT #2: the 503rd Brigade's intelligence assets are just paid minions that relay half truths, if not outright lies.
Also, the 41st IB and the TF Abra recently claimed to have discovered a grave in Danglas, Abra, that contained the remains of 3-4 alleged former NPA's belonging to the "Procopio Tauro Command". The alleged grave was supposed to have been discovered through the help of an ex-NPA who participated in the alleged killings way back in 1987. The Agustin Begnalen Command has no knowledge of such a grave in Danglas, and that the "Procopio Tauro Command" is an imaginary NPA unit concocted by AFP-PNP-warlord psy-war agents, to refer supposedly to a unit led by Procopio "Ka Pyro" Tauro, a native of La Paz.
FACT #1: the AFP-PNP-warlords are notorious in their extra-judicial killings, a fact established even by the Melo Commision. Most probably the said grave was dug, and the killings perpetrated by elements associated with the AFP, PNP, or local warlords in the area, if indeed it existed and not just one of the "mobile skeleton" exhibits of the AFP's psy-war machinery.
FACT #2: Procopio "Ka Pyro" Tauro was only admitted into the NPA in 1988, and that in 1987, he was still actively involved in the open and legal organizations and in local politics in La Paz and in the province in general.
Lastly, Task Force Abra claims to have controlled violence in the province, with zero crime reported since the Task Force was deployed in Abra last December 2006.
FACT #1: Since 2001, a Task Force Abra is created during the election period, and the current Task Force is actually a 3rd remake of an old sarzuela, with Col. Eugene Martin always at the starring role. The only clear achievement of these Task Forces is the temporary lull in warlord-related violence; before being pulled out, violence abound anew.
FACT #2: for a fee (cash, political, economic, and personal favors), PNP and AFP officers become partisan armed groups (PAGs to borrow from Kira Paredes). No violence was reported during the period of the incumbent Task Force Abra because the officers and men of the PNP and the 41st IB did not perpetrate a crime, or did not conive with the bodyguards of warlords to perpetrate a crime.
FACT #3: Col. Eugene Martin is partisan to the Luna's and the Bernos', as he had an affair with Lagayan Mayor Cecille Luna and jointly controls jueteng and drug trade in the province.
A temporary lull in the wars of the warlords because of a sarzuela TF Force, running against the main and dominant warlord group of Vicente Valera and a token attack on the aggressive and vicious group of Bernos-Luna-Benwaren-Molina-Valera (Dominic) is not and can never be a solution to Abra warlordism. Again, we reiterate: Abra politics is a mere microcosm of the worsening national crisis. Political assassinations of bureaucrats and political killings of activists, media and church people abound and have increased unprecedentedly during the reign of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. To institute decisive and strategic changes in Abra necessitates overhauling the entire rotten system by waging a National Democratic Revolution. Only then can true justice be served to victims of warlordism and state terrorism.
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