NPA-Abra's Good Friday ambush: A punitive action against the RMG-41st IB's holy week joint operations

DIEGO WADAGAN
Spokesperson
Agustin Begnalen Command
April 10, 2007

In line with the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime's ruthless Internal Security Operation Plan "Bantay Laya II" that aims to crush the national democratic revolutionary movement in two years, the PNP Cordillera's Regional Mobile Group and the 503 rd Brigade's 41st IB conducted a joint counter-insurgency operation in North Abra that started on the last week of March and lasted until the 1st week of April, 2007. The said joint operation focused on the municipality of Lacub and included other municipalities such as Baay-Licuan, Malibcong and Tineg. A smaller counter-insurgency operation is still being conducted by the 41st IB in the towns of Bucloc, Daguioman, Boliney, and Sallapadan (BuDaBoSa area).

More or less 300 police and army troopers were deployed in four communities of Lacub town -- Poblacion, Talampac, Pacoc, and Buneg. The joint operation was jointly headed by P/Supt. Wilfredo Cayat of the PNP and Lt. Col. Raul Bautista of the 41 st IB. In the course of the joint operation, the NPA took the initiative and launched two tactical offensives against the operating troops. The PNP-Philippine Army troopers on their part captured an abandoned NPA guerilla camp, spread lies, and terrorized the masses. Their terroristic acts included the following:

Destruction of the people's property and sources of livelihood. The military and police recklessly destroyed two ball mills and portal gates of a small-scale mine owned by villagers. They also destroyed the kitchen and other utilities which they found in the people's kalapaws or isolated huts in swidden farms and mining areas and looted the people's food stuff, swine, poultry, and vegetable gardens on the baseless presumption that these were owned or used by the NPA.
preventing people from tending their farms and working in small-scale mining areas;
illegal arrest, detention, and torture on April 2 of two youths (a certain Tony and Marlon) who earlier obtained permission from the military to work at the small-scale mining area of Binangsaran.
disrespect for the people's religious and other cultural practices by disrupting the conduct of religious activities during the Holy Week, including indigenous cultural activities; and
forbidding travel outside of the people's respective communities;
mass intimidation by tagging the people in the said communities as NPA members and supporters, and threatening to bomb or strafe the villages.

In this context and in line with the nationwide effort of defeating Oplan Bantay Laya II, the NPA ambushed a platoon of the 41st IB in Sitio Mananara, Barangay Poblacion on April 6, 2007. The call of the Catholic church and some politicians for a Holy Week ceasefire fell on deaf ears when the PNP's PRO-CAR RMG and the 41st IB initiated launched the military operation, and the NPA is duty-bound to defend itself and the masses, and advance further the armed revolutionary struggle. In the said ambush, eight soldiers of the 41 st IB were killed, and among the casualties was a 2nd Lieutenant. The military downplayed its casualties by claiming only one was killed and two wounded.

The PNP and 41st IB boasted of capturing the "biggest NPA camp in Abra", a refrain of their self-serving and arrogant claim whenever an abandoned NPA camp is captured. The NPA is waging a guerilla war at the current stage of the people's democratic revolution, wherein unwavering mass base support is supreme over other factors such as defense of physical territories. Guerilla camps abound, are built and sustained wherever people's support exists and whenever tactical military situation permits. Currently, loosing a guerilla camp is no big deal. More guerilla camps and makeshift camps will be built in guerilla bases, guerilla zones and even in areas near enemy encampment and installations. The PNP and the 41 st IB are also fooling themselves by claiming to have captured computers, explosives, and functional M16 rifles in a desperate effort to exaggerate the significance of their war booty. They also maliciously planted Bayan Muna and Anakpawis posters to implicate these progressive party lists. The NPA has no business keeping such posters, or, much less, spend time posting or distributing them!

The Arroyo regime is overstretching the combat capability of the PNP and the AFP in a vain effort to achieve its ambitious aim of defeating the communist insurgency before her term of office ends in 2010. By involving the police in counter-insurgency operations, it is driving a wedge between the police and army forces. Demoralization is creeping among police forces who are forced to engage in field combat operations beyond the scope of their training and responsibility. On the other hand, passivity afflicts the 41 st IB, as it tends to push the police into the frontlines in order to avoid casualties among its own forces. The two-week joint RMG-41st IB operation exposed the fascist-terrorist nature of the police and military establishment, and highlighted the political and combat superiority of numerically weaker NPA guerilla forces who are fighting for the people's interests and enjoying mass support against an illegal and crumbling regime serving the interests of a few big landlords, compradors and imperialists.

Now, more than ever, the NPA's Agustin Begnalen Command is revved up to contribute a greater share in defeating Oplan Bantay Laya II and in the nationwide effort to topple the despicable Arroyo regime. Long live the 38 th founding anniversary of the New People's Army!

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