The 2nd ID continues to sow terror in Southern Tagalog (ST) this 2021. At least 25 towns in five provinces across the region are covered by focused military operations and Retooled Community Support Program (RCSP) operations. The region is among the eight focus regions of the regime’s counterinsurgency war.

The military campaigns are launched under the command of Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade, Jr., the most rabid anti-communist troll and chief of the Southern Luzon Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The attacks are mounted despite the pandemic and the region being hit by successive typhoons during the last quarter of 2020.

Five towns each in the southern part of Occidental Mindoro and in Oriental Mindoro have been under attack by the 203rd IBde since 2019. Farmers and minorities in these areas strongly oppose the entry of destructive mining projects, dams and bogus environmental projects which destroy nature and aim to evict them.

The 203rd IBde is employing shock-and-awe tactics to weaken the resistance of the people in the area. In January, the military brigade installed two 105mm cannons in Bansud, Oriental Mindoro. Residents were also terrorized upon seeing a helicopter flying overhead on Christmas eve last year in the towns Rizal, San Jose, Bongabong and Mansalay. This landed at Mantay, Barangay Monte Claro, San Jose where RCSP troops are encamped.

Six towns in Quezon are also covered by operations of the 201st IBde with around 1,900 troops, including that of the 1st IB, 59th IB, 80th IB, 85th IB and 22nd DRC, and police. The heighened attacks are extremely ruthless as communities are still reeling from the impact of successive typhoons which hit the areas. The troopers blocked residents from receiving aid from the NPA.

The 80th IB constructed a new camp in Barangay Puray, Rodriguez, Rizal, while military combat and RCSP operations continue unabated in Antipolo, Rodriguez and Tanay. In the hinterlands, occupying RCSP troopers also block the entry of food and other aid for residents.
The 3rd Marine Brigade also continues to implement FMOs and surrender campaigns in Palawan. At least 600 Marine troops are currently laying siege in the communities of Roxas, Taytay, Brooke’s Point, Rizal, Bataraza and Puerto Princesa City. They bribe residents to “surrender and cooperate” with the AFP against the NPA and their fellow villagefolk.

The 2nd ID’s starkest crimes and violations of the international rules of war include the killing of retired Party leaders Eugenia Magpantay and Agaton Topacio, the Baras 5 massacre, and the killing of peasant leader Armando Buisan, and NPA hors de combat Mario Caraig.

Amid all out attacks, the people’s army was able to establish new guerrilla fronts and recover former territories in the region. It reorganized the guerrilla fronts in order to allow the NPA units to have a broader area for maneuver while withstanding the intense combat and bombing operations of the AFP.

Armando Cienfuego, spokesperson of the NPA regional operations command, said that “it is clear to the Filipino people who the real terrorists in the country are—the US-Duterte regime and the AFP-PNP which indiscriminately sow fear and terror across the nation.”