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Condemn AFP's overkill airstrike in Eastern Samar
The National Democratic Front- Eastern Visayas (NDF-EV) today strongly condemns the 13-hour airstrike and combat operations by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Dolores, Eastern Samar last August 16.
The AFP’s overkill bombing spree is the latest of at least two bombings it conducted in Dolores this year. The AFP previously conducted a 5-hour test fire operation near a dam on farmlands in Sitio Canrumbay, Brgy. Jicontol, during the April harvest season. Helicopters also dropped six bombs on farmlands and destroyed a house in Brgy. Boco in Can-avid, Eastern Samar to stage a fake encounter against the NPA last April.
In its desperation to defeat the NPA in Eastern Visayas, the AFP plays straight out of the US counter-insurgency playbook to implement a scorched earth policy. The 8th Infantry Division-led operation mobilized at least three helicopters, a fighter jet and a drone of the Philippine Air Force, as well as ground troops from the 52nd IB and the 78th IB against a platoon of Red fighters, according to initial reports. The AFP inadvertently admits that despite its fancy war toys, bigger budget and fascist terrorism, it takes everything it has so that it can strike “big blows” against the NPA.
In the midst of the worst public health crisis, unprecedented hunger and poverty, the AFP continues its wanton and indiscriminate bombing of civilian communities, shelling farmlands and destroying their livelihood, harassing the peasant masses and threatening them to surrender. The fascist terrorist US-Duterte regime continues to fund its all-out war against the revolutionary movement, taking no prisoners and blindly targeting anyone in its way, even as the government’s pandemic response remains underfunded, corruption-ridden, and criminally negligent to the people.
The fascist terrorists in the AFP including 8th ID commander Maj. Gen. Pio Diñoso III are fools to believe that theirs is a strong army. They think that by driving fear into the hearts of the people, their terrorist attacks can end the armed conflict in Eastern Visayas.
But the AFP is innately weak and is fighting a losing war. The AFP is a mercenary army fighting for the cause of fascists, tyrants, warmongers, corrupt politicians and traitorous bureaucrats, to further exploit and oppress the downtrodden Filipino masses. They are only fanning the hatred of millions of who shall rise to fight their fascist terror.
The AFP can never completely defeat the NPA because the NPA continues to be deeply rooted among the masses in Eastern Visayas and is fighting a just war for the people’s democracy and liberation. The AFP’s vicious attacks can at worst cause temporary setbacks to the NPA and the people’s war. They have only drenched the land with the blood of their victims and have made fertile the ground from where legions of revolutionaries shall come forth and continue to wage armed revolution against the fascist regime. With the people seething with rage and thristy for justice, the NPA can only grow stronger.
The NDF-EV enjoins the people to condemn the AFP and the US-Duterte regime’s all-out war against the people. They must overcome all obstacle to resist the regime’s state terror and hold it accountable for its crimes against the people. Duterte and the AFP’s brutal terrorism has left the people no other recourse but to arouse, organize, and mobilize thousands upon thousands to determinedly wage armed revolution and end Duterte’s fascist regime once and for all.#