The New People’s Army-Rodante Urtal Command (NPA-RUC) calls on the people to be watchful and condemn the reactionary government’s intensified disinformation campaign as seen in the bogus NPA-RUC statement released and being widely circulated since July—a handiwork of the 803rd Infantry Brigade’s (IBde) paid trolls and media workers surrounding the arrest of Comrade Marietta Bartolo.

On top of other fake news, the bogus statement desperately wanted the public to believe that the NPA orchestrated the candidacy of Barangay Chair Ruth Martires-Figueroa for the Association of Barangay Councils (ABC) Chairmanship in Northern Samar’s town center. It further claimed that Figueroa, Bartolo and two others were on their way to deliver election money on July 13, few days before the ABC election, when they were arrested by state security forces.

It goes without surprise that the 803rd IBde under a newly-installed commander Colonel Ramon Bitong stoops down the level of cheap propaganda and fake news proliferation to score against the revolutionary movement in haste.

While the statement reveals itself as pure trash out to spread rehashed fakery and deception, it is nevertheless a telltale sign of forthcoming wave of attacks against the people and various legal democratic organizations. It is not without malice that they tagged Figueroa with Bayan Muna Partylist and linked her altogether with other legal progressive organizations with the armed revolutionary forces of the NPA.

To set the records straight, the NPA does not involve itself in the cockfight of the ruling class even as it acknowledges that mass organizations within guerrilla zones may support progressive candidates and parties who are willing to uphold the people’s agenda. Yet to reduce the arrest of the four as merely election-related conceals the spate of killings and political persecution against revolutionaries and legal progressive personalities.

In fact, with or without the barangay election, the tyrannical US-Duterte regime is hell-bent in crushing all forces, armed or unarmed, as long as they oppose his fascist dictates. He has been employing the full machinery of the state in his arsenal, including the police, military and willing collaborators in the civil bureaucracy.

For its failure to crush the people’s resistance movement, they pour in millions of pesos in budget and resources for “professional” trolling and psychological operation. They can always circulate senseless pamphlets, leaflets and recycled black propaganda trumpeted by psywar agents like Sgt Michael Montenegro “DJ Whisper” of military-sponsored 100.9 Dangpanan FM to propagate their own conjured victories.

Meanwhile, the 803rd IBde is either mum or is downplaying the tactical offensives launched against them in the recent months. Their fake news team deliberately sweeps under the rug the regime’s failure to suppress the people’s escalating armed resistance in the province.

They forget to tell the public that two soldiers were sniped in Barangay Tubang in Silvino Lobos last June 8 and 14. They forget to tell that elements of the 20th IB were subjected to another military action last June 10 in Km. 3 Logging Road of Barangay San Isidro in Las Navas, resulting to the death of one soldier and another one wounded. Nine days after, the 20th IB was attacked in Silvino Lobos in separate operations in Barangay Miricpisic and Gecboan in Silvino Lobos.

The 803rd IBde tried to downplay the number of casualties in Barangay Roxas in Lope de Vega last June where they released in a statement that soldiers of the 43rd IB were just wounded when truth be told, four soldiers were actually killed. A month earlier in Barangay Imelda, Silvino Lobos, what was supposed to be a raid by the 20th IB against RUC turned the former in a defensive after the NPA-RUC seized the initiative, leaving one soldier dead and another one wounded. The NPA-RUC seized one bandoleer of M60 and three magazines of M16.

This is on top of the recent successful tactical offensive of the NPA-RUC in the Municipal Police Station in Lapinig last August 10, which resulted in the seizing of ten M-16 Armalite Rifles, two 9-mm Pistol, three laptop computers and other important equipment and documents.

Be it known to Duterte, his mercenary cohorts in the AFP and to local bureaucrat capitalists like Governor Ong that their disinformation campaign which goes astride fascist attacks under Oplan Kapayapaan will be met with more tactical offensives by the New People’s Army. #