QUICK VIEW:
- Supposed rights group claimed but did not offer proof in release publushed on the Internet; DNX did not receive any official release
- Former Communist propaganda operator notes media offensive aims to use human rights as an issue versus the government
- CHR sub regional office OIC cannot comment yet
- Board Member Aton Occeno, Sangguniang Panlalawigan chair on human rights not answering to questions yet on the issue
BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Claims of ‘massive human rights violations” in this province surfaced anew as rebel remnants and soldiers clashed recenrly in the uplands of the north.
“Merely propaganda, the alleged rights violations are baseless,” State Prosecutor Flosemer Chris Gonzales tells DNX as the claim started to swirl on social media.
Gonzales is spokesman of the inter- agency End Local Communist Armed Conflict Task Force in Western Visayas.
DNX has not received any press release from the supposed rights organization that published the claim that came more than a week after an armed encounter in the mountain village of Caduhaan in Cadiz City, one of the cities along what the military calls the “extortion corridor” of Communist terrorists.
Army officials have long claimed that the New People’s Army, a designated terror group, earns at least P20 million a year from extortion activities in northern Negros Occidental alone – a part of Sugarlandia where vast sugarcane plantations and major sugar miller-refiners can be found.
The 79th Infantry Battalion had claimed after the 7 March clash that the two dead rebels whose bodies were left behind by their fleeing comrades were ranking cadres of the unified regional committee of the C for Negros, Cebu, Bohol, and Siquijor islands.
Its officials said Noynoy Ponteras, a native here, was the interim secretary of the NCBS and also acted as the chief finance officer for the unifoed committee while Marisa Pobresa was acting communications officer.
The 79th also added in subsequent news releases after their bodies were found that Ponteras was the real person behind the nom de guerre “Armando Magbanua” who signed the extortion letters sent to certain plantersxor businessmen in the province, copies of which were furnished the Army.
An officer of the 79th was also quoted last week to have said that the Caduhaan clash could have foiled a major tactical offensive of the remnants in time for the NPA’s 55th anniversary on the 29th of this month.
79th commander, Lieutenant Colonel Arnel Calaoagan, also said earlier the Caduhaan gathering of remnants could have been a preparatory committee meeting for a plenum or bigger gathering of remaining cadres for its plan to revive the ailing Communist movement in the island.
Former cadres assigned to major propaganda positions in the CPP noted the renewed attacks against the Army looks similar to the early 1990s situation when the CPP launched its Second Rectification Movement in the island.
Ka Dodoy, a former mainstream media infiltrator, told this writer that human rights is being used as an issue with the hopes of moving the religious and middle class against the government.
“The cadres responsible for using this propaganda line know fully well that Negrenses might be stirred to action by coming up with issues.
He added, however, that when national offices of legal formations or “what the military calls legal fronts “are involved in drumming up an issue “it only indicates there is a critical national or regional campaign.”
Given the fact that the CPP in Negros is trying to revive itself with the successive death of its leading cadres – from Romeo Nanta to Rogelio Posadas to Kerima Tariman to Erricson Acosta – restoring lesdership in the island is important.
” Why? Because the island is a significant money and resource generator for the Communist terrorist syndicate,” he added.
On his part, Vincent Parra told DNX he cannot comment yet on the issue.
He said the human rights group that made the claim could have conducted its own fact finding first before making the claim.
Board Member Anton Occeno, on the other hand, had not yet responded to a query from DNX who sought him out for comment.
Occeno chairs the committee on human rights of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan.
