Part 1
It was not too long ago when San Carlos City Bishop Gerardo Alminaza bewailed the disproportionate use of force against remnants of the dismantled Northern Negros Front during a final battle at the end of a series of clashes in the upland village of Pinapugasan in Escalante City that led to the death of three rebels and the wounding of four State troopers, one a militiaman.
Alminaza singled out the use of a Blackhawk attack helicopter during the 24 February gunbattle that led to the death of three armed Communist regulars, two child warriors, one of them a young woman who was forced to abandon her infant, giving her baby the same fate she suffered when her parents left her in childhood.
I write this not to disparage Bishop Alminaza, beloved and respected by those who champion human rights, those staunch advocates of the people who are as alert as Kangal dogs watching over sheep especially when the fascist bastards and berdugong militar of the Army trample the rights of the helpless.
As they have been saying for more than half a century, for as long as the Communist Party of the Philippines had been spurring countryside development by goading people to fight, to take up arms against the twin domestic puppets of bureaucrat capitalism and feudalism lorded over by the imperialist US.
I write this to talk about the elephant in the room, the tough-skinned pachyderm that Negrenses did not and continue to not face since the Marcos I martial law to the Cory Aquino years.
Is Communist terrorism a scourge we brought upon ourselves? Is it the Frankenstein’s monster bred by a spoiled Negrense culture who would rather see national leaders fail because of a historic sense of abuse brought on the sugar industry by the Marcos I government?
Is this historic sense of injustice still the motivating factor, or alibi, to pursue the so-called struggle for national democratic revolution?
Or are most of us in Negros, even the supposed intellectual ones who delude themselves into believing they are wise and kind, still blind to the deceptive ways of Communists?
Worse, do we really believe that the Communists stand for all that is good and true while the government ought to be destroyed so a new one, ordained in blood and built on the bones of those not worthy to receive the bread of Mao can rise in its place?
Or have the Catholic faith and Communism, its anti-thesis, found reasons for unity strong and deep enough in Negros island to work for the destruction of society as we know it?
It is fatal to misinterpret the deep concern of Bishop Gerry for the poor and downtrodden masses of Pinapugasan as positive proof of his alliance with Communists who are now thrashing wildly about, leaderless, scattered and now relegated to the title of rebeldeng lagalag, so firmly organized like a bunch of flies buzzing on carabao dung.
It is wrong to say that Bishop Gerry is now the chief propagandist of the CPP after its lead mouthpieces like Romeo Nanta and Rogelio Posadas met their death in battle, the words they spewed unable to stop the wall of lead from warfighters of the Army who would rather hunt then answer them in a propaganda war that is apparently fought in their deluded minds.
Perhaps it is time to ask: does Negros truly love the Communists more than it loves its muscovado?
I know the issue of human rights as a former Communist cadre deployed to urban work as secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Negros and as head of a collective (a group of jobless, fulltime revolutionaries kuno people) that ran the everyday affairs – from propaganda to moneymaking – of front organizations like Bayan, Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Kalikasan, and Karapatan.
