BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – Ranking Army officers scoffed at the cases of killing by remnants of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed terrorist wing, the New People’s Army, even as the province had already been placed under the Stable Internal Peace and Security Status (SIPS).
“That is purely motivated by money so they can make it appear they are still alive and well and can continue extorting money from ordunary folk and businesses,” Lieutenant Colonel J-Jay Javines, spokesman of the Army’s Third Infantry Division said.
Javines gave the statement when sought out for reaction by DNX following a series of clashes between a combat unit of the 94th Infantry Battalion and terrorist remnants in Kabankalan City and the killing of two civilians in Sipalay City, cases both admitted by a supposed NPA spokesman to have been committed by a defunct guerrilla front.
Javines said the Monday clash between around a dozen armed terrorist remnants of the defunct Central Negros Front 2 in Carol-an village in Kabankalan, and the slay of community president Michael Jun Jabagat and Donie Bacoli in Camindangan village are all based on propaganda value.
“The dismantling of their armed forces and guerrilla fronts has pushed them to become more noisy and resort to empty propaganda to convey strength and cover up their weakness,” Javines added.
The 94th combat unit clashed with around a dozen armed men said to be composed of remnants under the dismantled CN2 and fighters of the Regional Strike Force once commanded directly by the Communist Party’s regional executive committee and the NPA’s Regional Operations Command,94th IB commander, Lieutenant Colonel Van Donald Almonte had earlier said.
The Sipalay murders, on the other hand, involved purok Cagay president Michael Jun Jabagat and fish vendor Donie Bacoli, both residents of the mountain village of Camindangan.
Camindangan is where Omas, an interior sitio or sub-village, is located, known as part of a complex of caves and forested areas once used as a semi-permanent base of the NPA in the 1980s.
