BACOLOD CITY, Negros Occidental, Philippines – The Communist terrorist movement in Negros Occidental province might be seeing its last democratic elections and might soon totally die soon after as it cannot be expected to extort much from politicians with the whittling down of its armed wing, the New People’s Army, to only a handful of rebel remnants.
“Manugbagting lingganay bilin (Only the bellringers remain),” some former Communist cadres who used to run the operations of CPP partylist fronts told DNX.
The former cadres, a man and a woman, are former operators directly under the Regional Urban/White Area Committee (RUWAC), a staff organ of the CPP’s unified Regional Executive Committee for Negros, Cebu, Bohol, and Siquijor provinces.
Both spoke on condition of anonymity and answered questions of this writer in person during an hour-long interview inside a traveller’s inn somewhere in southern Negros Occidental.
The two are personally known to DNX editors and were sought for comment over reports that the country’s poll body has classified Cauayan and Calatrava towns and Sipalay City as under the “orange” category or where there exists cases of suspected election-related cases over the past two polls, and threats posed by armed groups like the Communist terrorists.
Isabela and San Enrique towns, meanwhile, were under the “yellow” category or areas where there are cases of election-related incidents and intense political rivalries.
The woman cadre, who will be identified in this report as Mayette, told DNX the absence of a significant armed component renders the CPP “ineffective.”
“It cannot make good on its threat of killingvor harming any candidate who will refuse to pay its permit to campsign fee,” she said in a combination of mainly Bisaya and Tagalog languages.
The CPP charges “revolutionary fees” for these permits that runs from a few tens of thousands of pesos to millions of pesos depending on the class status of the candidate, his or her “blood debts” to the people or history of “cooperation” with the CTGs.
“They are not a serious threat anymore to the holding of peaceful and orderly polls,” Army Lieutenant Colonel J-Jay Javines sad from Jamindan, Capiz province where the Third Infantry Division is based in Camp Macario Peralta.
Javines, Camp Peralta spox, said the significantly weakened NPA cannot mount any significant challenge as it only has a handful of armed remnants in Negros island that are still being chased by soldiers who are on suatained focused military operations.
He added the absence of widespread and intense political rivalries among candidates also undercuts the value of the NPA as a ercenary group or to engage in joint armed operations with goons of politicians or other private armed groups.
From Camp Gerona, on the other hand, Captain Jessie Ebalan told DNX the Army’s 303rd Brigade is “ready as always” to secure the province as he pointed out that there are no other serious threats under the 303rd that could affect the “success” of the coming elections.
He also clarified that even if the province had been placed under the Stable Internal Peace and Security Status, it does not mean the absence of armed threats but “… there is stable internal peace ang securitt wherein the threat of the CPP NPA NDF is manageable and their presence in the area is insignificant.”
