The tactics of the Communist terrorist remnants – a handful of robots remote controlled from imperial Manila and unlearned in the supposed philosophy of people’s war: Marxism and Maoism are so laughably outdated but also enraging in their actions as it shows how the CPP itself has become the most anti-peasant and anti-poor syndicate, killing people at will in the island as the Army’s warfighters continue to defeat them in combat.
I shall dissect this issue today: the continued cases of killing by remnants or, more accurately described in Hiligaynon as lalud that can be easily be pictured out as fragments of fried peanuts mingling with salt at the bottom of a bowl after a night of drinking.
Or, sediments at the bottom of a pail filled with water from a deep well.
Or the familiar lugdang sang balok at the bottom of a glass of tuba or coconut sap wine.
Remnants sound fashionable, chic but there’s nothing fashionable about these rebels I used to support who are now killing at will, slaughtering at least 24 civilians in northern Negros Occidental alone. Most of these cases were owned up by a supposed rebel spokesman of a command using the name Roselyn Jean Pelle, a guerrilla from Bacolod City who was killed in the 90s in Canlaon City.
To understand how the mind of Communist terrorists work, it is important to go back to ancient China, to the lessons from antiquity based on the writings of Sun Tzu, the general and strategist admired by Mao Tze Tung and, copied by Jose Maria Sison as others done so to other Asian revolutionaries.
This seeming romanticism to the slaughter and carnage wrought on the nation by Philippine Communists has been one of its attractions to young and old alike – whose mental feebleness and emotional frailty deluded them into believing they were doing something good for the nation: that is feeling offended and taking up arms for the supposed “weak and oppressed” sectors on whose behalf the Communist Party had been making money or had been taking money from.
It is crucial to look at the Communists from this angle: A supposedly moral force desirous of building a new and better society which, as one of its legal front organizations claim, is “for those who toil.”
At the end of more than 50, years, what the CPP has done was build a congregation of grumblers and whimperers who hate rich people, accuse everyone of stealing and corrupt practices, and preach a gospel of death, murder and destruction.
It is also crucial to understand that the actions of the remnants are taking place in the context of the government’s declaration of Stable Internal Peace and Security Status in two Negros island provinces and amid the delusional declaration of the CPP of a Third Rectification Movement.
The first important lesson from Sun Tzu is the command of: know your enemy and know yourself. By doing so, Sun Tzu believes one cannot be imperiled in a hundred battles.
The CPP knows for certain it is impossible to defeat a technologically advanced and well-equipped ground force that has constantly proven itself in combat.
In fact, it is to the credit of Brigadier General Orlando Edralin who commands the 303rd Brigade that both the top island Communist Rogelio Posadas and NPA island commander Romeo Nanta were killed on the battlefield, most likely left behind by their comrades to be turned into propaganda fodder instead of just being simply maggot meal.
Why Edralin and the battalion commanders under him, all Lieutenant Colonels – Van Donald Almonte of the 94th, Arnel Calaoagan of the 79th ,and Evelio Ilanga and his predecessor, now Colonel William Pesase – have not yet been feted with honors and accolades from a supposedly grateful civilian bureaucracy is beyond me.
I will leave that for a different space, however.
It is important to note that the second major lesson from Sun Tzu’s Art of War is “appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
That way, he said, one can trick his or her enemy into underestimating you when one is strong but appears weak.
This is precisely what the CPP wants to achieve: to convey a sense of strength even at its weakest and most fragile point, its nadir even.
The numbers based on former cadres I have talked to will bear this out in northern Negros Occidental alone.
One of them said that at its peak in the early 2000s, the Northern Negros Front had platoon or around 30 armed regulars as its “center of gravity” aside from having the same armed strength in the towns of Toboso, Calatrava, and Escalante City.
From that peak strength of around 100 armed regulars in northern Negros Occidental alone the 79th Infantry Battalion has whittled it down to only around seven fighters since 2018, when President Duterte’s whole of government approach started.
Seven out of 90 fighters at the least means only around seven percent is left.
Statistically, it is indeed a win for the Army.
But here comes the hard part: things became harder. Even ranking Army officials, like former Lt. Gen. Benedict Arevalo, former commander of the Visayas Command, admitted the hard part is after the clearing operations, that is after the Army has dismantled all guerrilla fronts.
This is the part where the whole of nation approach is supposed to gain more importance: when the counterinsurgency fight is not left to the Army and police alone but becomes a civic, even patriotic duty of every Filipino.
Back to Sun Tzu, however, it must be understood that the Communists know who to “attack where the enemy is unprepared” or using surprise as an element in battle.
It is clear that the CPP knows the public at-large is not ready to face them in mortal mental combat, especially in Negros.
This public includes grumbling pre-pubescent kids to early adults and revolutionary wannabees with too much time and data on their hands who rail and wail on Facebook about rights yet are utterly senseless about responsibilities as simple as fixing their beds, flushing the toilet or cooking rice.
These future destroyers of society find entitlement in a shared sense of the mob who believe they can dictate what nouns and pronouns to use, and how society should be run.
The hard part in the counterinsurgency campaign will be won in the hearts and minds of the people in the urban areas.
Each of us must decide.
