Last week we were told that the AFP were patrolling an area in Northern Samar when the NPA showed up and attacked them resulting in the death of two children. News reports said that the children and their friends were gathering coconuts and that they were behind the troops. One of the victims allegedly said that the NPA deliberately fired at him and his friends.
All of that sounded funny when it was first reported. Why were these people behind the troops? Why didn't the troops tell them to flee the area? Why would the NPA deliberately fire at children? The CPP has released a statement contradicting the narrative of the AFP.
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| https://cpp.ph/statements/condemn-the-afp-for-killing-of-children-in-indiscriminate-firing-in-northern-samar/ |
Last February 8, counterinsurgency operating troops belonging to the Philippine Army’s 20th Infantry Battalion fired their weapons indiscriminately on a group of peasants tending their coconut kiln (koprahan) in Barangay Roxas, Catubig, Northern Samar. Two children, including a 12-year old, Grade 6 student, were killed by soldiers. Another child was wounded.
The soldiers were part of a 30-man unit of the 20th IB that was conducting operations against a unit of the New People’s Army (NPA) in the area. The indiscriminate firing against the peasants was an act of retaliation after another smaller team of the 20th IB lost two men in an NPA ambush earlier that day.
Not only did the AFP mow down peasants tending their coconut kiln but they also paid the family's thousands of pesos in hush money!
The NPA unit had earlier learned that there were 30 troops of the 20th IB operating outside Roxas. They constantly monitored the enemy troops. Around noon on February 8, the said unit dispatched a team to conduct a counter-offensive against the fascist enemy.
At around 3 pm, the said team of Red fighters fired at a smaller group of enemies who also tried to attack them. Because of their strict surveillance of the enemy and superior knowledge of the terrain, they killed two fascist troops. The battle lasted only a few seconds. At this time, there were no civilians in the battle area. Thirty minutes later, two enemy helicopters arrived and patrolled here until 4:30 p.m.
On the same day, a column of the fascist enemy other than the one fired by the NPA strafed the cooperative youths. It is clear that they did not die in battle but in the firing of the fascist military. While dying at the hospital, one of the victims even said that soldiers shot them. The entire village of Roxas knows this fact.
The AFP is trembling with fear of the enraged people, so it is fighting to pretend that the youth are caught in an "encounter" and immediately shift the blame to the NPA. This is despite the clear data that the area of the NPA counter-offensive was far from the scene of the strapping of children, and they deliberately fired on unarmed civilians as they had done several times before. The AFP's move to immediately provide tens of thousands of "compensation" to the families of the dead youths is a sign of their criminal responsibility and desperation to "silence" their relatives.
Even the NPA's narration does not make sense. Why would the AFP indiscriminately fire at a group of peasants? Because they were mad that they lost two soldiers during an encounter with the NPA earlier in the day? That is stupid. But at least we have the other side of the story. I don't think there is much more to it than some troops were on patrol and they came upon some children and their friends harvesting coconuts. For some reason they did not tell them to leave the area immediately. Then the NPA showed up and fired at the AFP but killed two of the minors because the AFP ducked.
What we need here is a dedicated journalist with the right contacts to ferret out the truth of this story. That is not me. I don't have those contacts. Frankly I don't fully trust the AFP. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
Here is a funny claim from Duterte.
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| https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1168262 |
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte said he is comfortable with the thought that he has done his best to deliver his campaign promise to leave Malacañang with a strong military despite the government’s limited income.
"Just one reminder, from the start of my administration, I think it was in Jolo where I said that ‘I will leave my office with a strong military.’ That's what I promised and within our limited income, dito sa gobyerno (of our government), setting aside the small but equitable portion of it sa military, naibigay ko naman siguro (in the military, I think I had delivered), especially in the upgrade of armaments," Duterte said in his prerecorded Talk to the People on Monday night.
Duterte made this comment in response to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s report on the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) modernization program and the doubling of the salaries of all military personnel and pensioners.
Lorenzana said Duterte's strong support has inspired the AFP personnel to work better because they know they can adequately support their families with their salaries and do their mandated duty with the newly acquired military equipment.
"(Doubling the salaries active personnel is a huge help to them)," Lorenzana told Duterte.
Lorenzana also said Duterte's support encouraged soldiers to work harder in fighting the enemies of the state, citing numerous successes of the military in combating terrorist groups in the country.
“(That is why they are inspired to work like when you asked earlier why our victory against the communist rebels and terrorists is so great because the soldiers are inspired because their salaries have doubled),” he said.
Really? The reason the AFP is inspired to defeat the NPA is because their salaries have been doubled!? Let's not forget that the annual Balikitan exercises between the AFP and the US military are very important part of training. And yet Duterte was willing to sacrifice the VFA because Bato's visa was cancelled. Without the VFA those exercises would have been cancelled.
And let us never forget that one reason the Marawi siege lasted so long is because the AFP stopped training for urban warfare because it was a skill they did not use!
"It's a skill we used to have but we lost along the way because we didn't use it. We keep training our people in what we call the military operations in urban terrain, MOUT. But we seldom use it, we never use it, so we stopped teaching our people at the Marawi camp. So now we have to reacquire that skill plus the necessary equipment that goes with it.
https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2018/06/martial-law-no-ready-reserve-ammunition.html
The Ilocos Region has been declared as the first region in the country to be in a state of stable internal peace and security or insurgency-free.
This, after the signing of the Joint Regional Development Council 1 (RDC) and Regional Peace and Order Council 1 (RPOC), and the Regional Task Force (RTF-ELCAC) 1 Resolution No. 1, Series of 2022, at the EM Royalle Hotel and Beach Resort in San Juan, La Union on Thursday, Feb. 24.
The JTG commander highlighted the 36 high-value personalities neutralized, the surrender of 984 New People’s Army (NPA) regulars alongside the capture and recovery of 84 firearms, and the overwhelming support of 152 municipalities and 3, 564 barangays in declaring communist terrorists as persona non grata.
“Our hard work, focus, and relentless efforts to accomplish our targets and mandate yielded zero violence incidents for more than a year now since January 2021, “said Mortela.
Torres assured that the military and the police will continue pressuring the remaining communist terrorists in north and central Luzon to surrender, return to the fold of the law, and have the chance of redeeming their lives as productive citizens of the country.
The signing of the resolution marks a milestone in history with Ilocos as the first region in the Philippines to be declared insurgency-free.
“Insurgency-free”, according to Luga, means that they have received no more reports of armed men in the province.
Five members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA), including an alleged indigenous peoples (IP) recruiter, were killed in an encounter Thursday in Purok-8, Barangay Andap, New Bataan, Davao de Oro, the 10th Infantry Division (10ID) said Friday.In a statement, the 10ID identified the slain NPA members as Chad Booc, Jojarain Alce Nguho ll (alias Rain), a certain alias Daday, and two still unidentified men.
Booc was one of the those arrested at the University of San Carlos (USC)-Talamban Cebu City in February last year for alleged trafficking of IP members in Talaingod, Davao del Norte.
He was later ordered released, together with six others, by a local court in May 2021.
Booc, 27, graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines-Diliman with a Bachelor of Computer Science degree.
The military previously said he was a recruiter for the NPA even during his student days.
A supposed intelligence information about the transportation of supplies for communist rebels served as the starting point of a series of encounters between the military and alleged New People’s Army (NPA) rebels that led to the death of five individuals, including Lumad teacher Chad Booc, in Davao de Oro on Thursday, Feb. 24.Brig. Gen. Jesus Durante III, commander of the 1001st Infantry Brigade, practically belied on Saturday, Feb. 26, the claims of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) that the military “fabricated” the encounter that killed Booc and his companions.
Durante, in a press conference, said that their operation began on Feb. 23 when the troops received a tip from an informant that alleged NPA rebels would bring in supplies for their comrades in Davao de Oro the following day.
At about 4 :10 a.m. of Feb. 24, Durante said elements of the 1001st Infantry Brigade saw a group of “armed men” who suddenly appeared in the drop off point. The troops then engaged the suspects in a brief firefight until the latter withdrew.
Durante said the troops pursued the fleeing armed men and after about two hours, or around 6:15 a.m., another encountered occurred where two suspected rebels were fatally hit. The suspects again withdrew and left their dead comrades, according to Durante, but the operating troops managed to close in.
A third encounter occurred at around 7:05 a.m. which lasted for about 15 minutes. After this, the troops discovered that three more suspected rebels ended up dead. The troops cleared the area but there were still some members of the armed men who escaped and left their dead comrades, Durante said.
He said the suspects’ death formed part of Duterte’s order to the military to “finish off” the New People’s Army and end the five-decades long communist insurgency before his term ends in June of this year.
“Yes, we are optimistic [in meeting the deadline]. We have a deadline to meet and hopefully, before the term of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte ends, malaki na ang pagbabago (there will be a big change) when it comes to peace and order dito sa (here in) Davao de Oro province,” Durante said.
A network supporting schools for the Lumad refuted the military’s claim that it had an encounter Thursday with communist rebels in New Bataan, Davao de Oro which resulted in the deaths of five, including two volunteer teachers.Save our Schools Network said locals in the area denied that there was an encounter there between the military and members of the New People’s Army on that day.
Communist Party of the Philippines information officer Marco Valbuena also said in a tweet that the local NPA unit there also denied that there was an encounter between them and the military.
“What the AFP claims as an ‘encounter’ is in fact a massacre of civilians in the area. And in its attempt to justify these gruesome killings, the armed forces once again twist the truth to play into their narrative as they have done many times before,” SOS said Friday in a statement.
For Brig. Gen. Jesus Durante III, 1001st Infantry Brigade commander, Booc’s killing proves that Lumad schools have become breeding grounds for communist rebels — a claim that has long been propagated by state forces and repeatedly refuted by students and teachers of these educational institutions.
“The AFP must have been incredibly desperate to exact revenge for its failed narrative of painting out Chad Booc as a child trafficker nor the Lumad schools being breeding grounds of NPA rebels,” SOS said.
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