DESPITE persistent denials, there may be actual ties and rabid affinity between the progressive Bayan Muna party-list and the New People’s Army terrorist groups.
The recent surrender of an avowed rebel couple formerly involved in activism and insurgency in Leyte has claimed an explicit confirmation of unquestionable ties between party-list Bayan Muna and the terrorist group NPA.
In a statement released last week, the Philippine Army said, “the couple identified as ‘Jerry’ and ‘Dalia’ (not their real names) voluntarily surrendered and turned over themselves to the 14th Infantry Battalion, 8th Infantry Division, Philippine Army based in Baranggay Uguis, Mahaplag, Leyte.”
They were rebels
The couple had introduced themselves as former NPA terrorists and members of the Bayan-Muna party-list organization, the military report added.
“In reality, Jerry and Dalia had long wanted to abandon the violent life of communist terrorism. They had seen enough violence, including the infamous Inopacan Massacre in their six-year active involvement with the CPP-NPA-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front ) from 1986 to 1992.”
Background
A report from the government-owned Philippine News Agency (PNA) said that “in 1993, the couple with a group of some 200 members and supporters of the NPA yielded to the local officials of Mahaplag.”
It was learned that in 2001 the two were recruited by one known Bayan Muna coordinator Jun Salazar from Inopacan, Leyte, designating Jerry as Bayan Muna municipal coordinator, with a focused task to organize farmers and the workers in the area.
He was expected to lead in strikes and anti-government rallies until 2004 when they went on lie-low.
Salazar and a certain Dario Tomada, a peasant leader-organizer from Ormoc City, told them to instruct the organized masses to vote for Bayan Muna during the May 2001 election.
The military said the couple could be referring to Felomino Salazar, Jr., a resident of Inopacan, who was earlier arrested over criminal charges filed against him on the gruesome NPA purging in Mt. Sapangdaku, Caulisihan village in Inopacan town in the late 1980s.
Jerry admitted in an interview that he served as a medical officer of Squad 1, 5th District Guerrilla Unit, Front Guerrilla Unit in south Leyte from 1986 to 1992 and later as Bayan Muna-Mahaplag municipal chairman from 2001 to 2004.
Dalia bared she was the finance officer of the same front guerrilla unit from 1986 to 1992 and a Bayan Muna organizer in Mahaplag from 2001 to 2004.
The two claimed that in 2004 they voluntarily disappeared from Mahaplag, left their family behind, and hid somewhere in Bohol to avoid both the CPP-NPA-NDF and Bayan Muna.
However, both Jerry and Dalia realized they could not be free from the rebels’ control as they would continue to approach and recruit them again either into the armed group or the Bayan Muna party-list group.
“It is part of the NPA doctrine to recruit back former members and those on lie-low status,” said Brig. Gen. Zosimo Oliveros, commander of the Army’s 802nd Infantry Brigade.
“Hence, their formal surrender is very much welcome as it would afford us the golden opportunity to help them.
“In the advent of Executive Order No. 70, there is now a mechanism that will ensure their effective reintegration into the mainstream of our society,” Oliveros added.
EO 70, signed by President R. Duterte in December 2018, laid down a whole-of-nation approach in getting exclusive and sustainable peace - giving the country an effective solution against communist terrorists.
“I welcomed the formal return to the fold of the law of the couple Jerry and Dalia as it would seal their departure from the communist terrorist group and prevent their recruitment again either in the armed underground movement or the open revolutionary mass movement.
“The revelations of the couple gave credence to allegations on the link between the terrorist CPP-NPA and the Bayan Muna,” the military official said.
The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
The NDF has been formally tagged as a terrorist group by the Anti-Terrorism Council on June 23, 2021, citing it as “an integral and separate part” of the CPP-NPA created in April 1973. (With reports from Sarwell Meniano, PNA)