AMIDST strong claims of government forces that the CPP-NPA terrorist group is losing influence and grip over villages in Samar and Leyte provinces, it again made its presence felt last week in a show of force in the region.
Calbayog vaccine convoy misses “landmine”
A convoy of the Calbayog City Health Office narrowly missed a rebel-triggered landmine blast last July 27 near Pinabacdao, Samar.
A convoy of city health personnel and police security escorts on board the city’s police patrol car was on its way to the Department of Health Regional Office in Palo, Leyte to pick up the vaccines for Calbayog City.
Initial investigation findings claimed that three gunshots were heard, followed by an explosion near Barangay Lale in Pinabacdao town. The convoy was about 20 meters past when the bomb went off, narrowly missing what could have been a deadly blast.
Police officers recovered from the blast site 24 feet of electric wire, a spent cartridge of 5.56mm caliber, and fragments of PVC pipe. Suspects have escaped.
10 heavy types of equipment set on fire
Around 4:30 dawn of Thursday, July 29, just two days after the rebel set off a land mine blast in Samar, nine units of heavy equipment were set on fire in Barangay San Francisco, Las Navas, Northern Samar, by alleged terrorist CPP-NPA group.
The heavy equipment owned by CDU Construction was torched by about 20 members of the Communist Terrorists Groups (CTGs), stalling a project in Barangay San Francisco, Las Navas, Northern Samar.
To recall, just a couple of weeks earlier in Eastern and Northern Samar provinces, there were firefights between the government forces and the CTGs, resulting in deaths on the side of the government.
But the NPAs are losing influence
Meantime, at least 213 villages in Eastern Visayas were cleared of New People’s Army (NPA) influence from 2019 to mid-2021, said a report from the government’s Philippine News Agency (PNA).
The figure covers the first two years of using the “whole-of-nation” approach of ELCAC (End Local Communist Armed Conflict) in wiping out the CTGs.
Of the reported 213 villages, 94 are in Samar province, 45 in Eastern Samar, 41 in Leyte, 29 in Northern Samar, and four in Southern Leyte.
NPAs in EV still a force to reckon with?
The Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF-ELCAC) said it is still doing clearing activities in some 126 villages in Northern Samar and 29 villages in Eastern Samar. Mostly in the hinterland, the areas are thought to have remained under CPP-NPA’s grip.
The recent rebel attacks were a month away from the target of the military to rid Samar of the terrorists. “The Philippine Army, partner national government agencies, and local government units hope to rid these villages in Northern and Eastern Samar of the NPA influence by September this year,” said Capt. Ferdinand Tutanes, RTF-ELCAC desk officer of the Philippine Army’s 8th Infantry Division.
Of these NPA-influenced villages, there are 97 in Northern Samar eyed for retooled community support program (RCSP) between the last quarter of this year and early 2022, the PNA reported.
According to Tutanes, with the RCSP strategy, while their troops are engaged in combat operations, the partner agencies would hold dialogues with the villagers to identify their needs and to deliver to them basic services. He said the approach would help them achieve their mopping up mission in three months.
RCSP is a strategy that deploys teams to identify issues and concerns in remote communities threatened by the NPA.
But it will be a Bloody War still
The commanding general of the 8th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army, Maj. Gen. Pio Diñoso III said in an earlier statement that they expect the war against the NPA to be “bloodier”.
“We are almost done with our campaign. We should expect this to be more violent since NPA members are already fighting for survival. They want to project that they are still strong,” the PNA reported, quoting Diñoso’s apparent scorn and belittling of the rebel strength.
Diñoso said that the remaining members of the NPA are in disarray and they only exist to push their extortion activities and spread the communist ideology.
In region 8, several local government units have formed task force ELCAC following Executive Order 70 issued by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 4, 2018.
Tagged as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines, the CPP-NPA has been waging a five-decade armed struggle against the government.