Reds decline in Southern Luzon
By Paul M. Gutierrez
People’s Tonight – www.journal.com.ph
Monday, January 4, 2009
THE entire length of land from the tip of Catanduanes facing the Philippine Sea down to the borders of Rizal, Laguna and Cavite with Metro Manila is Southern Luzon.
Politically, it is composed of 15 provinces divided into the Bicol region or Region V (Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Albay, Sorsogon, Masbate and Catanduanes) and, Southern Tagalog or Region IV (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon, the two Mindoro provinces, Marinduque and Romblon).
(The province of Aurora was transferred as part of Region III in 2002 while Palawan since 2005 has become part of Region VI).
Southern Luzon’s current combined population is more than 17 million.
Uneven economic development in many areas dominated by agriculture and vast expanse of mountainous and rugged terrains suited for guerilla warfare have always been its main features, which the rebels have divided into the Bicol Regional Party Committee (BRPC) and the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee (STRPC).
Historically, its people, majority of them poor and illiterate folk living from whatever they can extract from the land through often outdated farming methods, have a tradition of armed uprising against established authority dating back to the Spanish colonial period.
Receptive farm folk
The living condition of the majority of the people being as bad as it is for generations, it is no wonder that when pioneering cadres of the then nascent Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), sophisticated and university educated, decided to expand its guerrilla fronts to survive the fierce extermination campaign of the martial law government of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, they found ready listeners and supporters among the rural population.
By the time the CPP, through the National Democratic Front (NDF), decided to enter into peace negotiations in 1987 with the government, both the BRPC and the STRPC could boast of over 3,000 armed fighters in its ranks; its “Armed City Partisans” (Sparrow Units) freely entered and executed their victims even in Metro Manila.
Even the ruthless purges of its leading cadres and most rabid supporters suspected of being government agents that killed thousands and the split of the CPP into the “reaffirmist” and “rejectionist” bloc between 1987 and 1991 appears to have made no major effect in the CPP’s forward march into realizing Mao Zedong’s famous dictum of gaining the decisive victory by “surrounding the cities thru the countryside” through the conduct of the “protracted people’s war.”
Addressing party members during the CPP’s 34th anniversary in 2002, chairman Armando Liwanag (authorities believed it is just another pseudonym of Prof. Jose Maria Sison, who founded the CPP in 1968), said:
“Right now, the NPA has a sum total of at least three divisions or nine brigades or 27 battalions of full-time Red fighters with high-powered rifles. These are augmented by tens of thousands in the people’s militias and further on by hundreds of thousands in self-defense units of the mass organizations.
“Our Red fighters are deployed in 128 guerrilla fronts, which include significant portions of 800 municipalities and 70 provinces. Every guerrilla front has a center of gravity consisting of a platoon or an oversized platoon within the radius of a few barrios.
“Relatively more dispersed squads are deployed for mass work and are further divisible into armed propaganda teams. We are resolutely and militantly consolidating and expanding these guerrilla fronts.”
Threat on the decline
Unstated was the crucial role of the BRPC and STRPC played in the boast of Liwanag.
For even at this period, the military admits, both regions continue maintain almost the same number of armed fighters while their areas of operation continue to expand revolution on the decline.
Official data released by the Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) for this report showed that currently, the entire strength of the STRPC drastically dropped from more than 2,000 armed fighters in 2002 to around 300 while its firepower was reduced to over 400 assault weapons of various calibers.
Indeed, there is now a surplus of firearms in the STRPC that in Mindoro and Rizal provinces, the AFP has dug up dozens of firearms purposely buried by the guerillas for lack of men to use them.
Elsewhere, their “second-tier” fronts like Marinduque and Romblon have totally collapsed.
Last year, the AFP, after careful assessment, was confident enough to turn over the internal security operations (ISO) in Marinduque and Romblon to their respective local authorities, the first of its kind in the entire history of the government’s anti-insurgency campaign.
Security ops to LGUs
Solcom commanding general Lt. General Roland Detabali and 2nd Infantry Division chief, Maj. Gen. Jorge Segovia, in a talk with this reporter, said plans were also being finalized for the turnover of ISO to the local officials in Cavite and the first district of Laguna anytime this year.
In Bicol, Major Gen. Ruperto Pabustan, chief of the 9th ID, noted the current rebel strength is down by at least 100 armed fighters from 583 in 2007.
Significantly, too, NPA-influenced barangays, at 293, were even less than 10 percent of the total 3,475 barangays in the region. From January to November last year, there were at least 150 armed encounters in the Solcom area resulting to the neutralization of at least 162 guerillas. These incidents also resulted in the recovery of 173 assorted firearms.
On the other hand, the AFP suffered 15 casualties and lost 11 assault rifles. All the victims were from the Bicol front with the majority consisting of civilian militia or Cafgu.
Detabali also dismissed the CPP’s exhortation during its 41st anniversary statement last December 26 for the NPA to further increase its guerilla fronts “from 120 to 180” starting this year.
“Malabo nang mangyari ‘yan,” he stressed.
Detabali noted that at Solcom alone, the number of NPA fronts has collapsed from 24 in 2006 to 14 last year.
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