AFP echoes masses' appeal for Bayan: ' Slam extortion acts of CPP/NPA/NDF'
Extortion spree of local communist terrorists in Southern Iloilo towns have now reportedly caused widespread tension and fear. As such, farmer groups and affected barangay folks made a plea through the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) addressed to the group Bayan.
"Slam the extortion acts of Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF)," the AFP in a news release quoting the "fearful massess" said. "Slam the extortion activities especially to poor farmers of Western Visayas."
The affected masses, the AFP news release went, include rebel returnees fed up of the "atmosphere of fear" allegedly posed by the communist terrorists.
"The masses and rebel returnees reveal that the new extortion scheme of the CPP-NPA-NDF leadership orders collection of P5 per family and two gantas of rice or corn. It was also P200 per barangay official now," the report furnished to The News Today (TNT) went. "The terrorist CPP-NPA-NDF resulted to this new extortion model for about a month now. The masses can not afford it as they remind the communist terrorists – we are all victims of Typhoon Frank devastation, why do it on us?"
Captain Lowen Gil Marquez, commanding officer of the AFP's 3rd Civil Relations Unit confirmed extortion activities in Central and Southern Iloilo towns. Of late, similar incidents were monitored in Negros Occidental particularly in the town of Moises Padilla.
Marquez said charges are being mulled to be filed before the Commission on Human Rights that will reportedly include a supposed legal front organization.