ISO efforts cripple rebel forces in Panay, Negros: Army
The Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division claimed that the New People’s Army suffered major blows that crippled its operations in the Visayas area towards the end of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s timeline to bring the insurgency situation to an inconsequential level.
First Lt. Mark Andrew Posadas, 3rd ID public information officer, said that the military campaign in the whole of Western Visayas, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor against the insurgents has been actively pursued and has attained key goals based on established parameters.
He pointed out that the NPA in Negros and Panay islands is now considered a disorganized and spent force.
In military terms, it means the rebel group has dispersed into small groups to avoid confrontation with government troops brought about by massive operations conducted in all guerilla fronts.
Posadas said that based on 3rd ID figures, from 10 active guerilla fronts in 2006, the Army has reduced the NPA to four degraded fronts with only 70 barangays remaining to be insurgency-affected.
“Out of 4,741 barangays in our operational area, we focused on the 162 insurgency-affected barangays in 2006 and successfully cleared 92 barangays to date,” Posadas revealed.
These communities continue to be cleared and insulated from the influence of the rebels due to the active collective participation of all stakeholders resulting in an observable decline in the influence on these barangays, he added.
Posadas said the 3rd ID hierarchy has noted that the timeline to reduce the insurgency level stretched from 2004 until 2010. With the said statistics only covering 2006 to date, a headway in the insurgency drive has been observed from 2004.
Furthermore, 18 of the NPA leaders were neutralized by serving their warrants for cases that include multiple murder, robbery in band, arson and other criminal cases, from January 2009 until now.
Apart from these key personalities, the NPA also suffered losses in their ranks that were either killed, captured, surrendered, or left the movement, according to the 3rd ID.
“Despite continued recruitment by the CPP-NPA-NDF, the net estimate in Panay and Negros islands recorded from 2006 to present is 259 active members. The number of active members of the Communist Movement in 2006 was 745. The 3rd ID successfully kept their numbers down through our relentless internal security operations and the cooperation of other stakeholders,” Posadas added.
He said that even if the NPA occasionally conducted raids on soft targets like haciendas and mining company guard posts to acquire firearms, the Army troops have successfully recovered these firearms from them bringing the estimated number of firearms down from 392 to 294.
Posadas said that the insurgents will still affect the peace and development in the region through some isolated terror activities. However, the Philippine Army, with the cooperation of the different local government units through their Peace and Order Councils, have and will endeavor to stop these criminals in their tracks, he added.
