EDITORIAL - Pestilence

Today six families are mourning the loss of their loved ones to a rebellion that has lost its cause. The six, all members of the Regional Public Safety Battalion of the Cagayan police, were killed last Tuesday when they pursued New People’s Army rebels who torched heavy equipment being used by the National Irrigation Administration to build a dam in Baggao town.

Insurgencies thrive on oppression and other forms of social injustice. The Marcos dictatorship became the best recruiter for the communist movement and, in Mindanao, Islamic separatism. The restoration of democracy in 1986 blunted the communist cause. Democracy has its warts, but several administrations have generally given Filipinos fewer reasons to support armed insurgencies.

Around the world, communist regimes have also imploded. The handful that remain are hardly models for free societies that value civil liberties and governance by popular will. Communist states also saw their economies improve when they embraced the free market.

In the Philippines, the communist New People’s Army has been reduced to armed extortion. It has aggravated poverty in the countryside by scaring away investments in areas where jobs and livelihood opportunities are most needed. The NPA has become a public pestilence in the areas where it has destroyed power transmission and telecommunications towers. Its leaders, who refuse to go home for fear not only of state forces but also of their own comrades, have sought refuge in one of the world’s most liberal nations.

Several individuals who left the insurgency have found that advancing their causes through the political arena is far more effective than taking up arms. Power that emanates from the barrel of a gun cannot be sustained. The deaths of the six policemen should serve as another nail in the coffin of a discredited movement.