NPA-influenced barangays up during Estrada’s term

While the military was waging all-out war against the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao last year, communist rebels expanded their influence in Luzon and the Visayas, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said yesterday.

In a press conference, Golez said that at the start of the Estrada administration in 1998, there were about 772 barangays influenced by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-New People’s Army (NPA).

"At the end of the Estrada administration, this (number) increased to 1,279 which is quite a big jump," he said.

Golez attributed this to "too much concentration" of the military’s attention and manpower in Mindanao.

He said many Armed Forces’ units assigned in Luzon and the Visayas were deployed to Mindanao to support Estrada’s all-out offensive against the MILF.

"This is now being corrected by the gradual transfer of military personnel back to their mother units, particularly in Luzon and the Visayas," Golez said.

Prior to the government offensive against the separatist rebels, about 40 percent of the military’s 113,000 personnel were fielded in Mindanao.

The figure rose to 60 percent at the height of the offensive to capture MILF camps from March last year until the fall of the Moro rebels’ main stronghold, Camp Abubakar, last September.

During the same period, the extremist Abu Sayyaf staged a series of kidnappings of foreigners and schoolchildren in Basilan and Sulu.

Meanwhile, Golez expressed optimism that the NPA would release Army Maj. Noel Buan before the start of the Holy Week.

He said the release of Buan, who has been held hostage since July 1999, is imminent following a directive from National Democratic Front chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni to the NPA last week to free the Army intelligence officer.

The military and police have suspended military operations against the NPA rebels in Southern Tagalog to pave the way for Buan’s release.

In another development, the People’s Committee for a Just and Lasting Peace denounced elements of the Army’s 76th Infantry Battalion for allegedly violating the human rights of 10 members of a farmers’ group in Barangay Vista Hermosa, Macalelon, Quezon during an anti-NPA operation last Mach 18-23.

In a statement, Jess Gili, the group’s secretary-general, alleged that two of the farmers were mauled, three were illegally arrested, and the others harassed and threatened, while the house of one farmer was ransacked.