Army to secure Balikatan exercises

The Army said yesterday it would beef up security in areas where the annual RP-US Balikatan exercises would be held, after Communist rebels warned of tactical offensives against the joint war games.

Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sodusta, chief of the Army’s 9th Infantry Division that covers the Bicol Region, said in a phone interview that he is planning to deploy a battalion of soldiers ahead of the April exercises to ensure the security of US and Filipino participants.

“We are prepared to meet any threat. We will be sending the 49th Infantry Battalion to secure the area.We would be taking necessary precautionary measures so we could prevent them from committing atrocities,” he said.

Sodusta said they are not belittling the threat from the New People’s Army because even a lone guerilla could inflict damage.

He said aside from the deployment of additional security forces, they would intensify intelligence-gathering operations to derail any plan of the NPA to conduct offensives against troops of the two countries.

He said they would hold meetings with representatives of both countries for the laying out of a security plan for the joint exercises, which according to top defense officials, would focus on humanitarian assistance projects in some areas of the Bicol Region.

Sodusta meanwhile scored the NPA for issuing the warning, saying the group is preventing the conduct of development projects in far-flung areas.

“They think it is a military exercise. They are wrong because what would happen is they would bring in development projects there,” he said.

Because of this, Sodusta urged the locals to report any NPA activity in their area, to prevent the rebels from inflicting damage that might derail the assistance that would be given to their communities by the Balikatan exercise.

In a statement, the Communist Party of the Philippines said NPA units in Bicol are specifically instructed to launch “as many tactical offensives as they can in many areas of the region in mockery of the Balikatan exercises and to prevent the US military from strengthening its foothold in the region.”

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro earlier said this year’s Balikatan is intended to aid calamity-stricken areas in Bicol and not for the anti-insurgency campaign.

Teodoro dismissed criticisms that the US troops would come to the area to meddle in the operations against Communist rebels.

He said that contrary to allegations, it is the calamity victims in the region who would benefit from these humanitarian assistance projects and that the Balikatan would have little impact on the AFP’s internal security operations.

Greg Bañares, spokesman of the National Democratic Front in Bicol said there is no terrorist group in the area and no major calamity in the last two years to warrant the conduct of Balikatan.