Año, other Cabinet execs on CPP kill list — AFP

MANILA, Philippines — The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has launched a plot to assassinate several Cabinet officials who are spearheading President Duterte’s counterinsurgency program, a military official announced yesterday.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., deputy chief of staff for civil military operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said among those included in the CPP’s kill list are Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples chairman Allen Capuyan.

Parlade said he and five former communist leaders who are helping the government’s anti-insurgency campaign are also on the list under Oplan Hades, a program of the CPP against counter-revolutionaries.

“The decision was made last night (Tuesday) during a meeting by the CPP central committee,” Parlade said on the sidelines of a media forum organized by the Department of the Interior and Local Government in Quezon City.

Citing intelligence reports, Parlade said the CPP made some adjustments on its hit list after President Duterte formed the National Task Force to end local armed conflict.

“They knew the government’s program is effective. Tinatamaan sila, nasasaktan sila,” the military official said.

Parlade said the New People’s Army’s hit squad, Special Partisan Unit, was tasked to do the job.

Duterte, who has been critical of the CPP, is not included in the list, according to Parlade.

Parlade is confident that the government can end the communist insurgency within a year if the recruitment of students from communist front organizations is stopped.