San Carlos City declared free from Reds

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — The military has declared the city of San Carlos City in Negros Occidental as free from communist insurgents.

In the late 1980s, some of the city’s hinterland barangays served as “hotbeds of insurgency,” the military said.

Brig. Gen. Inocencio Pasaporte, chief of the Army’s 303rd Infantry Brigade, yesterday said the villages of Bulwangan, Codcod, Guadalupe, Nataban and Quezon received P100 million worth of infrastructure projects as part of the barangay development program of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

Mayor Renato Gustilo said there are no more communists or armed groups in these villages, except for some of their mass-based supporters.

Gustilo admitted the rebels could still be passing through these villages on their way to other areas of Negros.

He and Pasaporte recently visited the villages and inspected a 1.4-kilometer road concreting project in Barangay Codcod.

Another road project in Barangay Nataban is nearing completion and a similar project is about to start in the village of Quezon.

After the projects are completed, the city government will appropriate funds for another kilometer every year until the road concreting project reaches the farthest sitio of San Carlos.

These farm-to-market roads will allow farmers to conveniently bring their produce to the town proper, Gustilo said.