CPP brands AFP’s ‘Bayanihan’ as patterned after US program

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has branded the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)’s internal peace and security plan (IPSP) “Bayanihan” as “the same dog with a different collar,” stressing the new plan is patterned after the United States militarist counterinsurgency guide.

In a statement, the CPP said that “Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan is not at all new except in name and heavy cosmetizing,” comparing it to the previous Operation Plan Bantay Laya under the Arroyo administration which was blamed for various human rights violations.

“The ‘new’ plan hews to the fancy rhetoric of the latest edition of the US Counterinsurgency Guide. It contains the same, brutal, militarist doctrine and prescriptions of all previous US-designed co-in (counter-insurgency) plans. It pretends only to be different from Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya by harping on new rhetoric that are neither grounded in practice nor in will,” said the CPP.

Last Tuesday, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Ricardo David Jr. formally presented IPSP Bayanihan to the Commander in Chief President Aquino during the AFP’s 75th founding anniversary. Aquino gave his full support to the new counterinsurgency program.

Under “Bayanihan,” the AFP is adopting whole-nation, people-centered approach to finally defeat the decades-long communist insurgency problem in the country. The military will be making a paradigm shift from combat operations to massive civil military and developmental programs.

AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr. stressed the paradigm shift was prompted by the dwindling number of communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels that need minimal combat operations. He said the AFP will refocus its efforts to developmental projects to bring government service to the people.

Mabanta also stressed that “Bayanihan” is not an operation plan or oplan but an internal peace and security plan.

The CPP, however, stressed it is “the same dog with a different collar.”

The CPP cited that the previous Oplan Bantay Laya, under the Arroyo administration, has been widely criticized for giving rise to the spate of extra-judicial killings and abductions targeting mainly social activists and critics of the government and the ruling system.

The communist group said Oplan Bantay Laya was known for its brutal military operations and other gross human rights abuses that have caused massive sufferings of the people, especially suspected NPA areas as well as those fighting in the legal and parliamentary arena.

“More than a thousand people tagged by government military and security forces as supporters of the NPA were summarily executed by death squads identified with the AFP,” said the CPP.

In an effort to counter such perception, the CPP said the AFP command has gone public to say that their counterinsurgency plan now stresses the “whole nation approach” and “respect for human rights.”

“The problem with the ruling reactionary regime and its Armed Forces is that they want to dismiss the several thousand cases of human rights abuses by the military as a mere problem of negative perception and is now trying to hide behind new fancy slogans,” said the CPP.

“With the AFP persistently in a state of denial regarding its record of abuses and rights violations, their new slogans are only good for sound bytes,” it added.

The CPP said further that the Aquino government is now being called upon to decisively stop the ongoing extrajudicial killings, brutal military operations and other gross human rights violations of its military, security and paramilitary forces.

“It should prosecute and punish the criminal masterminds and principal perpetrators of more than a thousand cases of extrajudicial killings and thousands of other cases of gross human rights abuses committed in the past ten years under Oplan Bantay Laya,” it said.

“Like its predecessor,” said the CPP, “Oplan Bayanihan is sure to fail in its declared objectives of defeating the people’s revolutionary armed resistance. It can never succeed in its core objective to defend the rotten ruling system that exploits and oppresses the people. It will keep on engendering revolution until the entire rotten, puppet, reactionary system is brought down and replaced by a revolutionary, democratic, pro-people and progressive one.” –Mario J. Mallari, Daily Tribune