Soldiers assigned to guard former communist rebels

GOVERNMENT troops have been assigned to protect the members of the Alex Boncayao Brigade and other communist splinter groups from their former comrades, Army Gen. Emmanuel Bautista said Sunday.

Bautista, chief of the Visayas-based 3rd Infantry Battalion, said the members of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa ng Pilipinas-Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade were targeted for assassination after they broke away from the mainstream Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.

“We have assured the rebel-combatants that we would secure them because, apparently, this is one of the reasons for the delay in giving up their firearms,” Bautista told the Manila Standard.

“They fear they will be vulnerable to attacks and they need to protect themselves from their former comrades. We assured them we would secure them, so there is no reason for them to fear if they disband and disarm. We have prepared all the resources to protect them.’’

Bautista said the members of the breakaway groups openly carried their firearms, but those were not being used against the military.

“The combatants are armed, our soldiers are armed. We face each other, but we don’t train the guns on each other because both sides are talking peace. They are armed but not dangerous,” Bautista said.

Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita Deles said special permits to carry firearms, as was part of the peace agreement signed by the RPMP-RPA-ABB led by Nilo dela Cruz in 2000, were granted the group until a final agreement with the Aquino government had been signed.

Dela Cruz said the “cessation of hostilities” between the government and his group was holding.

“We are upholding the peace accord I signed with then President Joseph Estrada, particularly on the issue of cessation of hostilities,” Dela Cruz said.

“But our members also became vulnerable to the mainstream CPP and the expelled members Veronica Tabara and Carapali Lualhati, who carries the nom de guerre Stephen Paduano.”

Following the split in the mainstream CPP-NPA, the communist insurgents declared the breakaway group “traitors to the revolutionary movement and anti-revolutionaries” and were hunted down.

Bautista and Dela Cruz blamed the CPP-NPA for the assassinations of Felimon “Popoy” Lagman, then head of Sanlakas, who was killed on Feb. 6, 2001; Romulo Kintanar, former head of the NPA, on Jan. 23, 2003; and Arturo Tabara, former chief of the RPMP-RPA, on Sept. 26, 2004. All of them were killed for breaking away from the CPP-NPA, Dela Cruz said.

He said Tabara’s wife Veronica and Paduano were expelled by the 22-member Central Committee of the Dela Cruz led RPMP-RPA-ABB due to allegations they allowed themselves to be co-opted by the Arroyo administration and served as private armies for the elite, politicians and landlords.

Some P267 million of the promised P568 million was given by the Arroyo administration to the Tabara-Paduano Group, Deles said.

She said the Aquino administration had earmarked P31 million for the same splinter group for “livelihood and core shelter projects in three peace and development communities.”

A separate “negotiated political settlement” is being worked out with the Dela Cruz group, which has said its members did not benefit from those fund releases.

Bautista confirmed Dela Cruz’s claims about the other faction resorting to becoming “mercenaries and guns for hire,” but added they were forced to do so because “the government was not fast enough in delivering the peace development and livelihood projects.” –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today