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Recent Appearances...

Southeast Asia

Philippine communists confirm deaths of 2 senior leaders in August 2022

2023-04-23

From time to time we check in on the Communists in that part of the world.

[BenarNews] The outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines on Thursday confirmed the deaths of two of its big shots months ago, alleging that the military staged their deaths to make it appear they were killed in a clash at sea.

National Security Adviser Eduardo Año, meanwhile, called the CPP allegation "lies."

CPP front man Marco Valbuena said the group’s chairman, Benito Tiamzon, 71, and his wife, Secretary General Wilma Tiamzon, 70, were among 10 members killed in an August 2022 incident.

Valbuena said the Tiamzons and their companions were in two vans when they were caught by the military along a national highway in Catbalogan City on Aug. 21, 2022.

"They were flagged down between 12 noon and 1 in the afternoon, after which all communications with the group were lost. They were unarmed," Valbuena said.

"According to the information gathered by the Central Committee, the Tiamzons suffered severe beating in the hands of their captors. Internal reports cited witnesses who saw how the faces and bodies of the victims were smashed, apparently beaten with hard objects," he said.

Earlier, then-8th Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Edgardo De Leon said authorities believed the 10 died after their boat went kaboom! during a firefight off Catbalogan city early Aug. 22, 2022, adding the Tiamzons were among those onboard.

Valbuena said CPP investigation disputed the military story on the circumstances leading to the death of the couple and their companions.

"In truth, the already lifeless bodies of the Tiamzons and their group were dumped on a motorboat filled with explosives, and tugged from Catbalogan midway toward Taranganan island before it exploded," Valbuena said.

The national security adviser said the CPP’s allegation deserved "scant comment."

"[T]here is no truth whatsoever in this clearly fabricated story and we stand by the official reports from the AFP," Año said in a statement, using an acronym for the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

He noted that the CPP could now be considered "headless with no clear leadership," and it "had been forced to admit what many of us have suspected many, many months ago."

"They have lost both their guiding light in the person of Joma and their commander in the Tiamzons and are now groping in the dark with no direction nor future in sight," he said.

Año was referring to Jose Maria Sison, the rebels’ ideological founder who died in December.

Sison founded the communist front in 1969, making it one of the longest-running insurgencies in the world. The fighting has killed thousands of Filipinos and efforts at peace talks have failed repeatedly. Government successes on the field, particularly in the last five years, has led to their numbers falling to about 2,100 fighters from a high of about 20,000 in the 1980s.

The news of the Timazons’ death came the same week the government announced the capture in Malaysia and deportation to the Philippines of Eric Jun Casilao, another high-ranking rebel leader.

Año noted that Casilao is a Central Committee member of CPP-NPA-NDF and was "a notorious NPA leader who orchestrated numerous terrorist activities." NDF is an acronym for the National Democratic Front, the party’s political wing.

"The death of the Tiamzons and the arrest of Casilao show that gunnies cannot find a safe haven anywhere in the world, be it in the mountains or in other countries," Año said.

"The government is determined to capture terrorist leaders wherever they may be."

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Southeast Asia

Eight communist guerrilla leaders surrender to Philippine authorities

2023-01-16

[BenarNews] Philippine authorities on Friday said that eight senior communist guerrilla leaders had surrendered recently to the military’s eastern Mindanao Command, weeks after the death of rebellion founder Jose Maria Sison.

Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. did not say when the "ranking leaders" of the New People’s Army (NPA) surrendered, only that they gave up because life in the guerrilla camps in the hinterlands had become difficult. The NPA is the guerrilla wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

"They are commanding officers [of the NPA] and they have a long involvement with the movement," Abalos told news hounds. "What drove them to surrender is that they have seen an opening, a chance to trust the government. To the others, give up because the government is here to help."

Authorities identified the rebel leaders as Noel Sinanday, Nickboy Sinanday, Rady Kinoyog, Jilmar Dahinlay, Jertolui Hilario, Roselyn Omandam, Maricel Colawing and Jenelyn Palta. They were said to be operating in the mountains of Bukidnon in Mindanao.

As a goodwill gesture, the eight led the military to three arms caches hidden in villages in the town of Talakag, a rebel stronghold, authorities said.

In addition, more than a dozen NPA rebels surrendered in Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Zamboanga del Sur provinces, according to the state-run Philippine News Agency.

The NPA has been waging one of the world’s longest-running Maoist rebellions since 1969. It peaked in the 1980s, when the number of armed rebels was believed to be about 20,000. Today, slightly more than 2,000 are scattered across the Philippines, according to authorities.

The surrenders came weeks after CPP founder Sison, 83, died on Dec. 16 from natural causes in the Netherlands, where he went into self-exile.

"The loss of their highest leader has critically affected the morale of the [rebels]. Without Sison’s direction and leadership, the CPP-NPA will suffer," said Eastern Mindanao Command chief Lt. Gen. Greg Almerol said.

"That is why their remnants are yielding, even as 2023 has just started, because they know the disaster [that they are facing]. With this situation, we expect more of their comrades to surface and lay down their arms."

Link

Southeast Asia

Philippine Police Arrest Journalist Accused by Military of Communist Links

2020-12-17

10 December
[BenarNews] Philippine police on Thursday arrested a news hound working for an independent media outlet, which the military accused of being a front for communist murderous Moslems, a journalists’ union said.

Police early in the day picked up Lady Ann Salem, an editor with the online publication Manila Today, from her home in Mandaluyong city, in Metropolitan Manila, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said.

Salem was one of seven people taken into custody when officers allegedly found weapons and explosives in their homes after serving them with search warrants, the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group confirmed in a statement.

"Journalist and Manila Today editor Lady Ann Salem was among those arrested in a wave of arrests conducted by the Philippine National Police this morning. The police has yet to release details of the charges against the journalist," the union said in a Facebook post.

Salem is also a communications officer for the Philippine chapter of the International Association of Women in Radio and Television, a London-based organization.

RED TAGGED
During a senate hearing last week, Manila Today was "red tagged" by the military’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.

As part of red tagging, the Philippine military and police label groups or individuals as being supporters of communist rebels, or as faceless myrmidons themselves involved with alleged legal fronts for the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.

Police alleged that when they searched Salem’s house, they found four .45-caliber pistols, four grenades, laptops, hard drives, mobile phones and "assorted" identification documents. The police didn’t give more details.

Salem is the second red-tagged journalist to be arrested and placed in durance vile
You have the right to remain silent...
for alleged possession of firearms and explosives, a crime for which judges usually deny bail.

Frenchiemae Cumpio, 21, of Eastern Vista community papers in Leyte province, has behind bars on the same charge since February.

Colleagues said Cumpio, who denied the allegations.
No, no! Certainly not!
might have been arrested because of her reports that focused on alleged corruption and abuses by the military.

A third journalist, Anne Kreuger, with the Paghimutad publication on Negros Island, was arrested late last year for alleged firearms possession, but is out on bail.

Last month, National Police Chief Gen. Camilo Cascolan said counter-narcotics operations had led to the arrest of "357,069 suspects, 7,987 deaths and the surrender of 1,290,768" since mid-2016.

Spokespersons for Duterte were not immediately available on Thursday to comment on activists’ allegations.

Link

Southeast Asia

‘NPAs’ torch PHP3-M heavy equipment in NegOr town

2019-02-28

[MindanaoExaminer] A GROUP of 50 unidentified gunnies and two women believed to be members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) burned down some PHP3 million worth of heavy equipment at the Longa Hermosa Hacienda in Barangay Sta. Monica, Manjuyod town in Negros Oriental on Monday night.

The suspects set fire to five tractors and a Trio weapon carrier around 7:35 p.m., according to the police.

Authorities said they received a call from Martin Longa, 54, married, barangay captain of Sta. Monica and also hacienda supervisor, who reported that gunnies were in the vicinity of his house.

A witness, Rey Acibo Baldado, 45, married, also a resident of the barangay, claimed that while he was on duty inside the compound of the hacienda, the suspects suddenly entered and pointed a long firearm at him.

They introduced themselves in the Cebuano dialect as NPA members and asked for the barangay captain, the police report said.

The suspects then proceeded to Longa’s house, pointed a gun at him, and in the dialect also asked him for his firearm and "ngano wala mo nihatag ug kwarta" (why did you not give us money)?

Longa later told the police that he had previously received phone calls from unknown persons who threatened him for not paying revolutionary tax to the NPA.

He added that in the past nine years, he has received two extortion letters, one of which demanded PHP500,000.

He said he turned over the latest letter to the hacienda’s board manager, Ignacio Longa Vicente, 89, married, and a resident of Barangay Lapas, Bais City in Negros Oriental.

He further told the police that the suspects took his two cellular phones, two hand-held radios, and a Wi-Fi modem.

The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union

...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
.

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Southeast Asia

Communist peace consultant, two comrades nabbed

2018-11-13

[Manila Times] A National Democratic Front (NDF) peace consultant was arrested in a house in Novaliches, Quezon City on Thursday morning. The NDF is an umbrella group that counts the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army, the CPP’s armed wing, as members, among other groups.

Police spokesman Guillermo Eleazar said Vicente Ladlad, Antonio de Jesus and “Anna” were arrested by members of the police and the military in a raid on a house of a friend of Ladlad at around midnight in Barangay San Bartolome.

Eleazar said Ladlad was positively identified by former militants now working with the government.

Ladlad’s wife Fides went to the NCRPO headquarters to see her husband after the arrest. She told reporters that the firearms found in the house where her husband was arrested were planted by the raiders.

“Everything is fake. This is what they are doing for all of us to come out… I want all of those guns fingerprinted because if those really belong to Vic (Ladlad’s nickname), his fingerprints should be there,” Fides said in English and Filipino.

In response, Philippine National Police chief Oscar Albayalde said they will subject the firearms to ballistic and fingerprint tests. Eleazar said it is normal for leftists to claim that firearms are planted.

Quezon City Police District Director and Chief Supt. Joselito Esquivel said they will verify if the firearms were licensed, but based on the search warrants none of the suspects has the right to own the guns.

Human rights group Karapatan called for the release of Ladlad and his companions, saying their arrest was a violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees that protects peace consultants from arrest and detention. Before Ladlad, several peace consultants were arrested after Duterte terminated peace talks with the NDF, including Rafael Baylosis, Adelberto Silva and Ferdinand Castillo.

Malacañang also on Thursday said there was nothing illegal in the arrest of Ladlad. In a news conference, Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees was no longer operative because the President had scrapped the peace talks with the communists.

Albayalde, who celebrated his 55th birthday on Thursday, denied that the arrest is a “birthday gift” to him.

Link

Southeast Asia

Philippine officials demand courts to declare communist party as terrorist organisation

2018-02-23

[DAWN] Justice officials asked a court on Wednesday to formally designate the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army, as terrorist groups in a move that could further damage chances of a resumption of stalled peace talks.

In a petition before a Manila regional court, the Department of Justice cited deadly attacks and violence committed by the Death Eaters, including bloody internal purges of suspected military spies, in seeking the proscription of the groups behind one of Asia's longest-raging communist insurgency.

President Rodrigo Duterte resumed peace talks with the guerrillas after he rose to power in 2016. He granted concessions by appointing three left-wing activists to his Cabinet, but the cordial relations rapidly deteriorated when he protested continuing rebel assaults on troops and coppers.

Last year, he cancelled Norwegian-brokered talks with the guerrillas and signed an order declaring the rebel groups as terrorist organizations in a prelude to his government's formal move on Wednesday.

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Southeast Asia

Commies kidnap deputy police chief in Cotabato

2017-12-31

[PhilStar] Communist militants seized the deputy police chief of President Roxas town in North Cotabato late Thursday. Menardo Cui was off-duty and drinking with friends in the town proper when the insurgents arrived, herded him at gunpoint to their vehicle, and left.

The military and the provincial police have launched a search for the group that kidnapped Cui. There is a strong presence of the New People’s Army in North Cotabato's neighboring Magpet, President Roxas and Arakan towns.

Provincial police spokesman Bernard Tayong on Friday said intelligence agents are trying to identify the militants that seized Cui. Officials of the army’s 39th Infantry Brigade are certain Cui’s abductors are NPA guerrillas.

Regional military spokesman Capt. Silver Belvis said they have enlisted the help of traditional community elders in Magpet, President Roxas and Arakan in their search for Cui and his captors.

The NPA reportedly has a list of people targeted for assassination. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), during its 49th anniversary last Tuesday, provided the NPA with the targets. The CPP said the NPA should concentrate its attacks in eastern Mindanao and then in Luzon and the Visayas regions.

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Southeast Asia

Maoist militants ready to face 'full-scale war' in Mindanao

2017-12-27

[Inquirer] Communist militants in southern Mindanao said they were ready to face “the full-scale war” that the Duterte administration would be unleashing on them next year.

In a statement issued for the founding anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines on Tuesday, Ka Joaquin Jacinto, the National Democratic Front spokesperson in the region, also said the New People’s Army would continue to exist to oppose the government’s abuses. He said, "Despite the use of airstrikes, armed drones and prolonged focus operations, not one single NPA unit in Mindanao was wiped out. The number of platoons and companies has in fact increased this year."

Jacinto said NPA rebels were “ever willing to sacrifice their lives for the revolution and the people than be servile to the fascist dictatorship of the US-Duterte regime.”

“In spite of the constant black propaganda, bogus peace caravans and the incessant parade of fake or recycled surrenderees, NPA Red commanders and fighters never faltered,” he added.

He said 2017 was a triumphant year for the NPA in southern Mindanao, where it launched more than 300 attacks. He said, "There were a few well-chosen and well-executed head blows as wells as numerous attritive actions against operating enemy troops, military camps and police outposts, making them suffer a casualty rate of more than a battalion."

“The NPA must be determined to bring the people’s war to new heights,” he added.

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Southeast Asia

Martial law in Mindanao targets NPA too

2017-12-12

[Inquirer] The Philippine government will use the full force of martial law to counter possible intensified attacks from the New People’s Army in Mindanao, after the cancellation of peace talks with the communist militants. Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said, "For as long as there are acts of rebellion being committed in the island province of Mindanao, yes he will use the full force of martial law against the New People’s Army as well."

Roque said the communist insurgency “is a continuing crime, so for as long as they don’t lay down their [arms], they are committing a criminal act.”

In his letter to Congress, President Rodrigo Duterte included the attacks of the NPA in justifying his intent for to extend martial law in Mindanao for one year.

Duterte said that while the government was busy addressing the threats posed by other terrorist organizations, the NPA “took advantage of the situation and intensified their decades-long rebellion against the government and stepped up terrorist acts against innocent civilians and private entities.”

Asked why Duterte did not expand the coverage of martial law in view of the fact that NPA rebels are active in other parts of the country, Roque said, “He could have but he did not.”

Duterte had earlier signed a proclamation labeling the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA as a terrorist group after the cancellation of peace talks.

“The martial law administrator is empowered to order the arrest of individuals and because the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus they would have to wait for the lifting of martial law for judicial remedy,” he said.

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Southeast Asia

Philippine president declares Maoist rebel NPA a terrorist group

2017-12-06

[ARABNEWS] The Philippine military can now address the communist threat in the country without hesitation after President Rodrigo R. Duterte designated the Maoist New People's Army (NPA) a terror organization.

"This will certainly ensure that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) can now fully execute and perform its mandate without reservation and restrictions," Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, the AFP front man, said.

On Tuesday, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque announced that Duterte had signed a proclamation "declaring the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) as a designated identified terrorist organization under Republic Act 10168 (RA 10168), otherwise known as "The Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012."

Duterte's official residence Malacañang, however, notes that declaring the CPP-NPA a designated/identified terrorist organization is nothing new. On Aug. 2, 2002, the US designated the CPP-NPA as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) and to date continues to include the local communist movement in its list of FTOs.

In his proclamation, the president directed the Department of Foreign Affairs to publish the designation of the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization.

The Department of Justice was likewise ordered to immediately file the necessary application for the proscription or declaration of the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization with the appropriate regional trial court.

After the Palace announcement, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana welcomed Duterte's proclamation.

"We have long since maintained that the CPP-NPA is a blight to the Filipino people, with its members engaging in constant criminal activities and wanton acts of terror," he said, adding that the government has walked the extra mile to accommodate them by resuming the talks. The communists, however, have imposed unreasonable conditions and continued their criminal acts.

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Southeast Asia

15 Maoist militants killed in Batangas battle

2017-11-30

[Inquirer] Fifteen New People Army rebels, including a female student of the University of the Philippines Manila and four other women, were killed in a battle with government troops in Batangas province on Tuesday night. The gun battle came days after President Rodrigo Duterte called off peace talks with the Maoist militants.

Philippine officials said the dead rebels comprised the western Batangas command of the NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The clash capped a series of skirmishes since last week between the militants and the Philippine Air Force, which conducts counterinsurgency operations in Batangas province.

Maj. Engelberto Nioda Jr., commander of the PAF 730th Combat Group, said authorities were tipped off to the presence of vehicles in Nasugbu, 65 kilometers south of Manila.

Joint police and military checkpoints were set up on the routes to Calatagan and Balayan towns after they received information about vehicles “full of armed rebels”.

Provincial police director Alden Delvo said the intel they received was that a three-vehicle convoy would carry the militants. But the authorities encountered two in the adjacent villages of Aga and Kaylaway, along the dimly lit part of the Tagaytay-Nasugbu highway. Delvo said, "The jeep did not stop [for inspection] and [the passengers] opened fire at our troops."

The firefight prompted a 2-kilometer chase. In a phone interview, Major Engelberto Nioda said, "It seemed like a convoy. First a Montero [carrying PAF troops], then the enemy’s van, then three more [government] vehicles, the jeep, then us."

Five people from the jeep and nine from the van were killed.

The authorities said the slain rebels were the ones involved in a series of clashes in the villages of Utod and Bunducan, also in Nasugbu, after soldiers overran an NPA camp.

On November 24, Duterte told soldiers to expect “virulent” battles with the NPA after he scuttled peace talks with the communist insurgents. He accused the NPA of carrying out attacks despite his peace efforts.

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Southeast Asia

End of peace talks offers Duterte new beginning in Communist areas

2017-11-26

[ARABNEWS] "It’s about time." That was international security analyst Stephen Cutler’s "first reaction" to Thursday’s news that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had formally terminated peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and communist rebels the National Democratic Front-Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (NDF-CPP-NPA).

Cutler, who was formerly the legal attaché of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Manila, told Arab News, "In my view, this is a long overdue action by the Philippine government."

Peace talks with the Death Eaters ‐ who have been waging war against the GRP for nearly half a century ‐ have been going on, albeit intermittently, for more than two decades.

Since they began, in 1986 during President Corazon Aquino’s regime, more than 40 rounds of talks have been conducted between the GRP and the NDF-CPP-NPA, according to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.

But, as Cutler pointed out, the rebels do not recognize the legitimacy of the GRP, and have for years displayed a lack of sincerity in dealing with the government. In fact, Cutler suggested, their recent activities have shown that they are more interested in full political power in the Philippines.

"That’s why there’s no way to negotiate with them," he explained. "So why even go through the charade ‐ except to have the government pay for free trips wherever they hold the negotiations? The communists are not sincere. There’s no way that they’re going to agree to anything that the government says."

He added that Duterte’s Proclamation No. 360 (announcing the cessation of the peace talks) is "a statement of reality."

Cutler warned, though, that it would be no surprise if the NPA ‐ the armed wing of the CPP ‐ were to step up its attacks on government troops, police, and civilians in retaliation.

All units of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are already on high alert for such eventualities, according to AFP spokesperson Maj. Gen. Restituto Padilla.

However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
even if such attacks take place, Cutler said they would only validate the president’s decision. "So they run the risk of either reinforcing what (the president) has done, or having to accept it."

And with peace talks officially terminated, Cutler said, Duterte is no longer constrained by the need to ensure the rebels would still participate in the grinding of the peace processor, meaning the GRP can now pursue the rebels more aggressively.

So now, he said, the government can really go after the rebels, take them to court, and arrest them, especially if they kill people and commit other criminal offenses.

"It’s not for political advantage. It’s for criminal offense," Cutler said.

The security analyst adds, though, that fighting the rebels ‐ whether physically or in court ‐ cannot be the sole focus of the government’s response.

"I think what the government needs to do is (launch) a social-reform program where they are providing good schools, credible elections, and credible government services in areas that are heavily (influenced) by the NPA," Cutler said. "By doing that, you are destroying the NPA’s argument, which is essentially that the government is illegitimate and can’t do what the state ought to be doing," he continued.

"Drugs and corruption," Cutler suggested, are two of the key things "that allow the NPA to move forward." So Duterte "is going to have to start doing some work with anti-corruption."

Ultimately, Cutler sees the official termination of the talks as a great opportunity for the president.

"This is across the board offering, or allowing, (Duterte) to change the way he governs in the NPA areas," he said.

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