Mindanao's Andap Valley sits at the southern end of the Caraga Region, also known as Region 13. Bounded by the peaks of the Diwata Mountains on the Surigao del Sur and Agusan del Sur provincial borders, this remotest corner of Mindanao has long served as the NPA's Center of Gravity on the island, its "heartland" if you will. Under the experienced leadership of Jorge Madlos, now the NDFP Spokesperson for Mindanao, it has remained unaffected by countless operations by the AFP, the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Since the mid-1980s when the so called "Barefoot Priest" Father Frank Navarro walked into the Andap wilderness and raised an M16, the region has been firmly enmeshed in the Governments COIN, or counterinsurgency programme.
Madlos, better known by his nom de guerre Ka Oris (Comrade Oris), is now a senior citizen who literally wears a diaper due to the catheter threaded through his genitals because of a serious kidney disorder. Still, he shows bo sign of weakening and in fact serves as a symbol of NPA perserverence in the face of daunting opposition. The now 43 year old insurgency, often incorrectly labeled "Asia's longest running insurgency," is still seducing scores of the region's young people into going to heel in the area's thick jungles to risk life and limb in defence of an ideology practically none of them even understand. When you have starving, uneducated youth being promised P15,000 ($330) per month, an upper class salary, it is a given that there will be many takers. Virtually all NPA recruits in the NPA's NEMRC, or, Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee- the Regional Command covering virtually all of Andap- are members of Lumad Tribes, Hilltribesmen who sit on the lowest rung of Mindanao's socio-economic ladder.
A basic axiom in COIN doctrine holds that, "Insurgencies begin where good roads end." That line of thinking, mostly true, holds that a lack of economic development- dependent upon infrastructural outlay- is what pushes people into taking up weapons against their government. Indeed, most Lumad have never seen a single Governmental representative OR representation apart from the AFP and/or the PNP, or, Philippine National Police, and then only when they are being maltrated as suspected subversives- or else simply because they are Lumad and therefore viewed as "primitive" or "backwards."
The leadership, the cadres tasked with going into an un-touched settlement and drawing it into the NPA's influence overwhelmingly tend to be young middle to upper middle class intellectuals indoctrinated by multi-sectoral front organisations while at university. This holds true for the entire nation, not only for the NEMRC here on Mindanao. They, unlike the rank and file cannon fodder, operate out of a naïve and misplaced idealism. As another adage tells us, "A man who hasn't become a Socialist by age 20 has no heart. A man who is still a Socialist by age 40 has no brain." Often mis-attributed to England's Winston Churchill, it actually arose with Francois Guizot of France before Socialism even developed. He had used "Republican" where "Socialist" is now used. Yet, that maxim seems to apply to so many people who become enamoured with Leftist ideologies.
Surely anyone with an iota of compassion would be deeply moved seeing the stomach churning poverty pervading so much of Mindanao. Mindanao is the poorest region in an incredibly poor nation, so much so that people here often eat roadkill, IF they eat at all on a given day. With an inattentive and highly corrupt Government many see the NPA as the only ticket out of such hellishness. Unfortunately, the NPA is just as corrupt and just as perverse.
With that happy intro let us see what those idealistic 15,000 Pesos a month cadres and guerillas are up to...
On Tuesday, October 18th, 2011, Ka Mitchie of Front 19A led fifteen of her guerillas in an attack on a post belonging to the 29IB (Infantry Battalion). The post, in the municipality of Marihatag's Barangay Mahaba, in Surigao del Sur Province, defended itself well and managed to repel the onslaught without incurring a single casualty. Typically, the NPA attacks such soft targets in hopes of divesting them of their weaponry. It isn't about territory nor casualty counts for the Maoists, simply about acquiring the tools to create violence. This is why the insurgency has lasted so long but also why it has never progressed. Typically, if an attack hasn't proved successful within the first fifteen minutes the NPA withdraws in small groups going in different directions, separately making their way to a pre-co-ordinated rendevouz point. Ammunition is precious but moreover, anything over fifteen minutes exposes them to Government re-inforcements and exponentially increases their chances of being overrun themselves by counter-attacking soldiers from their original target.
That same day, October 18th, in the SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee area of control, at the far southern end of the Andap Valley, Front 20, the Conrado Heredia Command, once again attacked an AFP column on patrol in the municipality of Trento's Barangay New Visayas. The soldiers, from the 75IB, the perennial target of Front 20, managed to turn the tables and almost over-run the entire NPA force of thirty guerillas. Two guerillas were wounded, and although they were able to escape with the help of their mates, they left their weaponry so that the AFP captured one M16 and one Garand M1. In the process however one soldier was also wounded critically.
The capturing of weaponry from the NPA is very important. The NPA has always had more guerillas than rifles. An un-armed NPA guerilla isn't reaking havoc up and down the countryside. Apart from three boatloads of AK47s from China in the early 1970s- two of which were interdicted- the NPA has never had a foreign weapons conduit. Relying on piecemeal captures from soft targets it slowly accumulates long arms but as we see here, they also lose them. Therefore this ebb and flow keeps the NPA from expanding in any substantiative way and moreover, relegates all of Eastern Mindanao into a killing field.
As for the AFP capturing NPA weaponry...In the past the AFP put such a premium on weaponry that each captured assault rifle earned a promotion in rank. That quickly ended though when overly-ambitious soldiers and Junior Officers began murdering non-combatants believed to own such weapons.
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