As I have often noted, the NPA's Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, long ago entered into a marriage of convnience with local warlord Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. The son of a fomer governor of what was then the unified province of Davao, the father of current Davao City Mayor Sarah "Inday" Duterte Carpio, a city he himself currently serves as its Vice Mayor. While working as a City Prosecutor there in the mid-1980s, Duterte naturally ran across a good many members of the NPA, and its political wing, the CPP, or Communist Party of the Philippines.
When Roddy decided to run for Mayor at the tail end of that same decade, he utilized one particular relationship with a high ranking member of the NPA in Davao City, Leonicio Pitao, better known by his nom de guerre, "Ka Parago.".The majority of the city's poorest areas had become battlegrounds between the NPA, its urban assaaination element, the SPARU (Special Armed Red Partisan Units), the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and its ultra-right wing extremist organizations, like Alsa Masa (Masses Arise). In exchange for relegating all NPA activities to three outlying districts of Davao City, Roddy would offer overt assistance in the form of cash, material, and intelligence. That quid pro quo remains in effect today.
Unlike her father, current Mayor Sarah "Inday" Durerte Carpio, has failed to maintain that same mutually beneficial relationship with the NPA. Things began well enough when Mayor Duterte Carpio entered office in June of 2010. Despite serving as a senior officer in the AFP Reserves, Carpio played hardball with the 69IB (Infantry Battalion), threatening to withdraw Davao City's share of financial support for the 69's COIN (Counterinsurgency) program in the city's outlying Paquibato District, one of the three aforementioned districts that her father, current Vice Mayor Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte had surrendered-for all intensive purposes-to the NPA. Mayor Duterte Carpio was livid over the 69's kinetic operations which, in her absolutely ignorant opinion, were utilized far too freely. In the waning days of OPlan Bantay Laya II, the irate Mayor decided to take a stand...so what if she single handedly reversed six years of AFP gains made in Paquibato, and by relation-since that district is the lynchpin in the NPA occupation of the three contigious districts-all of Davao City.
For Christmas of 2010 Mayor Duterte Carpio accompanied her father, the Vice Mayor, to Ka Parago's (then) main camp, on a forest covered ridge above Paquibato District. As is always the case, Duterte came without his security detachment. That festive occasion would mark the high point in Mayor Duterte's relationship with the NPA. From
there it was a steady decline although Carpio did get some face time with Parago two months later when she once again accompanied her father in another visit to Paquibato. In this latter meeting Duterte stayed outside a villager's hut where Parago, his Political Secretary Ka Benjamin, and Mayor Carpio hashed out each other's wish lists.
February 6th, 2011 an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) set by the NPA's 1st Pulang Bagani Company detonated in an ambush of a supply convoy serving posts manned by the 69IB (Infantry Battalion). Mayor Carpio had been scheduled
to appear at an outreach program later in the day. Pitao took the extraordinary step of personally issuing a statement on the ambush. He pointed out that the detonation occurred in Purok #5, in Paquibato's Barangay Mapula. In conyrast, Mayor Carpio's planned route was many kilometers from the blast site.
The issue that has best defined Mayor Carpio's interaction with the NPA has neen the outcry ovet the 69IB garrisoning a detachment on the grounds of the Paradise Embac Annex Primary School, in Paquibato District's Barangay Paradise Embac. Three City Councilors, Kaloy Bello, Leah Librado Yap and Jimmy Dureza have championed the demand made by residents of the NPA-controlled barangay, asking that the 69IB remove the post from school grounds. At the tail end of the Summer of 2011, the issue came to a head as the NPA mass front organization, Karapatan-which bills itself as a human rights NGO-galvanized a wider ranging response to a clear breech of International Law, courtesy of the AFP. Given her history of speaking out against over-militirization in that very district, Mayor Carpio might have been expected to at least try and assuage the very real concerns of school staff, students, and the families of those students. Instead, in her ever increasingly haughty tone, Mayor Carpio not only sided with the AFP, she arrogantly dismissed the concerns expressed by the aforementioned stakeholders.
At that point the NPA did its part in burning whatever proverbial bridges remained. Taking part in a co-ordinated stance that began in September of 2011, when the NDFP member orgabization SELDA (Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Labann sa Detensyon at Aresto/Task Force on Ex- Political Prisoners) attacked Carpio in the local media over an interview she had given in which she had had the audacity-and ignorance-to claim that all Political Prisoners are detained for actual crimes. Then, in an official statement released by the NPA's Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, accused Mayor Carpio of letting power go to her head (and that was the nicest thing it said). The statement, released in December of 2011, was an iota away from a death warrant, branding Carpio as having "bordered on being a counterrevolutionary or reactionary." In fact, it segued into a vicious tirade against Carpio with a laundry list of critical grievances. It was interesting in other ways because it noted how her father, Vice Mayor Duterte, had "in some ways recognized and cooperated in the revolutionary struggle," an "admission" that seemed even more pronounced once Duterte was officialy named an "Observer," and later a "Consultant" for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, or NDFP, the negotiating arm of the CPP/NPA/NDFP Maoist triumverate.
So it was that the customary Christmas slash New Years Truce of the NPA failed to usher in anything new. An uneasy air hanging over Paquibato District left many stakeholders nervously awaiting an armed response by Ka Parago. On January 12th, 2012, the tension broke when Parago's 1st Pulang Bagani Company launched two simeltaneous attacks on a pair of CAA posts. The CAA, or Civilian Active Auxiliaries, are a geographically static armed reserve of the AFP. The CAA element most visible to civilians are the CAFGU, or Civilian Auxiliary Forces Geographical Units. CAFGU posts are manned by residents of the barangay housing that specific post. CAFGU posts are then limited in only being able to operate within the boundries of their specific municipality.
In Paquibato District there is a different type of CAA. Usually listed as CAFGU posts. They are actuallt tribal and clan paramilitaries grandfathered in under the now defunct ISP (Internal Security Plan), "Oplan Alsa Lumad" (Operational Plan Hilltribes Arise). Like CAFGUs they are under the nominal command of am AFP cadre, usually a Corporal. Whereas CAFGU opetate in tandem with an AFP cadre battalion, the tribal paramilitaries often operate independently and as one might imagine, this does at times lead to unhealthy excesses.
On the day in question, at 3AM, two CAA posts in adjoining puroks (a barangay can be sub-divided into five puroks), within Paquibato District's Barangay Malabog, were attacked by two NPA elements. The posts, in Puroks Cababon and Golden Shower (no jokes please, it is an actual purok though for the life of me, I have no idea why it was bequathed that name), were both able to repel the Maoists but with two CAAs being wounded in the process.
CAA Loreto Lireta of Purok Golden Shower, was wounded in his left hand and left side of his chest by shrapnel from a rifle grenade. CAA Anthony Camansi of Purok Cabonbon, was wounded in his right hand.
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