In my entry, "NPA Armed Contacts for the Second Quarter of 2011, Part VI," I discussed the sad predicament of a band of Mamanwa Tribesmen that had somehow made their way to Surigao City, in Surigao del Norte Province in June of 2011, where they had ended up living under a set of huge blue plastic tarps that had been rendered into a gigantic tent in that city's Barangay Luna. The Mamanwa are Negritos and as such constitute the poorest of the poor on Mindanao. This particular band, under the leadership of Datu Rolando "Lando" Anlagan, also known as "Datu Mahuribok," had encamped on a private lot in Sitio Bacud that had been generously donated by Provincial Councilor Leonilo Aldonza.
Likewise, I covered the tribe's happy return to their homes in the adjacent province of Agusan del Norte, on June 26th. Happy to return to their modest thatched homes where they eeked out a hardscrabble existence in the municipality of Kitcharao. Their small settlement in the Zapanta Valley's Sitio Mahaba, in the upland barangay of Bangayan was shared with Manobo Tribesmen and a tiny minority of Bisaya, Cebuano-speakers, most of whom had inter-married into both tribes. Though the Manobo and Mamanwa tended separate communal plots the community was bereft of any ethnic communal strife with the biggest worry being wild boars who would uproot their crops of dry rice, corn, and ginger...that is until the Armed Forces of the Philippines classified their valley as an NPA Sentro de Grabidad, or Centre of Gravity.
As I have explained in other posts, the phrase "Centre of Gravity" is a generic term that denotes an oppositional force's strongest sector, the geographical in which the opposition, in this case the NPA, holds the strongest amount of influence and finds most of its support. In another recent NPA entry, "NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter, Part XI," I discuss the NPA's methodology of first conquering a small area at a provincial border nexus, and how it uses that border convergence to outwit both the PNP and AFP (Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines) by simply basing themselves on one side of a border and attacking across the provincial line. So it is for this far end of the NPA's Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee, or NEMRC.
As true as that is, the Zapanta Valley is far from a Centre of Gravity. It is only within the last six months that the single NPA Front operating on both sides of the Agusan del Norte and Surigao del Norte provincial borders, Front 19A, has re-emerged after nearly a year long hiatus during which the AFP's 4ID (Infantry Division) declared the entire province of Surigao del Norte to be "pacified." Indeed, even as the former Division Commander, Major General Mario Chang, was making that asinine claim, his 30IB (Infantry Battalion) was using the Zapanta Valley as its personal punching bag.
The "Pacification" was declared in the Spring of 2010. In June of that same year the 30IB launched a massive push on that provincial border, aimed at curtailing Front activities in and around the municipality of Kitcharao.
Then, in 2011, the 30IB did this again in May, as noted in that aforementioned Second Quarter entry, and then once again at the end of August, and now once again beginning on November 6th. On the day in question, at 10AM, villagers were startled as 105MM Howitzer shells began pockmarking the ground around their tiny settlement. By the end of the second Howitzer salvo a pair of MG520 helicopter gunships were showering the valley's heavily wooded slopes with 70MM rockets, seven per salvo. The 2.75 inch shells ripped apart everything they touched and while they failed to connect with a single NPA guerilla, they did manage to ruin the Abaca (Manila Hemp) crops of several Manobo families in the village.
As the copters began emptying their 250 round 50 caliber guns the villagers once again packed their most important possessions and began running for their lives. As distraught tribesmen jogged down the rutted dirt trail that serves as the only conduit into and out of the Zapanta Valley, they passed 6 x 6 trucks full of Scout Rangers from the 5th and 6th Companies who were spearheading the ground portion of the operation. This time the 30IB was relegated to flag waving at checkpoints established in the more populated environs of that same barangay, Bangayan, and another in the adjacent barangay of Mara-iging, as if the NPA would now drive out of the Zapanta Valley on the region's single road.
In any event, the PNP also took part in this shindig with the two Public Safety Companies* from PRO-13, or Police Regional Office for Region #13, establishing secondary blocking forces and checkpoints in Barangays Haliobong and Kanaway, which were closer to the town proper on National Hiway, as well as in the municipality of Tubay, an alternative route for anyone lucky enough to have made their way out onto the hiway (*Public Safety Companies, or PSCs, are simply the modernised Philippine Constabulary. When the Constabulary, or PC was de-mobilised, many PC companies were converted into PMGs, or Police Mobile Groups. At the end of 2009 the PNP Director General re-named them "Public Safety Companies" to negate a lot of the baggage associated with their history as counterinsurgency tools).
Back in Zapanta Valley the 6 x 6 trucks disgorged their passengers. The 6th Company, under Lieutenants Marco and Sara-sara was tasked with clearing Sitio Mahaba . At 1115AM they walked into an NPA ambush in which three soldiers were critically wounded:
1) Private First Class (Pfc.) Josel P.Sedrome
2) Pfc.Henry M.Simba
3) Corporal Mabel Sacay
After the NPA broke contact and withdrew the 6th Company set up a security perimeter as they awaited the lone Huey (UH-H1 helicopter) to Medivac the three wounded men to Camp Bancasi, the 4ID annex camp in Butuan City.
The 5th Company meanwhile, under Captain Cimini, began clearing the Mamanwa portion of the valley, Sitio Maribuhok, and were ambushed by a second NPA detachment. The Company Commander, Captain Mark Steve T.Cimini was wounded straight away while one of his men, Pfc.Ninoto C.Gulani was killed. At just before 1130AM both MG520s broke off and headed back to Camp Bancasi for refueling, only to return with the HUEY at just before 1PM. Captain Cimini and the body of Pfc.Gulani were evacuated back to Butuan as both companies of Scout Rangers continued clearing the valley without resistance.
As of today, November 17th, 2011, the push is still taking place. The AFP has killed ZERO, wounded ZERO, and captured ZERO guerillas, ZERO camps, and has otherwise failed to make one iota of progress. The only thing this third major operation in six months has managed to do is create a recruitment pool FOR the NPA. Amazingly, indeed, stupefyingly, the 30IB admits to "Hamletting" the valley. For those unfamiliar with the term, it involves a tight military cordon around a designated settlement. Nothing moves in or out of the cordon without explicit authorisation of the military hierarchy in that particular sector.
When I was in school we were taught that the British perfected the method during the Malayan Emergency of the late 1950s and early 1960s when dealing with the primarily ethnic Chinese Maoist insurgency. In reality the methodology is as old as warfare. In fact, in that very same sector the Americans were Hamletting villages both during the "Insurrecto Insurgency" as well as the so called "Colorum Insurgency," both of which caused heavy fighting in those first years of the 20th Century. The AFP's current protocol revolves around heavy-handed census taking under the guise of its PDT, or Peace and Development Teams. In the case of Hamletted settlements the census includes all food and possessions. Every kilogram of rice must be accounted for. Villagers can only work their fields at certain times of day and there is a 10PM to 6AM curfew. The AFP uses this protocol often enough but to my knowledge has never publicly admitted it until now.
Showing posts with label NEMRC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NEMRC. Show all posts
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part XI: Mayor Henry Dano of Lingig in the Grips of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder After October Release
Lingig is a small, non-descript town on the eastern shores of Mindanao. Through an accident of geography the municipality sits at the nexus of three provincial borders: Davao Oriental, Agusan del Sur, and its own, Surigao del Sur. Sadly for the small town, such intersecting borders are textbook NPA targets. Both from an organisational AND an operational perspective such areas are almost irresistable to the Maoists. Organisationally, a detachment first encamps on or near such a nexus and in turn is then able to more rapidly expand, or at the very least offer the impression that it is doing so which is strategically valuable in and of its own right. Operationally, PNP, or Philippine National Police, are hemmed in by provincial lines in most cases. Certainly this is true at the municipal and provincial level and in the case of Lingig, where it also sits on a regional border, Caraga (Region 13) and Davao (Region 11), this also applies to PNP regional entities.
Likewise this usually holds true with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or AFP. Caraga and Davao Regions each fall under different IDs, or Infantry Divisions. Caraga is operationally the provenance of the 4ID, while Davao, since 2008, is under the jurisdictional control of the 10ID. Not only do IDs not share intelligence, they don't share assets and/or manpower as well. The jist of this extremely important dynamic is that an NPA Front encamped in Davao Oriental can launch an attack 5 kilometers away from its encampment, across the border in Surigao del Sur Province, withdraw back into Davao Oriental and pretty much rest assured that the AFP and PNP will spend the next three or four days arguing over operational control and jurisdiction. The PNP doesn't even enter the equation because in terms of the insurgency, it takes a seat far in the rear, a far cry from its predecessor, the PC, or Philippine Constabulary whose bread and butter WAS insurgency.
So, Lingig is destined to be an NPA punching bag for the duration of what is now a 43 year old insurgency, or in its particular case, a 37 year insurgency since the NPA first arrived there in 1975. The August 6th, 2011 attack on Mayor Henry Dano's residential compound wasn't suprising in the least above and beyond the gross incompetence of his two security escorts, Corporal Alrey de Samparado and Private First Class Allan Saban. Both men are intelligence assets attached to the AFP's 75IB, the battalion with operational control over Lingig and its environs. Therefore the two should have been absolutely on top of their game. Instead, on the evening in question, Saban approached the compound's chainlink front gate to ascertain the nature of an unknown visitor presenting himself and asking to see Mayor Dano.
The man, dressed in a Tagalog Barong, the quinessential Filipino shirt popularised by the late Dictator Ferdinand Marcos and now the preferred attire of high ranking PNP and allied personnel. Indeed, the man at the gate informed Saban that he was a team leader with the NBI, or National Bureau of Investigation, the nation's top law enforcement entity sublimated not to the PNP but to the Department of Justice, or DOJ.
Standard Operating Procedure for law enforcement personnel dictates that the lead officer, upon entering a municipality in a new case or operation, first presents himself at the home of that municipality's mayor. A courtesy call if you will, that is extremely problematic on Mindanao given local officials' involvement in all matter of criminality if not actively involved in the insurgency/ies within their domain. Still, this practice is considered de riguer and so Private First Class Saban thought nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.
Of course the NPA has time and again used such ploys to infiltrate important buildings and compounds so that at the very least, since Corporal de Samparado outranked him, Saban should have first checked with his immediate superior, or better yet, informed Mayor Dano of the "visitor" and let him make a very simple phone call to verify the visitor's purported identity and/or role. No, instead Saban cheerfully greeted the visitor at the gate as he unlocked and opened it. Of course the "NBI Agent" was an NPA guerilla, albeit much better dressed than the usual dull green t-shirt and knee-high rubber boots that constitute the NPA "uniform" would allow.
Saban, Corporal de Samparado, and Mayor Dano himself were taken by the guerillas, from the NPA's Front 20, the Conrado Heredia Command of the Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee, or NEMRC, then spirited the three into oblivion. Because of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process and its impasse over the JASIG conundrum*, the captivity lasted three times longer than usual with the three only re-gaining their freedom on October 9th, 2011 (* GPH-NDFP are the acronyms utilised by the "Government of the Philippines" and the "National Democratic Front of the Philippines," the latter being a political umbrella representing the NPA and its political wing, the CPP, or Communist Party of the Philippines. "JASIG," or Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees, is a Joint Agreement betwen the GPH and NDFP inked in 1998 in which the GPH guarantees that any and all NDFP "Consultants" directly attached to the Peace Process will remain free from arrest, prosecution, and physical harm. The reality though has been A LOT different and so we have the current impasse in the Peace Process, a stumbling block that first presented itself in May of 2011 over seventeen such "Consultants").
During this longer than normal captivity Mayor Dano, AND his two "security escorts," all gave the typically scripted video presentations in which they admitted being scum of the earth, et cetera and so forth. There is nothing astonishing in this, ALL political captives of the NPA are compelled to do this. Of course it then ruins the careers of the enlisted men and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) upon their return to the loving arms of the AFP but politicians fare much differently. So many Mindanowan mayors go through this unfortunate experience that noone gives it a second thought...except Mayor Dano's arch nemesis Roberto "Jimmy" Luna.
Mr.Luna, co-incidentally serving as Dano's Vice Mayor, has long been the bane of Dano's life. Luna was the Mayor himself until reaching the end of his third three year term in the May of 2010 Elections. He first came to power after murdering his primary competition in the 2001 Election, former Mayor Amerosin V.Onsing, in a Catholic Church no less.
As for how such enemies become tied to one another as mayor and vice mayor, in the Philippine Political System candidates for high office do have running mates BUT each candidate is balloted separately. In other words, one's running mate only enters office IF he or she receives enough individual votes. There is no dual ticket. In Lingig, Dano became Luna's Vice Mayor, and in May, 2010 that dynamic was simply inverted with each man switching office with the other.
Shortly after Dano's release Vice Mayor Luna began telling anyone who would listen that Dano was an NPA collaborator who had gone well beyond the Stockholm Syndrome*-like affectation and into true indoctrination (*Stockholm Syndrome is an actual psychological pathology in which the captive sympathises with and even tacitly supports their captor, names after a group of Swedish captives). In other words, Vice Mayor Luna was tarring Mayor Dano as an NPA cadre. This is of course ironic given Luna's own pedigree. As Mayor, Jimmy Luna was not only also abducted by the NPA, he was taken captive TWICE in less than thirty-six months! In his first capture, on February 6th, 2007, the NPA ALSO infiltrated HIS residential compound in Lingig's Barangay Mandus.
Then, the guerillas from the NPA's Front 20 forced Luna- though he didn't resist AT ALL- into his own SUV and forced him to drive around Lingig, closely followed by two comandeered passenger vans full of guerillas, as they had Luna show them the homes of each of the town's 15 police officers which they recorded for future use. Then, at 5PM they had Luna lead them into the poorly guarded municipal compund where they promptly divested the MPO of its scant arsenal, eleven M16s and six shotguns, before withdrawing with Luna as insurance against immediate armed reprecussions. After releasing their helpful captive that evening inthe town's Barangay Pagtila-an, they withdrew back into the jungle along that provincial border nexus.
Then, on May 5th, 2010, just five days before the 2010 Election in which Luna was running for Vice Mayor, he and his four security escorts were stopped at an NPA checkpoint in the municipality of Monkayo, in the nearby province of Compostela Valley, or ComVal as it is known locally. He and his escorts, two MPO police officers and two soldiers from the 58IB, were on Davao-Agusan National Hiway en route to Davao City to visit Luna's ill son in Davao Doctors Hospital. During election seasons the NPA charges a "tax" to all candidates, a "PTC," or "Permit to
Campaign," though in that last election it had been re-christened "PTW," or "Pay to Win," supposedly assuring the highest paying candidate an electoral victory. Vice Mayor Luna neglected to pay his. Although he ended up winning the Election as Vice Mayor, his family had to cough up P3 Million ($66,000) to the NPA to gain his and his four escorts eventual release days after that victory.
As for calling now-Mayor Henry Dano a "collaborator," during the first abduction, Luna's demeanour was so non-chalant inside the MPO that his own police force filed affadavits accusing their Mayor of being an NPA cadre. According to then PNP Director General Arturo "Art" Lomibao, Luna was "commanding" guerillas! More to the point, then-Mayor Luna actually cried after his second capture, as he described the warmth he felt from the guys and gals of that very same NPA element, Front 20! Instead of flipping the script and pointing all this out, Mayor Dano drew into himself and only left his compound under heavy guard. Refusing to press charges against the NPA, Dano was again accused of harbouring a secret relationship with the Maoists. Instead of reminding folks that Luna hadn't charged the NPA either, in either of his two captivities, Dano simply noted, "I will just forget about it," admitting though that his "heart is still pounding in fear." When pressed on his reluctance to file charges Dano asked, "If I filed a case, will you protect me? Will you be able to give me justice and will you be able to give me security?"
One needs to understand that like a fair number of municipalities in Eastern Mindanao, Lingig is under a parallel government implemented by the NPA. AFP and PNP officials always downplay this by sticking to a story that has the NPA devoid of any strategy above and beyond reaping a profit through its "Revolutionary Taxes" which according to this narrative, merely serve to enrich high ranking NPA and CPP personalities. Because Lingig is a poor municipality devoid of any lucrative logging and mining tenements the NPA only uses the town as a sort of "way station" as it moves to and fro to richer municipalities. Of course this is propaganda aimed at the naïve amd gullible. In the words of Lingig's Municipal Police Office Director, Inspector Ignacio Serrano, "(We are) so undermanned and (under) armed. The rebels roam here freely. They even play basketball during festivities but we cannot go after them." In the meantime he has had a tall razorwire topped chainlink fence constructed around the already walled municipal compound, and is considering sandbagging around that perimeter fence AND THEN building a second razorwire topped chainlink fence. Perhaps redundancy will protect his MPO and the town hall, nothing else has.
Likewise this usually holds true with the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or AFP. Caraga and Davao Regions each fall under different IDs, or Infantry Divisions. Caraga is operationally the provenance of the 4ID, while Davao, since 2008, is under the jurisdictional control of the 10ID. Not only do IDs not share intelligence, they don't share assets and/or manpower as well. The jist of this extremely important dynamic is that an NPA Front encamped in Davao Oriental can launch an attack 5 kilometers away from its encampment, across the border in Surigao del Sur Province, withdraw back into Davao Oriental and pretty much rest assured that the AFP and PNP will spend the next three or four days arguing over operational control and jurisdiction. The PNP doesn't even enter the equation because in terms of the insurgency, it takes a seat far in the rear, a far cry from its predecessor, the PC, or Philippine Constabulary whose bread and butter WAS insurgency.
So, Lingig is destined to be an NPA punching bag for the duration of what is now a 43 year old insurgency, or in its particular case, a 37 year insurgency since the NPA first arrived there in 1975. The August 6th, 2011 attack on Mayor Henry Dano's residential compound wasn't suprising in the least above and beyond the gross incompetence of his two security escorts, Corporal Alrey de Samparado and Private First Class Allan Saban. Both men are intelligence assets attached to the AFP's 75IB, the battalion with operational control over Lingig and its environs. Therefore the two should have been absolutely on top of their game. Instead, on the evening in question, Saban approached the compound's chainlink front gate to ascertain the nature of an unknown visitor presenting himself and asking to see Mayor Dano.
The man, dressed in a Tagalog Barong, the quinessential Filipino shirt popularised by the late Dictator Ferdinand Marcos and now the preferred attire of high ranking PNP and allied personnel. Indeed, the man at the gate informed Saban that he was a team leader with the NBI, or National Bureau of Investigation, the nation's top law enforcement entity sublimated not to the PNP but to the Department of Justice, or DOJ.
Standard Operating Procedure for law enforcement personnel dictates that the lead officer, upon entering a municipality in a new case or operation, first presents himself at the home of that municipality's mayor. A courtesy call if you will, that is extremely problematic on Mindanao given local officials' involvement in all matter of criminality if not actively involved in the insurgency/ies within their domain. Still, this practice is considered de riguer and so Private First Class Saban thought nothing out of the ordinary was taking place.
Of course the NPA has time and again used such ploys to infiltrate important buildings and compounds so that at the very least, since Corporal de Samparado outranked him, Saban should have first checked with his immediate superior, or better yet, informed Mayor Dano of the "visitor" and let him make a very simple phone call to verify the visitor's purported identity and/or role. No, instead Saban cheerfully greeted the visitor at the gate as he unlocked and opened it. Of course the "NBI Agent" was an NPA guerilla, albeit much better dressed than the usual dull green t-shirt and knee-high rubber boots that constitute the NPA "uniform" would allow.
Saban, Corporal de Samparado, and Mayor Dano himself were taken by the guerillas, from the NPA's Front 20, the Conrado Heredia Command of the Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee, or NEMRC, then spirited the three into oblivion. Because of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process and its impasse over the JASIG conundrum*, the captivity lasted three times longer than usual with the three only re-gaining their freedom on October 9th, 2011 (* GPH-NDFP are the acronyms utilised by the "Government of the Philippines" and the "National Democratic Front of the Philippines," the latter being a political umbrella representing the NPA and its political wing, the CPP, or Communist Party of the Philippines. "JASIG," or Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees, is a Joint Agreement betwen the GPH and NDFP inked in 1998 in which the GPH guarantees that any and all NDFP "Consultants" directly attached to the Peace Process will remain free from arrest, prosecution, and physical harm. The reality though has been A LOT different and so we have the current impasse in the Peace Process, a stumbling block that first presented itself in May of 2011 over seventeen such "Consultants").
During this longer than normal captivity Mayor Dano, AND his two "security escorts," all gave the typically scripted video presentations in which they admitted being scum of the earth, et cetera and so forth. There is nothing astonishing in this, ALL political captives of the NPA are compelled to do this. Of course it then ruins the careers of the enlisted men and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) upon their return to the loving arms of the AFP but politicians fare much differently. So many Mindanowan mayors go through this unfortunate experience that noone gives it a second thought...except Mayor Dano's arch nemesis Roberto "Jimmy" Luna.
Mr.Luna, co-incidentally serving as Dano's Vice Mayor, has long been the bane of Dano's life. Luna was the Mayor himself until reaching the end of his third three year term in the May of 2010 Elections. He first came to power after murdering his primary competition in the 2001 Election, former Mayor Amerosin V.Onsing, in a Catholic Church no less.
As for how such enemies become tied to one another as mayor and vice mayor, in the Philippine Political System candidates for high office do have running mates BUT each candidate is balloted separately. In other words, one's running mate only enters office IF he or she receives enough individual votes. There is no dual ticket. In Lingig, Dano became Luna's Vice Mayor, and in May, 2010 that dynamic was simply inverted with each man switching office with the other.
Shortly after Dano's release Vice Mayor Luna began telling anyone who would listen that Dano was an NPA collaborator who had gone well beyond the Stockholm Syndrome*-like affectation and into true indoctrination (*Stockholm Syndrome is an actual psychological pathology in which the captive sympathises with and even tacitly supports their captor, names after a group of Swedish captives). In other words, Vice Mayor Luna was tarring Mayor Dano as an NPA cadre. This is of course ironic given Luna's own pedigree. As Mayor, Jimmy Luna was not only also abducted by the NPA, he was taken captive TWICE in less than thirty-six months! In his first capture, on February 6th, 2007, the NPA ALSO infiltrated HIS residential compound in Lingig's Barangay Mandus.
Then, the guerillas from the NPA's Front 20 forced Luna- though he didn't resist AT ALL- into his own SUV and forced him to drive around Lingig, closely followed by two comandeered passenger vans full of guerillas, as they had Luna show them the homes of each of the town's 15 police officers which they recorded for future use. Then, at 5PM they had Luna lead them into the poorly guarded municipal compund where they promptly divested the MPO of its scant arsenal, eleven M16s and six shotguns, before withdrawing with Luna as insurance against immediate armed reprecussions. After releasing their helpful captive that evening inthe town's Barangay Pagtila-an, they withdrew back into the jungle along that provincial border nexus.
Then, on May 5th, 2010, just five days before the 2010 Election in which Luna was running for Vice Mayor, he and his four security escorts were stopped at an NPA checkpoint in the municipality of Monkayo, in the nearby province of Compostela Valley, or ComVal as it is known locally. He and his escorts, two MPO police officers and two soldiers from the 58IB, were on Davao-Agusan National Hiway en route to Davao City to visit Luna's ill son in Davao Doctors Hospital. During election seasons the NPA charges a "tax" to all candidates, a "PTC," or "Permit to
Campaign," though in that last election it had been re-christened "PTW," or "Pay to Win," supposedly assuring the highest paying candidate an electoral victory. Vice Mayor Luna neglected to pay his. Although he ended up winning the Election as Vice Mayor, his family had to cough up P3 Million ($66,000) to the NPA to gain his and his four escorts eventual release days after that victory.
As for calling now-Mayor Henry Dano a "collaborator," during the first abduction, Luna's demeanour was so non-chalant inside the MPO that his own police force filed affadavits accusing their Mayor of being an NPA cadre. According to then PNP Director General Arturo "Art" Lomibao, Luna was "commanding" guerillas! More to the point, then-Mayor Luna actually cried after his second capture, as he described the warmth he felt from the guys and gals of that very same NPA element, Front 20! Instead of flipping the script and pointing all this out, Mayor Dano drew into himself and only left his compound under heavy guard. Refusing to press charges against the NPA, Dano was again accused of harbouring a secret relationship with the Maoists. Instead of reminding folks that Luna hadn't charged the NPA either, in either of his two captivities, Dano simply noted, "I will just forget about it," admitting though that his "heart is still pounding in fear." When pressed on his reluctance to file charges Dano asked, "If I filed a case, will you protect me? Will you be able to give me justice and will you be able to give me security?"
One needs to understand that like a fair number of municipalities in Eastern Mindanao, Lingig is under a parallel government implemented by the NPA. AFP and PNP officials always downplay this by sticking to a story that has the NPA devoid of any strategy above and beyond reaping a profit through its "Revolutionary Taxes" which according to this narrative, merely serve to enrich high ranking NPA and CPP personalities. Because Lingig is a poor municipality devoid of any lucrative logging and mining tenements the NPA only uses the town as a sort of "way station" as it moves to and fro to richer municipalities. Of course this is propaganda aimed at the naïve amd gullible. In the words of Lingig's Municipal Police Office Director, Inspector Ignacio Serrano, "(We are) so undermanned and (under) armed. The rebels roam here freely. They even play basketball during festivities but we cannot go after them." In the meantime he has had a tall razorwire topped chainlink fence constructed around the already walled municipal compound, and is considering sandbagging around that perimeter fence AND THEN building a second razorwire topped chainlink fence. Perhaps redundancy will protect his MPO and the town hall, nothing else has.
NPA Armed Contacts for the Third Quarter of 2011, Part IX: Front 14 Attacks a Trucking Company and a Sawmill in Surigao del Sur
Readers that have examine my current four part series of entries entilted, "Bad Blood: AFP Sponsored Paramilitaries in Caraga, 1991" will be amazed how nothing has really changed in almost 22 years. Actualy, there has been a very slight, almost negligible improvement in the loves of most residents. In 1991 almost every road in Agusan del Sur Province was dirt so that for four to six months out of the year it was virtually impassable to vehicular traffic. Only Butuan City, the largest population centre had electricity and potable running water. The only telephone service was from phone centres in the largest towns. Waiting to send or receive a phone call often had people waiting two days or more just to complete.
Yet, the NPA still controlled a good portion of the countryside, something that unfortunately hasn't changed. Having firsr surfaced in Caraga in 1975, by 1983 the region became the national Centre of Gravity, the area with the largest number of guerillas who controlled the largest amount of land. Led by the "Barefoot Priest," Father Francisco "Frank" Navarro, who, under the nom de guerre "Ka Migo," served as the Secretary for the Operations Command of what the NPA today calls the "Pulang Diwata Command" of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee- and who was killed in 1993, has been replaced by the even more iconic Jorge Madlos, known to the naïve and gullible folks serving in the NPA as "Ka Oris." Madlos, a native of Surigao del Norte Province's Siargo Island has seen it all and has lived to tell about it. Still, the only time Madlos can be found in the field nowadays is on the NPA's Anniversary or that of the NPA's political wing, the CPP, the Communist Party of the Philippines to which Madlos is fiercely dedicated, as is his wife, a cadre who uses the alias "Maria Malaya." While Madlos has assumed Spokesperson duties for the NDFP, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, a position he was appointed to by the CPP Party's leadership just as Aquino took office in July of 2010, his wife assumed his role as NPA-NEMRC Spokesperson.
Madlos' has been suffering from severe kidney disease and a urinary tract problem that requires a 24 hour catheter threaded through his genital so that he has pretty much been tied to whatever corner of hell he calls home for the last several years and yet, when one thinks of the insurgency in Caraga they usually envision Madlos with his Ho Chi Minh goatee and Mao cap that even the most moribund of the Chinese party hacks threw in the Yantzge two decades back. Hokey to a fault, one must offer respect to someone like Madlos, albeit grudgingly, for having remained in that stark wilderness for nearly four decades, avoiding Extra-Judicial Execution, or "Salvaging" in Filipino-speak, having also avoided being abdudcted and horribly tortured, having avoided dying in what by now must be more than two hundred tactical offencives and perhaps half that number in defencive actions as Military assets led the attacking soldiers in the capture of major camp after major camp...and of course both the physical AND ideological purges that greatly affected the NPA from 1985 to 1995...and yet Madlos has survived.
OK, now that we have graduated from Adulation 101, Madlos' NEMRC has been busy as it always is; on September 15th, 2011, in the municipality of Bislig City's Barangay San Jose, in Surigao del Sur Province, the NPA's Front 14 implemented a checkpoint in Sitio Sikahoy. A convoy from Bislig Ventures, a trucking outfit located on the edge of that same city, and en route into the city proper, was targetted for its owners refusal to pay the NPA's "Revolutionary Taxes," I mean rank extortion, I mean "Revolutionary Taxes" (cough).
The convoy consisting of five tandem dump trucks and three tractor trailers l fully loaded with coal were forced to pull onto the side of the road next to the checkpoint at 2PM. As the eight drivers were forced at gunpoint to dismount from their trucks, four guerillas set about dousing the vehicles with petrol and then lit a match. As coal is of course quite flammable, albeit slow burning, the convoy made quite a conflagration for several hours, and yet the NPA was in no hurry. Only at 5PM did it release the eight drivers for what was to be a long walk back to the company compound. The NPA of course folded up its checkpoint and withdrew into the jungle.
While the Maoists portray themselves as "Anti-Big Business" and "Anti-Environmentally Unsound Business" they are actually as avaricistic as any rapacious multi-national logging or mining outfit. Indeed, if truth be told, Artisinal, or so called "Small Scale" Miners and Loggers do much more damage to the Mindanowan Environment than any multi-national could ever do. Ehile those large corporations are fully liscenced and permitted and at least ostensibly monitored by redundant agencies like the DENR (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources), MGB (Mining and Geosciences Bureau), NCIP (National Commission on Indigenous Peoples), and other alphabetically challenging entities, the small and often illegal operations are using the most intrusive and destructive methods for the shortest term financial gain without a thought in the world about nurturing their targetted resource so as to leave it in a renewable state (so far as logging is concerned of course).
In mining, methods such as "Banlas," or "Sluice" involve he denudation of entire hillsides worth of vegetation to construct massive, engineeringly unsound wooden sluices which are then built at a steep angle so that their slag- or waste- runs directly into rivers or major creeks which also serve as the water source for the sluicing process, thus being destructive to the waterway on both ends of the process. Sluice Mining, at least here on Mindanao, entails running a very high volume of water, at relatively high pressure, through a set of gates and chutes until- hopefully- one nets a desired precious metal while 99% of the materiel being worked is dumped into a river, as opposed to a hillside from which it has been excavated...and "Banlas" is the least damaging of methods mind you.
The use of TNT and other explosives by untrained personnel without requisite engineering input does amazing amounts of damage geologically, while the use of cyanide and mercury in leeching processes naturally reek havvoc on the environment to almost unimaginable degrees.
Each year our island loses more and more of its timber and ground cover. Even leaving the island for six weeks can leave a mildly observant person shocked upon their return to see the rapid deforestation taking place. IF the NPA were TRULY concerned about such all important issues we would see them attacking ALL multi-nationals, not just the same companies over and over which merely (strongly) indicates an ulterior motive- even if one isn't privy to the hard intelligence centering upon the "Revolutionary Tax" brouhaha. Moreover, they would be implementing "No Mining" and "No Logging" bans within their considerable AORs, or Areas of Responsibility- as in "Areas of Operation" (note that the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, under Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao of the Committee's Operational Command, Merardo Arce, HAS instituted such a ban in two Davao City districts but only because he has demanded a price that interested mining companies are unwilling to pay. The rest of the SMRC's AOR has no such ban, and he has NOT implemented a logging ban in those two aforementioned districts), they would never do that because they thrive where such small scale activities flourish. Unlike the multi-nationals, who- if intelligently managed- form private paramilitaries under the guise of the Armed Forces of the Philippines "SCAA," or Special Citizen Active Auxiliary programme...Atisinal operations rarely have the means or the muscle to form such private armies and so they take "the path of least resistance," as Mao correctly predicted, and pay their "Taxes" on time. When they don't, they face a mild wake up call as the first step in remedying their delinquency. Take for example, the following case in point:
Silvio Gogo, a smalltime sawmill operator doing business in the municipality of Tagbina's Barangay Batuna in that very same province of Surigao del Sur had recently been saddled with a low supply issue. Most small time sawmills rely almost entirely on illegal logging as their source of supply. Periodically interdiction occurs in a few isolated instances and when it does, business at such sawmills suffers greatly. The small number of employees are laid off and operators like Mr.Gogo fall back on other income producing activities- sawmills rarely form one's only source of income.
Yet the NPA still expects its monthly or quarterly installment on one's "tax bill." If one is unable, or refuses to comply, they get a relatively gentle wake up call, such as the following case in point:
On September 19th, 2011, at 2AM, five guerillas from the NPA's Front 14 entered Gogo's unnamed sawmill and dragged two Yanmar table saws out into the compound. The saws, one of which was a 16khp, the other an 18khp, were then doused with petrol and set on fire. In this case the damage was P100,000 ($2,200). While that may seem downright mild to many of my foreign readers, it is in fact half a year's net income for the average peasant on Mindanao. For a small time operator like Silvio Gogo, who like virtually all such operators exists outside the benefit of any insurance policy, it very well may represent the difference between remaining in business and folding up. Should Mr.Gogo ever resume business his delinquent "tax bill" is still hanging over his head as a new debt begins the day he saws his first log. It becomes a running treadmill (no pun intended).
Yet, the NPA still controlled a good portion of the countryside, something that unfortunately hasn't changed. Having firsr surfaced in Caraga in 1975, by 1983 the region became the national Centre of Gravity, the area with the largest number of guerillas who controlled the largest amount of land. Led by the "Barefoot Priest," Father Francisco "Frank" Navarro, who, under the nom de guerre "Ka Migo," served as the Secretary for the Operations Command of what the NPA today calls the "Pulang Diwata Command" of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee- and who was killed in 1993, has been replaced by the even more iconic Jorge Madlos, known to the naïve and gullible folks serving in the NPA as "Ka Oris." Madlos, a native of Surigao del Norte Province's Siargo Island has seen it all and has lived to tell about it. Still, the only time Madlos can be found in the field nowadays is on the NPA's Anniversary or that of the NPA's political wing, the CPP, the Communist Party of the Philippines to which Madlos is fiercely dedicated, as is his wife, a cadre who uses the alias "Maria Malaya." While Madlos has assumed Spokesperson duties for the NDFP, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, a position he was appointed to by the CPP Party's leadership just as Aquino took office in July of 2010, his wife assumed his role as NPA-NEMRC Spokesperson.
Madlos' has been suffering from severe kidney disease and a urinary tract problem that requires a 24 hour catheter threaded through his genital so that he has pretty much been tied to whatever corner of hell he calls home for the last several years and yet, when one thinks of the insurgency in Caraga they usually envision Madlos with his Ho Chi Minh goatee and Mao cap that even the most moribund of the Chinese party hacks threw in the Yantzge two decades back. Hokey to a fault, one must offer respect to someone like Madlos, albeit grudgingly, for having remained in that stark wilderness for nearly four decades, avoiding Extra-Judicial Execution, or "Salvaging" in Filipino-speak, having also avoided being abdudcted and horribly tortured, having avoided dying in what by now must be more than two hundred tactical offencives and perhaps half that number in defencive actions as Military assets led the attacking soldiers in the capture of major camp after major camp...and of course both the physical AND ideological purges that greatly affected the NPA from 1985 to 1995...and yet Madlos has survived.
OK, now that we have graduated from Adulation 101, Madlos' NEMRC has been busy as it always is; on September 15th, 2011, in the municipality of Bislig City's Barangay San Jose, in Surigao del Sur Province, the NPA's Front 14 implemented a checkpoint in Sitio Sikahoy. A convoy from Bislig Ventures, a trucking outfit located on the edge of that same city, and en route into the city proper, was targetted for its owners refusal to pay the NPA's "Revolutionary Taxes," I mean rank extortion, I mean "Revolutionary Taxes" (cough).
The convoy consisting of five tandem dump trucks and three tractor trailers l fully loaded with coal were forced to pull onto the side of the road next to the checkpoint at 2PM. As the eight drivers were forced at gunpoint to dismount from their trucks, four guerillas set about dousing the vehicles with petrol and then lit a match. As coal is of course quite flammable, albeit slow burning, the convoy made quite a conflagration for several hours, and yet the NPA was in no hurry. Only at 5PM did it release the eight drivers for what was to be a long walk back to the company compound. The NPA of course folded up its checkpoint and withdrew into the jungle.
While the Maoists portray themselves as "Anti-Big Business" and "Anti-Environmentally Unsound Business" they are actually as avaricistic as any rapacious multi-national logging or mining outfit. Indeed, if truth be told, Artisinal, or so called "Small Scale" Miners and Loggers do much more damage to the Mindanowan Environment than any multi-national could ever do. Ehile those large corporations are fully liscenced and permitted and at least ostensibly monitored by redundant agencies like the DENR (Department of the Environment and Natural Resources), MGB (Mining and Geosciences Bureau), NCIP (National Commission on Indigenous Peoples), and other alphabetically challenging entities, the small and often illegal operations are using the most intrusive and destructive methods for the shortest term financial gain without a thought in the world about nurturing their targetted resource so as to leave it in a renewable state (so far as logging is concerned of course).
In mining, methods such as "Banlas," or "Sluice" involve he denudation of entire hillsides worth of vegetation to construct massive, engineeringly unsound wooden sluices which are then built at a steep angle so that their slag- or waste- runs directly into rivers or major creeks which also serve as the water source for the sluicing process, thus being destructive to the waterway on both ends of the process. Sluice Mining, at least here on Mindanao, entails running a very high volume of water, at relatively high pressure, through a set of gates and chutes until- hopefully- one nets a desired precious metal while 99% of the materiel being worked is dumped into a river, as opposed to a hillside from which it has been excavated...and "Banlas" is the least damaging of methods mind you.
The use of TNT and other explosives by untrained personnel without requisite engineering input does amazing amounts of damage geologically, while the use of cyanide and mercury in leeching processes naturally reek havvoc on the environment to almost unimaginable degrees.
Each year our island loses more and more of its timber and ground cover. Even leaving the island for six weeks can leave a mildly observant person shocked upon their return to see the rapid deforestation taking place. IF the NPA were TRULY concerned about such all important issues we would see them attacking ALL multi-nationals, not just the same companies over and over which merely (strongly) indicates an ulterior motive- even if one isn't privy to the hard intelligence centering upon the "Revolutionary Tax" brouhaha. Moreover, they would be implementing "No Mining" and "No Logging" bans within their considerable AORs, or Areas of Responsibility- as in "Areas of Operation" (note that the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, under Leonicio "Ka Parago" Pitao of the Committee's Operational Command, Merardo Arce, HAS instituted such a ban in two Davao City districts but only because he has demanded a price that interested mining companies are unwilling to pay. The rest of the SMRC's AOR has no such ban, and he has NOT implemented a logging ban in those two aforementioned districts), they would never do that because they thrive where such small scale activities flourish. Unlike the multi-nationals, who- if intelligently managed- form private paramilitaries under the guise of the Armed Forces of the Philippines "SCAA," or Special Citizen Active Auxiliary programme...Atisinal operations rarely have the means or the muscle to form such private armies and so they take "the path of least resistance," as Mao correctly predicted, and pay their "Taxes" on time. When they don't, they face a mild wake up call as the first step in remedying their delinquency. Take for example, the following case in point:
Silvio Gogo, a smalltime sawmill operator doing business in the municipality of Tagbina's Barangay Batuna in that very same province of Surigao del Sur had recently been saddled with a low supply issue. Most small time sawmills rely almost entirely on illegal logging as their source of supply. Periodically interdiction occurs in a few isolated instances and when it does, business at such sawmills suffers greatly. The small number of employees are laid off and operators like Mr.Gogo fall back on other income producing activities- sawmills rarely form one's only source of income.
Yet the NPA still expects its monthly or quarterly installment on one's "tax bill." If one is unable, or refuses to comply, they get a relatively gentle wake up call, such as the following case in point:
On September 19th, 2011, at 2AM, five guerillas from the NPA's Front 14 entered Gogo's unnamed sawmill and dragged two Yanmar table saws out into the compound. The saws, one of which was a 16khp, the other an 18khp, were then doused with petrol and set on fire. In this case the damage was P100,000 ($2,200). While that may seem downright mild to many of my foreign readers, it is in fact half a year's net income for the average peasant on Mindanao. For a small time operator like Silvio Gogo, who like virtually all such operators exists outside the benefit of any insurance policy, it very well may represent the difference between remaining in business and folding up. Should Mr.Gogo ever resume business his delinquent "tax bill" is still hanging over his head as a new debt begins the day he saws his first log. It becomes a running treadmill (no pun intended).
Monday, November 7, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part VI: Andap Complex Still Popping Off
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.
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.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
NPA Armed Engagements for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part V: Fallout From the 5 Billion Peso Attack on Claver
Of course the AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines, wasn't going to sit on its inept hands after the NPA had 300 guerillas waltz into the "Pacified" province of Surigao del Norte and blow up two ships, one hundred and fourty-odd dump trucks, a couple of dozen pieces of heavy equipment, assorted barges and tugboats, blow up a mining process facility under construction, hold dozens of potential Japanese investors at gunpoint, kill five security guards, take scores of employees hostage, ambush a police convoy...did I forget anything else? Conservatively estimated at P5 Billion worth of damage just in equipment and trucks, the attack was one giant slap in the face to the AFP and its puppet, President Aquino.
Of course heads rolled but amazingly not that many. For example, with the PNP, or Philippine National Police, PNP Head Honcho, Director General Nicanor "Nick" Bartoleme removed the MPO (Municipal Police Office) Director, Senior Inspector Diomedes Cuadra, the Commanding Officer of PRO-13's, or Police Regional Office for Region 13's Public Safety Battalion (RPSB, the new moniker given to the Regional Police Mobile Group), Superintendent Rudy Cuyop and the Commanding Officer of PPO, or Police Provincial Office of Surigao del Norte Province, Senior Superintendent Emmanuel "Manny" Talento. However did not remove anyone else such as PRO-13's Director, who commands not only Cuyop and Cuadra but Talento as well! Glad to see that cronyism is alive and well but don't worry, I won't tell anyone.
Even more interestingly, within the AFP they sacked the Brigade Commander, Colonel Rodrigo Diapana and his EXO (Executive Officer, Second in Command), Colonel Cresente Q. Maligmat who concurrently commanded Task Force Stinger. Yet, the Division Commander nor any Battalion Commanders felt the heat. More to the point, no intelligence officers had their posteriors handed to them, so typical, so sad. If you are going to exercise the perogative of Command Responsibility, the protocol in Military Law that holds a commander responsible for all problems under his or her command, you must exercise that perogative universally. If you don't you merely reveal yourself for the toady fraud you are. Moreover, what about ACTUAL negligence above and beyond the principle of Command Responsibility? Declares Surigao del Norte Province "Pacified" on April 18th, 2010, a move I pointed out was far too premature and predicted would come back to haunt the previous division commander in manifest ways, yet he stays in play while you hang line officers out to dry? You ruin two Colonels' careers over a theoretical principle while ignoring ACTUAL malfeasance and culpability? AFP Chief of Staff Eduardo Oban is a sick joke. How is this for irony? On April 18th, 2010 then-commander of the 4ID (Infantry Division), Major General Mario Chan made his "Pacification" declaration at the headquarters of the 30IB (Infantry Battalion). That headquarters is in the municipality of...CLAVER.
OK, with my daily tirade out of the way...
On October 6th, 2011, at 11AM the municipality of Esperanza's Barangay Calabuan, in Agusan del Sur Province the AFP's 5th Scout Ranger Company, operating with the 58IB on backup infiltrated a small NPA camp in Sitio Simontana as its guerillas were pre-occupied with lunch. The camp belonging to Front 8 of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee within which Front 4A of the NCMRC, or Northcentral Mindanao Regional Committe was holed up during its retreat from Claver and that huge attack on October 3rd.
Five NPA guerillas were killed, including the Secretary (the leader) of Front 4A, Ricardo Manili who is much better known by his nom de guerre, Ka Joker. Manili is also the former Secretary of the NCMRC's Operational Command, meaning he was a former commander of all military operations within the NCMRC and therefore an extremely high value target. Had the AFP instead captured him he would have been an extremely valuable font of intelligence. Of course the AFP is a military that kills kidnap victims and claims it rescued them so what are we to expect? When kidnap victims fear discovery by the AFP more than they do remaining in captivity something is terribly wrong.
In addition to kiling 5 guerillas the AFP lost a soldier who was killed in action and also managed to capture 12 assault rifles, consisting of four rare AK47s, four M14s, three M16s, and one Ultimax machine gun, a huge haul in terms of the AFP versus NPA dynamic EXCEPT that the NPA captures more than a hundred in Claver. Hey! I DID forget something, see?
Of course heads rolled but amazingly not that many. For example, with the PNP, or Philippine National Police, PNP Head Honcho, Director General Nicanor "Nick" Bartoleme removed the MPO (Municipal Police Office) Director, Senior Inspector Diomedes Cuadra, the Commanding Officer of PRO-13's, or Police Regional Office for Region 13's Public Safety Battalion (RPSB, the new moniker given to the Regional Police Mobile Group), Superintendent Rudy Cuyop and the Commanding Officer of PPO, or Police Provincial Office of Surigao del Norte Province, Senior Superintendent Emmanuel "Manny" Talento. However did not remove anyone else such as PRO-13's Director, who commands not only Cuyop and Cuadra but Talento as well! Glad to see that cronyism is alive and well but don't worry, I won't tell anyone.
Even more interestingly, within the AFP they sacked the Brigade Commander, Colonel Rodrigo Diapana and his EXO (Executive Officer, Second in Command), Colonel Cresente Q. Maligmat who concurrently commanded Task Force Stinger. Yet, the Division Commander nor any Battalion Commanders felt the heat. More to the point, no intelligence officers had their posteriors handed to them, so typical, so sad. If you are going to exercise the perogative of Command Responsibility, the protocol in Military Law that holds a commander responsible for all problems under his or her command, you must exercise that perogative universally. If you don't you merely reveal yourself for the toady fraud you are. Moreover, what about ACTUAL negligence above and beyond the principle of Command Responsibility? Declares Surigao del Norte Province "Pacified" on April 18th, 2010, a move I pointed out was far too premature and predicted would come back to haunt the previous division commander in manifest ways, yet he stays in play while you hang line officers out to dry? You ruin two Colonels' careers over a theoretical principle while ignoring ACTUAL malfeasance and culpability? AFP Chief of Staff Eduardo Oban is a sick joke. How is this for irony? On April 18th, 2010 then-commander of the 4ID (Infantry Division), Major General Mario Chan made his "Pacification" declaration at the headquarters of the 30IB (Infantry Battalion). That headquarters is in the municipality of...CLAVER.
OK, with my daily tirade out of the way...
On October 6th, 2011, at 11AM the municipality of Esperanza's Barangay Calabuan, in Agusan del Sur Province the AFP's 5th Scout Ranger Company, operating with the 58IB on backup infiltrated a small NPA camp in Sitio Simontana as its guerillas were pre-occupied with lunch. The camp belonging to Front 8 of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindanao Regional Committee within which Front 4A of the NCMRC, or Northcentral Mindanao Regional Committe was holed up during its retreat from Claver and that huge attack on October 3rd.
Five NPA guerillas were killed, including the Secretary (the leader) of Front 4A, Ricardo Manili who is much better known by his nom de guerre, Ka Joker. Manili is also the former Secretary of the NCMRC's Operational Command, meaning he was a former commander of all military operations within the NCMRC and therefore an extremely high value target. Had the AFP instead captured him he would have been an extremely valuable font of intelligence. Of course the AFP is a military that kills kidnap victims and claims it rescued them so what are we to expect? When kidnap victims fear discovery by the AFP more than they do remaining in captivity something is terribly wrong.
In addition to kiling 5 guerillas the AFP lost a soldier who was killed in action and also managed to capture 12 assault rifles, consisting of four rare AK47s, four M14s, three M16s, and one Ultimax machine gun, a huge haul in terms of the AFP versus NPA dynamic EXCEPT that the NPA captures more than a hundred in Claver. Hey! I DID forget something, see?
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