NPA Checkpoints on Mindanao's National Hiways is not new, nor is it shocking in the least. Howevet, since 1993 the NPA has never attempted to implement a checkpoint during daylight hours. On Wednesday, January 18th, 2012, at 130AM, the NPA's Front 53 of the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or, SMRC in shorthand, deployed 30 guerillas into the Bukidnon Provincial municipality of Kitaotao's Sitio Malo -os, in Barangay Sinuda, just up the road from the Sumifru-owned banana facility, and lay in wait for trucks belonging to Sumifru sub-contractors.
Bantuanon had refused a demand from SMRC for "Revolutionary Taxes, " quarterly payoffs that allow one to operate unmolested in NPA-controlled areas. The NPA's general operating procedure is to wait six months, and then, if mo money or goods are forthcoming, exact retribution with a very public act of violence. Usually this is exacted by burning Millions in Pesos worth of goods and property.
At 3AM that morning, two trucks left Sumifru fully loaded with bananas en route to Davao City and its busy port on Mindanao's Southern Coast. The first truck, a straight truck owned by JY Compay of GenSan (General Santos City), and operated by its owner, Jun Yee, drove a kilometer away from Sumifru and was then compelled to slow down at what appeared to be an Armed Forces of the Philippines,or AFP, Checkpoint. Like almost all AFP Checkpoints this one, manned by a full platoon (30 soldiers) in AFP fatigues, even had the requisite metal sign upon which was stated that vehicles were undergoing serving in the 23IB (Infantry Battalion). As Yee scanned the checkpoint, a tractor trailer owned by Bantuanon Trucking of the Davao del Sur Provincial municipality of Santa Cruz, rolled to a stop behind him.
As both trucks idled they were stunned when the kindly "soldiers" manning the checkpoint suddenly began screaming at both drivers, with the barrels of their assault rifles drawn down on them. Brusquely yanked from their cabs, both Yee and the other driver, Romeo Sajulga, watched in shocked silence as Molotov Cocktails were used to set both trucks ablaze. Yee's straight truck was totally burned but only Bantuanon Trucking's trailer was burned since the anPA had made a concerted effort to unhitch the trailer.
Responding to reports of the NPA's tactical operation, the AFP's 8IB deployed a platoon under Second Lieutenant Gaspar from a forward base in the municipality of Maramag in a three truck convoy carrying a platoon of soldiers. As the convoy entered the municipality of Quezon's Batangay Palacapao it entered a dead zone with no communication ability. Driving along Overlook Ridge the convoy sped into Sitio Zigzag and found themselves driving straight into an NPA ambush. After the initial IED, or Improvised Explosive Device detonated, critically wounding four AFP soldiers (AFP brass have merely reported four minor wounds, and true to form, the NPA is claiming that the four wounded were actually killed, and twelve more soldiers were wounded):
1) Corporal Ongcoy
2) Private First Class (PFC) Senes
3) PFC.Pactol
4) Private Palahan
a fierce firefight broke out...As the platoon scrambled for cover the NPA Blocking Force that had engaged them was already moving down hill into the valley below. In a series of running engagements both sides eventually found themselves in Barangay Puntian where more pitched engagements took place. Calling in air cover from Davao City, a pair of MG520 helicipters responded, albeit with no effect whatsoever.
Showing posts with label SMRC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SMRC. Show all posts
Monday, June 4, 2012
Sunday, June 3, 2012
NPA Armed Contacts for the Second Quarter of 2012, Part I: The Resurrection of Front 4A
The NPA's Front 4A, Cesar Cayon Command, was for the last couple of years on a steady downward trajectory. Sublimated to one of Mindanao's weakest Regional Committees, the NCMRC, or Northcentral Mindanao Regional Committee, that clear decline represented a solid military victory...at least that is what the Philippine Government would have people believe. With the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP in shorthand) handing over command and control of COIN (Counterinsurgency) Operations to Provincial Governments in two Region 10 provinces- Camiguin amd Misamis Oriental- smack dab in the middle of the NCMRC AOR (as in "Area of Responsibility"), the Government propaganda was almost believable.
Then, beginning in July of 2011, the AFP's 4ID (Infantry Division) began making precision slices on Front 4A as it began to actual dissect that vulnerable Front, limb by limb. On July 6th the 58IB (Infantry Battalion) began scouring the municipality of Buenavista's Barangay Sangay, sector by sector, as it was hard on the scent of a rumored complex that was then serving as Front 4A's main camp in Agusan del Norte. Upon reaching Sitio Lower Malanay the AGP hit th motherlode; Two inter-connected camps capable of comfortably housing 250 guerillas was discovered sitting well concealed in a stretch of malarial swampland. A short but uneventful firefight led to the capture of the complex. As is so often the case however, there wasnt a guerilla within kilometers of the umuch lauded "base camp."
Then came October 6th, and with it a spectacular NPA assault on yet another province that had been handed to a provincial government by a highly self-aggrandised 4ID. The province of Surigao del Norte's municipality of Claver, home to significant foreign mining interests. Anywhere one finds foreign owned business interests carting off Mindanao's hardscrabble patrimony, "Revolutionary Taxes" and the self-serving hypoctotical pansies in the NPA who collect them are never far behind. Companies are almost always given a six month window between the tendering of unsucessful demands and the implementation of a violent "example." In this case the victim of this corporate strong arming was a Japanese multinational mining outfit, the Sumitomo Corporation.
The Claver operation was monumental from both a publicity AND a financial point of view. Given the well over a Billion Peso price tag and the media's having seized upon the NPA having temporarily abducted a large group of prospective Japanese investors, it did not take any real skill to predict that the AFP would relentlessly pursue the NPA elements involved. Never mind that it was undertaken by three other NPA Fronts- 20, 21 and 30), but it was not even witht n the NCMRC. The attack was a product of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindana Regional Committee). Yet it was Front 4A that bore the brunt of the withering assault by both the Philippine National Police, or PNP, and an extraordinarily massive air and land assault by the AFP slash PAF, the last acronym of course being the Philippine Air Force. Pushed out of the NCMRC's AOR, Front 4A, operating in true NPA textbook fashion, hugged provincial border nexuses, to allow great ease in moving to and from, and in between provincial border convergances. While the PNP does have enteties- such as its PROs, aka Police Regional Offices, and DIPOs- or Directorates of Integrated Police Operations, the AFP is hemmed in by gradations in AOR, at best it operates within a system of concentric circles that are all adversely effected by he man/macho man infighting and turf wars that effect most any male.dominated entity. The net result og course, since the PNP,merely operates at the pleasure of the AFP vis a vis avOIN Operations, is that the NPA exploites these territorial flaws on governance.
As the post-Claver sweeps and scourings continued,
Front 4A's Secretary, or leader, a veteran of the Mindanao bush wars, Ricardo Malanili, usually known by his nom de guerre "Ka Joker," pulled his force into the AOR of the much stronger NEMRC, the Regional Commitee that covers all of Caraga and a pinch of the Davao Region. NEMRC assisted the Front on re-positioning itself in the municipality pf Esperaunza, in Agusan del Sur Province
It was in Esperanza's Barangay Calabuan, an NPA baliwick in the hills above Agusan Marsh, that Ka Joker began to feel safe. Perhaps it was this false sense of security that allowed the AFP to come calling on October 6th, 2011 without much resostance. In just a few moments, Ka Joker and four of his guerillas were dead and the rest of Front 4A, hustling through rough hewn jungle trails to pre-arranged rendevoux points, and later still met up with Fronts operating in less volatile sectors. An easy way to conceptualise the NPA modus operandi is to envision both a tactical AND a tactical shell game im which the path of least resistance is always the right path.
Though the NPA tried engaging in a bit of amateurish PSYOPs (Psychological Propaganda Operations), denying that Ka Joker had in fact never been killed and that the AFP had merely.stumbled upon an old abandoned camp previously used by Ka Joker and his Front 4A, the truth was soon undeniable as the man's grieving family members rook tgeir pain to the media, acknowledging far and wide that at least on this one occaison, the AFP and the Government it serves were telling the truth, Ricardo "Ka Joker" Malanili was gone.
As for where that fact left Front 4A, dormant best describes it. That is, until Monday, April 23rd, 2012. At 845PM two passenger vans turned into Butuan City's Arjuville Subdivision in Barangay Libretad, near the border of Barangay Bancasi.Pulling into a small row of office suites eight men jumped out of each idling van and walked purposefully towards one of five adjoining doors that serves as the main entrance of Earth Savers Security Agency. Earth Savers, a liscenced security company actually serves as a paramilitary for hire, specialising in the "security" of mining outfits throught the Caraga Region (Region 13). Owned and operated by Nelson Ponsones Nario, a recently retired PNP (Philippine National Police) Chief Superintendent.
Chief Superindendent Nario parlezed a working relationahip with embattled former President Gloria M.Arroyo into a jump into the big leagues. From serving as the Director of the Isabela PPO, or Police Provincial Office, he won a promotion in 2009 to serve as the Chief Superintendent of PRO10 (Police Regional Office 10, Cagayan del Oro City), where he served as Director of Administration. In 2010 he was laterally transferred to PRO13 in Butuan City and it was there, at the mandatory age of retirement, he cashiered out and used his many contacts to arm and build his private paramilitary.
As the sixteen men from the vans approached the entrance to Earth Savers, four other men who had stayed behind with the vans discreetly implemented a security perimeter in the parkinglot. The idling vans the slowly moved forwatd towards that same main entrance as the sixteen men, toting assault rifles but dressed in street clothes entered the agency premises. Upon infiltrating the men found four employees on duty, doing little more than goofing off. Training rifles on the four agency employees one among the sixteen men announced that they were NBI, as in National Bureau of Investigation agents, intent upon serving a search warrant for illegal weapons trafficking. Within ten minutes, without a single shot being fired, the NBI imposters had carted off sixty-six weapons, a stunning haul by any measure.
Upon getting a signal, one of the two vans carefully backed up to the door. Flinging open the vehicle's two rear doors, the guerillas cum agents began carting away all weapons found on the premises and loaded them into the van. The total take was: 46 AK47s, 10 semi-automatic shotguns, 3 308. SWSs (bolt action sniper rifles with day and night scopes)- I need to add that these three pieces were erroneously reported as M14 in sniper configuration. Ironically, yhe Pilippines is one of several nations where sniping, if one can even call it thus, takes place with semi-automatic assault rifles, in this case, M16s. To be specific, such rifles are more Designated Marksman, or at best, Squad Sniper configurations. The three pieces captured however were in fact 308. bolt action, actual sniper rifles.
Usually, AKs are less than desirable pieces for the NPA. Ironically the rifle figures prominently in NPA propaganda, even being pictured on its flag. However, the NPA gains virtually all its ammunition from war booty taken during attacks on the PNP, AFP, and allied forces. Since the Philippines is firmly in the pocket of the US, it only utilises American style weaponry, with the M16 being the central to PNP and AFP operations. The M16 is chambered in 5.56MM. The AK47 on the other hand, is in 7.65MM. It is difficult at best, to secure a steady source of AK ammunition. For the time being though, the NPA is sitting pretty. Among other things captured during that assault, the guerillas brought home 147 fully loaded AK magazines (clips). Also taken were 67 ammunition vests, for 7.65MM, shotgun shells, and other assorted ammunition. Cellphones, ICOM radios amd.cash totalling almost P15,000 ($310).
Loading the last of their take into the one van, four guerillas clambered into it as well, as the twelve others, and four on perimeter all climbed into the second van before both exited the parkinglot and casually drove away into Barangay Bonbon. It was there in Bonbon, at just after 10PM that evening, that responding PNP vehicles discovered both vans, abandoned and empty.
If Earth Savers Security Agency sounds familiar it is because I have discussed them before. On November 1st, 2011, the NPA's Front 20, the Conrado Heredia Command of the SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, launchrd one of its,periodic assaults against the Datu Bulawanon Mining Exploration Corporation in the municipality of Rosario, in Agusan del Sur Province. As the guerillas moved in on foot, crossing into Barangay Bayugan #3's Purok #2, they first neutralised an Earth Savers outpost a kilometer up the rode from the aforementioned mining operation. Three "guards" were critically wounded as they engaged the advancing guerillas.
Finally, when considering this latest Butuan City armed contact, remember that Barangay Bancasi housea both PRO13 AMD tge AFP's 4ID sattelite headquarters, Camp Rafael Rodriguez. The attack was anything if not audacious
Then, beginning in July of 2011, the AFP's 4ID (Infantry Division) began making precision slices on Front 4A as it began to actual dissect that vulnerable Front, limb by limb. On July 6th the 58IB (Infantry Battalion) began scouring the municipality of Buenavista's Barangay Sangay, sector by sector, as it was hard on the scent of a rumored complex that was then serving as Front 4A's main camp in Agusan del Norte. Upon reaching Sitio Lower Malanay the AGP hit th motherlode; Two inter-connected camps capable of comfortably housing 250 guerillas was discovered sitting well concealed in a stretch of malarial swampland. A short but uneventful firefight led to the capture of the complex. As is so often the case however, there wasnt a guerilla within kilometers of the umuch lauded "base camp."
Then came October 6th, and with it a spectacular NPA assault on yet another province that had been handed to a provincial government by a highly self-aggrandised 4ID. The province of Surigao del Norte's municipality of Claver, home to significant foreign mining interests. Anywhere one finds foreign owned business interests carting off Mindanao's hardscrabble patrimony, "Revolutionary Taxes" and the self-serving hypoctotical pansies in the NPA who collect them are never far behind. Companies are almost always given a six month window between the tendering of unsucessful demands and the implementation of a violent "example." In this case the victim of this corporate strong arming was a Japanese multinational mining outfit, the Sumitomo Corporation.
The Claver operation was monumental from both a publicity AND a financial point of view. Given the well over a Billion Peso price tag and the media's having seized upon the NPA having temporarily abducted a large group of prospective Japanese investors, it did not take any real skill to predict that the AFP would relentlessly pursue the NPA elements involved. Never mind that it was undertaken by three other NPA Fronts- 20, 21 and 30), but it was not even witht n the NCMRC. The attack was a product of the NEMRC, or Northeast Mindana Regional Committee). Yet it was Front 4A that bore the brunt of the withering assault by both the Philippine National Police, or PNP, and an extraordinarily massive air and land assault by the AFP slash PAF, the last acronym of course being the Philippine Air Force. Pushed out of the NCMRC's AOR, Front 4A, operating in true NPA textbook fashion, hugged provincial border nexuses, to allow great ease in moving to and from, and in between provincial border convergances. While the PNP does have enteties- such as its PROs, aka Police Regional Offices, and DIPOs- or Directorates of Integrated Police Operations, the AFP is hemmed in by gradations in AOR, at best it operates within a system of concentric circles that are all adversely effected by he man/macho man infighting and turf wars that effect most any male.dominated entity. The net result og course, since the PNP,merely operates at the pleasure of the AFP vis a vis avOIN Operations, is that the NPA exploites these territorial flaws on governance.
As the post-Claver sweeps and scourings continued,
Front 4A's Secretary, or leader, a veteran of the Mindanao bush wars, Ricardo Malanili, usually known by his nom de guerre "Ka Joker," pulled his force into the AOR of the much stronger NEMRC, the Regional Commitee that covers all of Caraga and a pinch of the Davao Region. NEMRC assisted the Front on re-positioning itself in the municipality pf Esperaunza, in Agusan del Sur Province
It was in Esperanza's Barangay Calabuan, an NPA baliwick in the hills above Agusan Marsh, that Ka Joker began to feel safe. Perhaps it was this false sense of security that allowed the AFP to come calling on October 6th, 2011 without much resostance. In just a few moments, Ka Joker and four of his guerillas were dead and the rest of Front 4A, hustling through rough hewn jungle trails to pre-arranged rendevoux points, and later still met up with Fronts operating in less volatile sectors. An easy way to conceptualise the NPA modus operandi is to envision both a tactical AND a tactical shell game im which the path of least resistance is always the right path.
Though the NPA tried engaging in a bit of amateurish PSYOPs (Psychological Propaganda Operations), denying that Ka Joker had in fact never been killed and that the AFP had merely.stumbled upon an old abandoned camp previously used by Ka Joker and his Front 4A, the truth was soon undeniable as the man's grieving family members rook tgeir pain to the media, acknowledging far and wide that at least on this one occaison, the AFP and the Government it serves were telling the truth, Ricardo "Ka Joker" Malanili was gone.
As for where that fact left Front 4A, dormant best describes it. That is, until Monday, April 23rd, 2012. At 845PM two passenger vans turned into Butuan City's Arjuville Subdivision in Barangay Libretad, near the border of Barangay Bancasi.Pulling into a small row of office suites eight men jumped out of each idling van and walked purposefully towards one of five adjoining doors that serves as the main entrance of Earth Savers Security Agency. Earth Savers, a liscenced security company actually serves as a paramilitary for hire, specialising in the "security" of mining outfits throught the Caraga Region (Region 13). Owned and operated by Nelson Ponsones Nario, a recently retired PNP (Philippine National Police) Chief Superintendent.
Chief Superindendent Nario parlezed a working relationahip with embattled former President Gloria M.Arroyo into a jump into the big leagues. From serving as the Director of the Isabela PPO, or Police Provincial Office, he won a promotion in 2009 to serve as the Chief Superintendent of PRO10 (Police Regional Office 10, Cagayan del Oro City), where he served as Director of Administration. In 2010 he was laterally transferred to PRO13 in Butuan City and it was there, at the mandatory age of retirement, he cashiered out and used his many contacts to arm and build his private paramilitary.
As the sixteen men from the vans approached the entrance to Earth Savers, four other men who had stayed behind with the vans discreetly implemented a security perimeter in the parkinglot. The idling vans the slowly moved forwatd towards that same main entrance as the sixteen men, toting assault rifles but dressed in street clothes entered the agency premises. Upon infiltrating the men found four employees on duty, doing little more than goofing off. Training rifles on the four agency employees one among the sixteen men announced that they were NBI, as in National Bureau of Investigation agents, intent upon serving a search warrant for illegal weapons trafficking. Within ten minutes, without a single shot being fired, the NBI imposters had carted off sixty-six weapons, a stunning haul by any measure.
Upon getting a signal, one of the two vans carefully backed up to the door. Flinging open the vehicle's two rear doors, the guerillas cum agents began carting away all weapons found on the premises and loaded them into the van. The total take was: 46 AK47s, 10 semi-automatic shotguns, 3 308. SWSs (bolt action sniper rifles with day and night scopes)- I need to add that these three pieces were erroneously reported as M14 in sniper configuration. Ironically, yhe Pilippines is one of several nations where sniping, if one can even call it thus, takes place with semi-automatic assault rifles, in this case, M16s. To be specific, such rifles are more Designated Marksman, or at best, Squad Sniper configurations. The three pieces captured however were in fact 308. bolt action, actual sniper rifles.
Usually, AKs are less than desirable pieces for the NPA. Ironically the rifle figures prominently in NPA propaganda, even being pictured on its flag. However, the NPA gains virtually all its ammunition from war booty taken during attacks on the PNP, AFP, and allied forces. Since the Philippines is firmly in the pocket of the US, it only utilises American style weaponry, with the M16 being the central to PNP and AFP operations. The M16 is chambered in 5.56MM. The AK47 on the other hand, is in 7.65MM. It is difficult at best, to secure a steady source of AK ammunition. For the time being though, the NPA is sitting pretty. Among other things captured during that assault, the guerillas brought home 147 fully loaded AK magazines (clips). Also taken were 67 ammunition vests, for 7.65MM, shotgun shells, and other assorted ammunition. Cellphones, ICOM radios amd.cash totalling almost P15,000 ($310).
Loading the last of their take into the one van, four guerillas clambered into it as well, as the twelve others, and four on perimeter all climbed into the second van before both exited the parkinglot and casually drove away into Barangay Bonbon. It was there in Bonbon, at just after 10PM that evening, that responding PNP vehicles discovered both vans, abandoned and empty.
If Earth Savers Security Agency sounds familiar it is because I have discussed them before. On November 1st, 2011, the NPA's Front 20, the Conrado Heredia Command of the SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, launchrd one of its,periodic assaults against the Datu Bulawanon Mining Exploration Corporation in the municipality of Rosario, in Agusan del Sur Province. As the guerillas moved in on foot, crossing into Barangay Bayugan #3's Purok #2, they first neutralised an Earth Savers outpost a kilometer up the rode from the aforementioned mining operation. Three "guards" were critically wounded as they engaged the advancing guerillas.
Finally, when considering this latest Butuan City armed contact, remember that Barangay Bancasi housea both PRO13 AMD tge AFP's 4ID sattelite headquarters, Camp Rafael Rodriguez. The attack was anything if not audacious
Friday, November 18, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part X: Rebelyn Pitao's Ghost Won't be Silenced, Part 3
In the first two parts of this three part entry I discussed the legendary figurehead of the NPA in Southern Mindanao, Leonicio Pitao who is known by many as "Ka Parago." Pitao, who joined the NPA as a farmboy in the municipality of Bayugan in Agusan del Sur Province in 1978, had by the late 1980s become the military commander of what is now known as the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee, or SMRC, the entity overseeing the entire Davao Region, also known as Region 11.
I have also been discussing member's of Pitao's immediate family, primarily his sister Evelyn and brother Danilo who were both murdered. The raison d'etra for this three part series however, was Pitao's third child with his wife, Evangeline Maasin Pitao, herself a former NPA guerilla. This child, a daughter, was saddled with the name "Rebelyn," pronounced "Rebellion," although the 20 year old shared nothing of father's propencity for violence nor his narrow Maoist ideology as filtered by the NPA, or New People's Army. Instead she was a homebody, only leaving her mother's side to tend to her recently acquired job at Davao City's Saint Peter's College of Technology where Rebelyn had usually been covering a second grade class.
Because of the relative security found in Davao City Rebelyn truly thought herself above the fray. This false sense of security led the young lady to being adhering to a regular routine. That regular routuine ended Rebelyn's life on March 4th, 2009. Upon her body being discovered half naked, stabbed, raped, and strangled the next afternoon, her father almost immediately pointed at the AFP as the true culprit. Two days after the death Leonicio Pitao named four men:
1) Sergeant (Sgt.) Helvin Bitang
2) Corporal (Cpl.) Orly Pedring Pedregosa
3) Sergeant Adan Masulao
4) Sergeant Ben Tipait
Pitao announced that these four mens' identities had been discovered during a quick, but painstaking investigation by the NPA. As I noted in Part 2, Pitao was lying through his teeth. Two of the men, Adan Musalao and Ben Tipait do not exist, at least under those names. The other two men, Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa, were both members of the ISAFP, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and attached to MIG-11, or Military Intelligence Group for Region 11. Pitao knew these names because all those names were used by his brother Danilo's AFP handlers.
Still, with public opinion being what is and the media hounding him, the then Commanding Officer of the still very young 10ID (Infantry Divison), Major General Reynaldo B.Mapagu placed Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa on Barracks Restriction. At the time nobody bothered to ask the General just why he had put those two men on Restriction but did not do the same for the other two names.
In any event, as I noted in the preceding entry, by April 1st, 2009, less than 4 weeks after Leonicio Pitao announced those four names, he was ready to announce that there were 13 men tied to his daughter's death, some of who merely served as Military Assets, just like Danilo Santiago, Pitao's brother.
As luck or happenstance would have it, the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Leila de Lima- the same Ms.de Lima who is currently whoring herself- I mean serving the Aquino Administration- as the Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was then in town to hold a two day hearing examining the so called "Davao Death Squad," an Extra Judicial Execution jugganaut doing the bidding of then-Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. Simply adding three days onto the end of the Davao Death Squad hearings, Commissioner de Lima summoned all 13 men named by Pitao.
On the sidelines of the Davao Death Squad hearing Major Genneral Mapagu tried to convince Ms.de Lima that due to the sensitive nature of all 13 men's security- related work, having them testify in the very public hearings very well might jeapordise their lives. The back and forth between the AFP and CHR continued until, on the afternoon of the first scheduled session, April 1st, the two sides agreed to a hastily created booth in the General Function Room of the Royal Mandaya Hotel, the venue in downtown Davao City that was histing both the hearings. Sitting behind a curtain rigged to cover a seven meter by three meter enclosure, soldiers would be able to offer their statements. However, by 1PM not a single of the thirteen had shown up. As Ms.de Lima threatened to not only cite the summoned men, but division brass as well, Major General Mapagu finally sent six of the men to the hotel. As for the rest, they were deployed outside of Davao City, which was then the location for 10ID Headquarters, or else were merely Military Assets over whom the AFP held no legal jurisdiction outside of their specific roles as covert agents. They could not be compelled by the AFP to appear at a hearing in which no specific charges had been filed.
Meanwhile, the two eyewitnesses to Rebelyn Pitao's abduction were located:
1) Danny Peliciano, a triksiad driver who had been driving Rebelyn home that night
2) Dina Talaboc, the female passenger who had also been riding with Rebelyn in Mr.Peliciano's triksiad
Both had gone into hiding immediately after the abduction but with a media onslaught and repeated appeals to the two eyewitnesses, both had surfaced. The CPO, or City Police's CIDG, or Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, showed each witness a photo array of the men named by Leonicio Pitao. Neither witness was able to identify a single one of the thirteen purported attackers.
The three day CHR Hearing on Rebelyn's Death the case went they way of virtually all such cases, no matter the notiriety. Although Leonicio Pitao would eventually list a total of twenty one men in the incident:
1) Sergeant Adan Masulao, the non-existent man first listed just after the killing was actually using an AFP provided identity, "Adan Sulao," but his real name was Sergeant Romeo Marcos
2) Sergeant Ben Tipait, another one of the first "non-existent" men was actually named Sergeant Edmar Tipait whose alias while handling Assets was "Ben"
3) Corporal Orly Pedring Pedregosa
4) Sergeant Helvin Bitang
5) Sergeant Melvin Punla
6) Sergeant Caballero, first name not known by Pitao
7) Major Cabanalan, first name not known by Pitao
8) Colonel Caguiwa, first name not known by Pitao
9) Sergeant Senit, first name not known by Pitao
10) Corporal Wennie Carampatan
The rest being Assets, some of whom are listed by their Asset Code Names, which is all Pitao knew:
11) Ruben Bitang, uncle of Sergeant Helvin Bitang. Ruben was the driver of the white Toyota Revo cargo van that was used in the abduction, according to Pitao
12) Romeo Carreon
13) Hagto
14) Embac
15) Ariel, also known as "Benjack"
16) Reynaldo "Joemar" Desales
17) Macky Estremos
18) Bobong Gambuta
19) Marcelino Cuyot Payot
The final two were listed by Pitao as "John Does." Not one was ever prosecuted. However, the NPA would begin checking names off of that long list, one by one, as the SMRC's SPARU Team began killing each of those attackers.
The first of the 21 to be killed was Macky Estremos, before the CHR hearing even took place, in the municipality of Carmen, in Davao del Norte Province.
Then, on April 14th, 2009, Marcelino Cuyot Payot, killed in Panabo City.
On April 27th, 2009, Bobong Gambuta was killed in Panabo City as well.
4) On May 3rd, 2009, Ruben Bitang, the man whom Pitao accused of driving the van used by the abductors.
5) On October 25th, 2009, the first actual AFP member on the list was killed. when Corpral Pedregosa was killed in Davao City's Paquibato District.
On December 14eh, 2009, a SPARU Team killed an innocent man, Fernando Timbal. Mr.Timbal, a bank courier for the quasi-Governmental Land Bank while he was driving the branch manger's pickup truck, in Panabo City. He was hit by 12 rounds from a 45 caliber pistol.
The sixth killing is the one which inspired this Fourth Quarter entry; On Thursday, November 10th, 2011, at 6AM, Corporal Winnie Carampatan was driving his motorcycle in Davao City's Pquibato District, driving his two young children and his nephew to school. As he entered Barangay Malabog two men walked into the middle of the road, both drawing down and opening fire. Carampatan was killed, causing the motorcycle to skid off the road but all three of the children survived, albeit with bumps, scrapes, and of course traumatising them for life. After Rebelyn was killed the AFP dissolved the detachment from MIG-11 biouvaced in Panabo City, the one fingered as having killed Rebelyn. Carampatan had ended up with the 73IB based in Compostela Vallet's municipality of Mawab..
Disgustingly, the 10ID never mentioned Rebelyn Pitao OR her killing when eulogising Carampatan in media releases, "Our soldier was a non-combatant during the incident. Worst, he was killed before the members of his own family..." Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.
I have also been discussing member's of Pitao's immediate family, primarily his sister Evelyn and brother Danilo who were both murdered. The raison d'etra for this three part series however, was Pitao's third child with his wife, Evangeline Maasin Pitao, herself a former NPA guerilla. This child, a daughter, was saddled with the name "Rebelyn," pronounced "Rebellion," although the 20 year old shared nothing of father's propencity for violence nor his narrow Maoist ideology as filtered by the NPA, or New People's Army. Instead she was a homebody, only leaving her mother's side to tend to her recently acquired job at Davao City's Saint Peter's College of Technology where Rebelyn had usually been covering a second grade class.
Because of the relative security found in Davao City Rebelyn truly thought herself above the fray. This false sense of security led the young lady to being adhering to a regular routine. That regular routuine ended Rebelyn's life on March 4th, 2009. Upon her body being discovered half naked, stabbed, raped, and strangled the next afternoon, her father almost immediately pointed at the AFP as the true culprit. Two days after the death Leonicio Pitao named four men:
1) Sergeant (Sgt.) Helvin Bitang
2) Corporal (Cpl.) Orly Pedring Pedregosa
3) Sergeant Adan Masulao
4) Sergeant Ben Tipait
Pitao announced that these four mens' identities had been discovered during a quick, but painstaking investigation by the NPA. As I noted in Part 2, Pitao was lying through his teeth. Two of the men, Adan Musalao and Ben Tipait do not exist, at least under those names. The other two men, Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa, were both members of the ISAFP, Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and attached to MIG-11, or Military Intelligence Group for Region 11. Pitao knew these names because all those names were used by his brother Danilo's AFP handlers.
Still, with public opinion being what is and the media hounding him, the then Commanding Officer of the still very young 10ID (Infantry Divison), Major General Reynaldo B.Mapagu placed Sgt.Bitang and Cpl.Pedregosa on Barracks Restriction. At the time nobody bothered to ask the General just why he had put those two men on Restriction but did not do the same for the other two names.
In any event, as I noted in the preceding entry, by April 1st, 2009, less than 4 weeks after Leonicio Pitao announced those four names, he was ready to announce that there were 13 men tied to his daughter's death, some of who merely served as Military Assets, just like Danilo Santiago, Pitao's brother.
As luck or happenstance would have it, the Chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), Leila de Lima- the same Ms.de Lima who is currently whoring herself- I mean serving the Aquino Administration- as the Secretary of the Department of Justice (DOJ), was then in town to hold a two day hearing examining the so called "Davao Death Squad," an Extra Judicial Execution jugganaut doing the bidding of then-Mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo "Roddy" Duterte. Simply adding three days onto the end of the Davao Death Squad hearings, Commissioner de Lima summoned all 13 men named by Pitao.
On the sidelines of the Davao Death Squad hearing Major Genneral Mapagu tried to convince Ms.de Lima that due to the sensitive nature of all 13 men's security- related work, having them testify in the very public hearings very well might jeapordise their lives. The back and forth between the AFP and CHR continued until, on the afternoon of the first scheduled session, April 1st, the two sides agreed to a hastily created booth in the General Function Room of the Royal Mandaya Hotel, the venue in downtown Davao City that was histing both the hearings. Sitting behind a curtain rigged to cover a seven meter by three meter enclosure, soldiers would be able to offer their statements. However, by 1PM not a single of the thirteen had shown up. As Ms.de Lima threatened to not only cite the summoned men, but division brass as well, Major General Mapagu finally sent six of the men to the hotel. As for the rest, they were deployed outside of Davao City, which was then the location for 10ID Headquarters, or else were merely Military Assets over whom the AFP held no legal jurisdiction outside of their specific roles as covert agents. They could not be compelled by the AFP to appear at a hearing in which no specific charges had been filed.
Meanwhile, the two eyewitnesses to Rebelyn Pitao's abduction were located:
1) Danny Peliciano, a triksiad driver who had been driving Rebelyn home that night
2) Dina Talaboc, the female passenger who had also been riding with Rebelyn in Mr.Peliciano's triksiad
Both had gone into hiding immediately after the abduction but with a media onslaught and repeated appeals to the two eyewitnesses, both had surfaced. The CPO, or City Police's CIDG, or Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, showed each witness a photo array of the men named by Leonicio Pitao. Neither witness was able to identify a single one of the thirteen purported attackers.
The three day CHR Hearing on Rebelyn's Death the case went they way of virtually all such cases, no matter the notiriety. Although Leonicio Pitao would eventually list a total of twenty one men in the incident:
1) Sergeant Adan Masulao, the non-existent man first listed just after the killing was actually using an AFP provided identity, "Adan Sulao," but his real name was Sergeant Romeo Marcos
2) Sergeant Ben Tipait, another one of the first "non-existent" men was actually named Sergeant Edmar Tipait whose alias while handling Assets was "Ben"
3) Corporal Orly Pedring Pedregosa
4) Sergeant Helvin Bitang
5) Sergeant Melvin Punla
6) Sergeant Caballero, first name not known by Pitao
7) Major Cabanalan, first name not known by Pitao
8) Colonel Caguiwa, first name not known by Pitao
9) Sergeant Senit, first name not known by Pitao
10) Corporal Wennie Carampatan
The rest being Assets, some of whom are listed by their Asset Code Names, which is all Pitao knew:
11) Ruben Bitang, uncle of Sergeant Helvin Bitang. Ruben was the driver of the white Toyota Revo cargo van that was used in the abduction, according to Pitao
12) Romeo Carreon
13) Hagto
14) Embac
15) Ariel, also known as "Benjack"
16) Reynaldo "Joemar" Desales
17) Macky Estremos
18) Bobong Gambuta
19) Marcelino Cuyot Payot
The final two were listed by Pitao as "John Does." Not one was ever prosecuted. However, the NPA would begin checking names off of that long list, one by one, as the SMRC's SPARU Team began killing each of those attackers.
The first of the 21 to be killed was Macky Estremos, before the CHR hearing even took place, in the municipality of Carmen, in Davao del Norte Province.
Then, on April 14th, 2009, Marcelino Cuyot Payot, killed in Panabo City.
On April 27th, 2009, Bobong Gambuta was killed in Panabo City as well.
4) On May 3rd, 2009, Ruben Bitang, the man whom Pitao accused of driving the van used by the abductors.
5) On October 25th, 2009, the first actual AFP member on the list was killed. when Corpral Pedregosa was killed in Davao City's Paquibato District.
On December 14eh, 2009, a SPARU Team killed an innocent man, Fernando Timbal. Mr.Timbal, a bank courier for the quasi-Governmental Land Bank while he was driving the branch manger's pickup truck, in Panabo City. He was hit by 12 rounds from a 45 caliber pistol.
The sixth killing is the one which inspired this Fourth Quarter entry; On Thursday, November 10th, 2011, at 6AM, Corporal Winnie Carampatan was driving his motorcycle in Davao City's Pquibato District, driving his two young children and his nephew to school. As he entered Barangay Malabog two men walked into the middle of the road, both drawing down and opening fire. Carampatan was killed, causing the motorcycle to skid off the road but all three of the children survived, albeit with bumps, scrapes, and of course traumatising them for life. After Rebelyn was killed the AFP dissolved the detachment from MIG-11 biouvaced in Panabo City, the one fingered as having killed Rebelyn. Carampatan had ended up with the 73IB based in Compostela Vallet's municipality of Mawab..
Disgustingly, the 10ID never mentioned Rebelyn Pitao OR her killing when eulogising Carampatan in media releases, "Our soldier was a non-combatant during the incident. Worst, he was killed before the members of his own family..." Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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.
Monday, October 10, 2011
NPA Armed Contacts for the Fourth Quarter of 2011, Part I: The Release of Four BJMP Personnel
In my entry, "NPA Armed Contacts for the Third Quarter of 2011, Part," I discussed the NPA's capturing of four BJMP, or Bureau of Jail Management and Prisons, employees during an operation to free high ranking NPA guerilla Dennis Rodinas in July of 2011. With the AFP, or Armed Forces of the Philippines' capture of a large NPA encampment in the municipality of Cateel, in Davao Oriental Province on May 29th, 2011, Front 20, the Conrado Heredia Command of the SMRC, or Southern Mindanao Regional Committee ceased functioning as the Custodial Command of Mindanao. Instead Front 53, the Herminio Alfonso Command of the SMRC assumed that duty. So it was that after initially being taken captive by Front 88 of the NCMRC, or Northcentral Mindanao Regional Committee the four men:
1) Inspector Murphy Bomoway Todyog, Warden of the Misamis Occidental Provincial Jail in Ozamiz City
2) Inspector Erico Dacillo Llamasares, Warden of the Cagayan del Oro City Jail who had been hitching a ride home in a round about fashion
3) Special Jail Officer 3 Rogelio Begontes
4) Jail Officer 1 Rolando Delta Bajoyo Jr.
were passed from NPA Front to Front until they reached the Custodial Command, Front 53, which is centered upon the border of Davao City and North Cotabato Province. The capture of BJMP personnel created quite a stir because heretofore such functionaries were considered verboten as they are technically non-combatants although a creative interpretation of IHL/LOAC, or International Humanitarian Law/Laws of Armed Conflict CAN render them otherwise. In any event it definitely marked a turning point in the NPA's 42 year old insurgency and sent a definite chill up the spine of many a civil servant. All the more so when, on August 10th, the NPA formally bestowed POW (Prisoner of War) Status upon the four men. Obstensibly a positive development in the immediate sense because it guaranteed civil treatment of the four men in accordance with the Geneva Convention since the NPA, via its above board representative the NDFP, or National Democratic Front of the Philippines, and the Government, had jointly inked the CARIHLHR, or Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights as the first of four projected Interim Agreements of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process is known.
However, the conferring of POW Status boded poory for the long term because it had shown that the NPA was willing to ratchet up the stakes and would now possibly be focusing on capturing more than AFP, PNP (Philippine National Police), and CAAs (Civilian Active Auxiliaries as the cornerstone of the AFP tactical facet of its COIN, aka Counterinsurgency Programme are collectively known). If the NPA was now willing to capture BJMP personnel who would be immune? Conceivably any state representative was now fair game.
The actual rationale behind this "widening" of the conflict was the impasse in the GHP-NDFP Peace Process. As I have discussed in depth in my "GPH-NDFP Peace Process" entries the Talks began wonderfully in Oslo, Norway in February of 2011 but with an undercurrent of tension related to the failure of the Government to uphold the bi-lateral Joint Agreement known as JASIG, or the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees that both sides had entered into way back in 1995. Since again, I have discussed JASIG in depth in my aforementioned "GPH-NDFP Peace Process" entries, I will not bore my readership with yet another recounting except to say, for brevity's sake, that it involved the protection of all CPP/NPA members directly involved in the Peace Process from arrest and subsequent detention. With well over a dozen (at one point nearly two dozen) figures in prison the Government's upholding of JASIG leaves a lot to be desired.
In every NPA capture of the last decade prisoners have been released at about the two week mark with a couple of exceptions lasting more or less four weeks. The four BJMP prisoners have spent nearly four months incognito. During these ften weeks major AFP tactical operations have taken place in what the AFP likes to optimistically label "Search and Rescue Missions" but what in reality actually amount to a "gross disregard for the lives of such prisoners." Indeed, the four men had been scheduled for release on October 5th after being offered in exchange for an AFP SOMO/SOMA (Stop of Military Operations/Stop of Military Action) on September 29th. When the desired SOMO/SOMA didn't materialise the NPA opted to still go forward with the planned releases setting the aforementioned date of October 5th. When, on October 4th the AFP began amping up the intensity in its tactical operations the NPA scuttled the planned release. Specifically cited was an operation by the 57IB (Infantry Battalion) within the municipality of Magpet in North Cotabato Province. Only after North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Talino Mendoza screamed bloody murder did the 57IB sheepishly cut the operation short and pull out of town. Having achieved this extremely minor concession atop the larger promise of the Government in Manila to work on the JASIG issue, the four men were released on Saturday, October 8th, in Magpet's Barangay Balite.
During the three hour propaganda fest the mayors of two Bukidnon Provincial towns, Kibawe and Kitaotao joined the Mayor of Makilala (North Cotabato Province) in sitting through that uber-boring snooze fest as Front 53's leader, Ka Jody, enjoyed his first hand over and put everybody to sleep with non-sensical claptrap about Mao and the Revolution. Also on hand were representatives of local multi-sectoral front groups as well as Governor Mendoza, Vice Governor Gregorio Ipong and Catholic clergyman of the Liberation Theological cesspool UCCP, and other assorted hanger ons desperate to share in an event the nation's media ignored.
The four released men were immediately driven to Kidapawan City, the provincial capital of North Cotabato where yet another propaganda fest- this time for the Government- took place at the Bishop's Official Residence. There Mr.Bajoyo, now in tears, mooned over the NPA, and I quote verbatim, "We are so grateful that the NPA treated us so well, they treated us like brothers." Stockholm Syndrome anyone? In more important news perhaps, the two senior men, Warden Inspectors Todyog and Llamasares are now under investigation for their roles, if any, in the NPA operation that sent them obstensibly into captivity. The van transporting several inmates including a very high value NPA prisoner, the object of the NPA operation that led to the four BJMP personnel being taken, was without a security escort and more importantly, had taken an unsual route. Seeing as how that route is never taken it stands to reason that the NPA had inside assistance since Front 88 was able to implement a checkpoint in advance of the van's arrival. Maybe a couple of men wish they hadn't been "released."
1) Inspector Murphy Bomoway Todyog, Warden of the Misamis Occidental Provincial Jail in Ozamiz City
2) Inspector Erico Dacillo Llamasares, Warden of the Cagayan del Oro City Jail who had been hitching a ride home in a round about fashion
3) Special Jail Officer 3 Rogelio Begontes
4) Jail Officer 1 Rolando Delta Bajoyo Jr.
were passed from NPA Front to Front until they reached the Custodial Command, Front 53, which is centered upon the border of Davao City and North Cotabato Province. The capture of BJMP personnel created quite a stir because heretofore such functionaries were considered verboten as they are technically non-combatants although a creative interpretation of IHL/LOAC, or International Humanitarian Law/Laws of Armed Conflict CAN render them otherwise. In any event it definitely marked a turning point in the NPA's 42 year old insurgency and sent a definite chill up the spine of many a civil servant. All the more so when, on August 10th, the NPA formally bestowed POW (Prisoner of War) Status upon the four men. Obstensibly a positive development in the immediate sense because it guaranteed civil treatment of the four men in accordance with the Geneva Convention since the NPA, via its above board representative the NDFP, or National Democratic Front of the Philippines, and the Government, had jointly inked the CARIHLHR, or Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights as the first of four projected Interim Agreements of the GPH-NDFP Peace Process is known.
However, the conferring of POW Status boded poory for the long term because it had shown that the NPA was willing to ratchet up the stakes and would now possibly be focusing on capturing more than AFP, PNP (Philippine National Police), and CAAs (Civilian Active Auxiliaries as the cornerstone of the AFP tactical facet of its COIN, aka Counterinsurgency Programme are collectively known). If the NPA was now willing to capture BJMP personnel who would be immune? Conceivably any state representative was now fair game.
The actual rationale behind this "widening" of the conflict was the impasse in the GHP-NDFP Peace Process. As I have discussed in depth in my "GPH-NDFP Peace Process" entries the Talks began wonderfully in Oslo, Norway in February of 2011 but with an undercurrent of tension related to the failure of the Government to uphold the bi-lateral Joint Agreement known as JASIG, or the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees that both sides had entered into way back in 1995. Since again, I have discussed JASIG in depth in my aforementioned "GPH-NDFP Peace Process" entries, I will not bore my readership with yet another recounting except to say, for brevity's sake, that it involved the protection of all CPP/NPA members directly involved in the Peace Process from arrest and subsequent detention. With well over a dozen (at one point nearly two dozen) figures in prison the Government's upholding of JASIG leaves a lot to be desired.
In every NPA capture of the last decade prisoners have been released at about the two week mark with a couple of exceptions lasting more or less four weeks. The four BJMP prisoners have spent nearly four months incognito. During these ften weeks major AFP tactical operations have taken place in what the AFP likes to optimistically label "Search and Rescue Missions" but what in reality actually amount to a "gross disregard for the lives of such prisoners." Indeed, the four men had been scheduled for release on October 5th after being offered in exchange for an AFP SOMO/SOMA (Stop of Military Operations/Stop of Military Action) on September 29th. When the desired SOMO/SOMA didn't materialise the NPA opted to still go forward with the planned releases setting the aforementioned date of October 5th. When, on October 4th the AFP began amping up the intensity in its tactical operations the NPA scuttled the planned release. Specifically cited was an operation by the 57IB (Infantry Battalion) within the municipality of Magpet in North Cotabato Province. Only after North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Talino Mendoza screamed bloody murder did the 57IB sheepishly cut the operation short and pull out of town. Having achieved this extremely minor concession atop the larger promise of the Government in Manila to work on the JASIG issue, the four men were released on Saturday, October 8th, in Magpet's Barangay Balite.
During the three hour propaganda fest the mayors of two Bukidnon Provincial towns, Kibawe and Kitaotao joined the Mayor of Makilala (North Cotabato Province) in sitting through that uber-boring snooze fest as Front 53's leader, Ka Jody, enjoyed his first hand over and put everybody to sleep with non-sensical claptrap about Mao and the Revolution. Also on hand were representatives of local multi-sectoral front groups as well as Governor Mendoza, Vice Governor Gregorio Ipong and Catholic clergyman of the Liberation Theological cesspool UCCP, and other assorted hanger ons desperate to share in an event the nation's media ignored.
The four released men were immediately driven to Kidapawan City, the provincial capital of North Cotabato where yet another propaganda fest- this time for the Government- took place at the Bishop's Official Residence. There Mr.Bajoyo, now in tears, mooned over the NPA, and I quote verbatim, "We are so grateful that the NPA treated us so well, they treated us like brothers." Stockholm Syndrome anyone? In more important news perhaps, the two senior men, Warden Inspectors Todyog and Llamasares are now under investigation for their roles, if any, in the NPA operation that sent them obstensibly into captivity. The van transporting several inmates including a very high value NPA prisoner, the object of the NPA operation that led to the four BJMP personnel being taken, was without a security escort and more importantly, had taken an unsual route. Seeing as how that route is never taken it stands to reason that the NPA had inside assistance since Front 88 was able to implement a checkpoint in advance of the van's arrival. Maybe a couple of men wish they hadn't been "released."
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