By JUANITO MAGBANUA
Apolinario Gatmaitan Command – NPA-Negros
The Apolinario “Boy” Gatmaitan Command (AGC) salutes the unit of the New People’s Army under the Roselyn “Ka Jean” Pelle Command (North Negros) for a successful military action against the 62nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IB-PA), where two elements of the enemy were killed in action, and many others wounded based on initial reports. The encounter took place in Hacienda Lope, Barangay (village) Andres Bonifacio in Cadiz City on 31 January 2012. The said tactical offensive frustrated the plan of the Armed Forces of the Philippines for a coordinated campaign against the NPA in the said area that has been declared by the military as insurgency-free lately.
The AGC also recognizes the bravery and daringness of the members of a unit under the Armando Sumayang Command (Southwest Front) that fought much superior columns of composite forces of the 47th IB-PA that assaulted a temporary NPA encampment in Sitio (sub-village) Akol, Barangay Manlocahoc, Sipalay City on 28 January 2012. Four members of the Scout Rangers (SR) were killed in action, based on the reports of the locals who saw the bodies secretly taken away by the military.
On the other hand, the people are saddened by the martyrdom of a Red Fighter. The military has now occupied the local market and are conducting illegal searches and interrogation of the village folk in the area of the firefight. Sipalay is a target of many foreign mining companies.
The AFP under the 3rd Infantry Division, Philippine Army, is desperate and is launching coordinated offensives for the expansion of mining firms and agri-business projects of the US-Aquino regime that is being secured by the Internal Security Plan OPlan Bayanihan. The hacendero-bolantero-shee comprador Governor Maranon is fuming mad on the results of the daydream military achievements of Col Oscar Lactao, Commanding Officer of the PA’s 303rd Brigade, who keeps on harping that the NPA is “weak, low morale, hungry, on the run, etc” but keeps on demanding for more military troops and budget.
The livelihood of the peasants and farm workers is deteriorating because of landlessness, poor production, low wages, low prices of produce, forced toll-collection of military detachments along the way, high prices of basic goods, and indebtedness. The intensification of militarization in the countryside is worsened by the abuses of the mercenary paramilitary group Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade, and are teaching the masses to fight back.
It is only through the armed revolution that the demands of the peasants and workers for genuine land reform and nationalist industrialization can be realized against the reign of land monopoly, imperialist domination of the local economy and the preservation of a puppet, fascist and anti-people US-Aquino Regime.