By ALAN JUANITO
Spokesperson, Julito Tiro Command
NPA North Central Mindanao Regional Operations Command
The police and armed forces (of the Aquino government) issued a false statement in saying that Victoriano Dimco, whom they captured on 5 September 2014 in Barangay (village) Puerto, Cagayan de Oro City, is an active member of the New People’s Army in North Central Mindanao. This is merely a desperate move on the part of the Aquino regime to save face amidst offensive actions of the NPA in the region.
Victoriano Dimco, aka “Ka Berting” is a former NPA member. After almost a decade of service in the revolutionary movement as a Red fighter, he quit in 2007. In fact, he surrendered to the government so he can work and provide for his poor family as an ordinary civilian. Since then he has had no further connection with the revolutionary movement in the region whatsoever. It is not true that he was sent to do intelligence operations while working as a construction worker in Cagayan de Oro where he was arrested.
The arrest serves no other purpose than creating an illusion in the eyes of the public that the Aquino regime’s counterinsurgency campaign in the region under Oplan Bayanihan is successful despite the fact that the 4th Infantry Division is like a panicking firefighter desperately trying to douse the flames of the revolutionary movement in its area of responsibility.
With this arrest, they further exposed the farce that is the government’s surrender campaign for Red fighters. After using the millions of pesos of funds for the program as a source of ill-gotten wealth for corrupt military officials, they capture those who swallow the bait or those who surrender like Mr. Dimco.
Ironically, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) made the devious arrest while the NPA is processing the formal release of its two prisoners of war in Bukidnon as a gesture of goodwill and sincerity of the revolutionary movement, in relation to the resumption of peace-talks between the National Democratic Font of the Philippines and the government of the Philippines.
The reactionary government should see and understand that terrorizing civilians in the name of suppressing the intensifying civil war is a futile task. If anything, it will only fan the flames of the people’s revolutionary resistance.
