CPP: Duterte’s anti-NPA Task Force will ‘fail’ to weaken NPA

FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in his speech during the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) Luzon Island Cluster Conference at the SMX Convention Center in Davao City on October 22, 2018, reiterates his stern warning to the public officials to avoid getting involved in any illegal activities. RENE LUMAWAG/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-New People’s Army (NPA) Task Force will not succeed in “weakening” its armed wing.

“Duterte’s anti-NPA Task Force will, however, fail in weakening the NPA,” the CPP said on Friday, November 2.

“On the contrary, with his strongman tactics, Duterte is succeeding only in pushing more and more people to join and support the New People’s Army,” it added.

To recall, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo on Thursday said Duterte announced the creation of the National Task Force to “address the armed conflict occasioned by the local communists” when he convened the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EC-NSC) in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu last Tuesday.

“The President was unwavering with regard to the issue as a result of the communist group’s efforts in infiltrating and overthrowing the government,” Panelo said.

The CPP, however, believes that such move is a “rehash of the so-called ‘whole-of-government’ approach” by the administration of former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III “in line with the United States (US) counter-insurgency doctrine.”

“It aims to mobilize and train efforts of all state agencies to deceive the people by pretending to address poverty with superficial programs. This will be combined with so-called ‘localized peace talks’ combined with corruption-laden ‘integration programs,’” the CPP stressed.

The anti-NPA Task Force, it added, will also become a tool against the “legal democratic opposition” that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) call as the “political infrastructure” of the CPP-NPA.

“It will surely aim at various organizations and political forces which the AFP has recently labeled as fronts or in conspiracy with the CPP,” the group said.

“Duterte’s task force will put the entire state machinery to high gear under the regime’s effort to crackdown against all opposition,” it continued.

During the EC-NSC meeting, Duterte also directed an in-depth investigation into the incident in Sagay City, Negros Occidental, where nine sugarcane workers, including two minors, were shot dead.

The President earlier tagged the communist rebels as suspects behind the farmers’ slay, saying that it was their “style” to kill their comrades and pin the blame on the government.