DILG urges provinces to help fight insurgency, create TFs

THE Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is urging local officials to help fight the insurgency and create special task forces following the creation of a national Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (nTF-Elcac).

In a statement, Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año said he expects the country’s 81 provinces “to do their share in bringing the local insurgency to its conclusion.”

“With no less than President Rodrigo R. Duterte himself taking the role as national Task Force Chairperson, provincial governments should follow his lead by taking more active and decisive actions to counter communist terrorist groups through the creation of a provincial task force,” Año said.

According to Año, the primary responsibility of the provincial task force is to harmonize and optimize government efforts and resources at the provincial level to address the root causes of insurgency and attain sustainable peace and development.

In December last year, President Duterte signed Executive Order 70, which institutionalized a whole-ofnation approach in dealing with insurgency through the creation of the nTF-Elcac.

Local government units, including the provinces, the DILG chief said, could play a key role in “wiping out” the decades-old local communist insurgency problem because “they are more grounded on the societal issues in their localities which are being exploited by communist terrorist groups to influence locals to take up arms against the government.”

He said, “Putting an end to insurgency does not only require a military solution because this will address only one facet of the issue. We should, therefore, work together and put our act together as one nation—starting from the provinces, cities, towns, and barangay—to lick the insurgency problem.”

Meanwhile, the DILG chief lauded the Provincial Government of Cavite for being the first one to organize a Provincial Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (PTF-Elcac) through a resolution approved by the Provincial Peace and Order Council on March 8 in Trece Martires City.

The Provincial Task Force will be headed by Governor Jesus Crispin Remulla as chairman. He will be assisted by Brig. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos Jr., commander of the 202nd Infantry Brigade, and Police Col. William Segun, director of Cavite Police Provincial Office, as cochairmen.