Palace monitoring gov’t troops’ safety in truce; 4 NPAs killed in last-minute clash

DAVAO CITY — President Duterte said yesterday that he will be closely monitoring information on his ground troops while the bilateral ceasefire with the communist rebels is in effect and the peace talks in

Oslo, Norway is under way.

Hours before the ceasefire declaration, four communist rebels were killed and three soldiers wounded in two separate clashes.

Holding a press conference in this city on the first hour of the ceasefire taking effect, Duterte said he would have to ask the men and women who were dying for the country to tell him the actual situation on the ground: “Are you safe over there?”

It was Saturday afternoon when Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, before departing for Norway, announced that the President has restored all the operational guidelines of his ceasefire declaration for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP), and other security units of the government beginning midnight.

“I am pleased to announce that President Rodrigo Duterte has restored the effects of the unilateral ceasefire with the CPP/ NPA/NDF effective 12 midnight tonight, 21 August 2016,” Dureza said.

Director General Ronald dela Rosa, PNP Chief, said he has ordered all chiefs of police and other commanders to maximize the security of all police camps and police stations as the government forces go on defensive after the ceasefire declaration.

The move, according to Dela Rosa, is to ensure that no attacks would succeed against police stations which have been the favorite targets of the communist rebels in the past.

Just before the declaration of the truce of the NPA for instance, suspected communist rebels attacked a military detachment in Laiya Aplaya in Batangas that left three government militiamen wounded.

Lt. Col. Rommel Pagayon, commanding officer of the Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion (26th IB), said his operating troops were conducting prophylactic patrol in villages of San Luis town, particularly in Barangay San Pedro when chanced upon some 30 heavily armed NPA rebels at 7:50 a.m. on Saturday.

The encountered rebels were members of guerilla-Front Committee 88 of the CPP-NPA Northeastern Mindanao Regional Committee under certain “Commander Antoy”, he said.

Pagayon said his men also seized from the slain rebels high-powered automatic weapons, assorted medicines and personal belongings and subversive documents.

Meanwhile, Marine Col. Edgard A. Arevalo, the chief of the AFP’s Public Affairs Office, said the President’s clear instructions for the AFP is to restore its erstwhile operational guidelines for the truce and that it has already been communicated forthwith to all AFP units on the ground by all means possible.

“The nation can expect that the guidelines will be followed to the letter as it has been so prior its lifting by the Commander-in-Chief due to the want of similar declaration from and attacks on the AFP personnel by the other party to the talk,” Arevalo said.

“We are as hopeful, and as prayerful as the nation and its people are that this restoration of Ceasefire by the President will be matched with the same zeal and sincerity by the other party. So that in the end peace, progress, stability, and security will be for our people to relish,” he added.

Meanwhile, Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez expressed hope that such declaration would last this time. “(I) Hope it would last,” he said, recalling how Duterte lifted the government’s previous unilateral ceasefire when the communist group failed to reciprocate the gesture.

Basilan Bishop Martin Jumoad also lauded the move saying any effort towards peace should always be welcomed. “We always welcome efforts which are meant to forge peace,” he said. (With reports from Francis T. Wakefield and Leslie Ann G. Aquino)