Sison afraid of E0 70: official
MANILA – Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria “Joma” Sison virtually admitted his defeat when he said that Executive Order 70 or the “whole nation approach” in ending the local communist armed conflict is the “most comprehensive obstacle to peace”.
Major General Antonio Parlade, Jr., Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Deputy Chief-of-Staff for Civil-Military Operations, in a statement to the Philippine News Agency Friday, said Sison’s statement, which was made during an interview with ABSCBN on Dec. 12, showed that he is deathly afraid of Executive Order 70 and its creations which include the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
“Keeping in mind the duplicity and ambiguity of these communists, we just have to deduce the reverse of most of what they utter. Sison is once again propagandizing, if not blatantly lying when he declares that EO (70) is an obstacle to peace talks. What this liar actually meant is that the EO is too comprehensive for them to even come up with an effective and acceptable counter-narrative. EO-70 is damn too precise that it hits all the CPP programs, including recruitment of cadres, International Solidarity Works, UN infiltration, foreign funding, AgRev (agrarian revolution), mass mobilization, and all,” he added.
Add to this is the series of defeat being experienced
by communist rebels and their allies in the countryside which the CPP-New People’s Army (NPA) attributed to poor leadership and quality of their cadres, Parlade said.
“In the ‘Limang Taong Programa ng Partido (20172021)’ which was recovered in an encounter in Samar, an entry dated 15/01/2019 actually asks ‘why there are so many who are going down the hills to surrender?’ In their own assessment, they said it’s the lack of leadership and poor quality of their cadres. This is very revealing as they have been suffering from tactical defeat after defeat, all over the country. Senior cadres getting killed, thousands of arms captured, 11,697 surrenders, and child recruits (aged 12-17) forced to replace them,” he said.
With the Local Peace Engagements (LPEs) which was initiated and conducted by local government units, mass surrenders of NPA fighters and supporters have been the normal course of events in the past months, he added.
This initiative, he said, has been aided further by stakeholders genuinely interested in peace and accompanied by initiatives and programs for poverty reduction, livelihood and basic services, infrastructures, local government empowerment, law enforcement, and sectoral unification to mend “cultural wounds” inflicted as a result of tribal infiltration and in-fighting.
“All of these programs are being implemented without the presence of armed state forces. They are designed to catalyze development in environments of genuine peace. For the most part, they are being implemented by former soldiers in the cabinet who knew exactly what this insurgency is all about --- Good Governance. Sison is either too stupid or naive not to see the difference between the peace we are already achieving and the fake peace they are trying to offer again,” he added.
All these efforts were highlighted last December 10 in the Zamboanga Peninsula where 51 NPA rebels surrendered to the government after successful LPEs.
Aireen Mentaloroc alias “Boni”, former member of the Main Regional Guerilla Unit, Western Mindanao Regional Party Committee and the group’s spokesperson said they all opted to surrender as they could no longer take the hardship in the mountains.
Also, they found it a pleasant surprise that the government gave them protection from the NPA rebels who are trying hard to prevent them from surrendering.
“Obviously she found out that there is just too much propaganda and lies in the party when they were told they will be hurt by the government if they surrender,” he said.