MILITARY DECLARES QUEZON’S BONDOC PENINSULA ‘LIBERATED’ FROM NPA

LUCENA CITY—The military in Southern Luzon declared on Friday that the Bondoc Peninsula area in Quezon province has been liberated from the clutches of New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.

“Bondoc Peninsula is now safe. The stigma that the district is turbulent, it’s now gone,” Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., the Armed Forces of the Philippines Southern Luzon Command (Solcom) chief, said during the Provincial Boardsession on Friday.

Bondoc Peninsula, in the province’s third district, has been known in the past as the bastion of NPA insurgency in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon).

The area was a known agrarian hot spot, where activists and farmers engaged in land disputes with several families who control big landholdings in the towns of San Francisco, San Andres, San Narciso, Mulanay and Buenavista.

Parlade said communist guerrillas still operated in the southern part of the province composed of the third and fourth districts but he claimed Solcom “was far ahead” in its goal to end the communist insurgency in Quezon.

“Based on our records, they are only 33 (NPA rebels left). But according to our people on the ground, the group is only composed of 23 because of lack of firearms for the others,” he said.

“Before, they were more than 90 combatants,” he added.

‘Headless’

The military claimed the number of NPA guerillas dwindled because of mass surrenders and deaths on the battlefields against government forces.

He said another 120 rebels from the NPA main regional guerrilla unit still operates in Calabarzon region “but they are now headless.”

Provincial Board Member Rhodora Tan, in a privilege speech, urged the rebels to become the “front-liners for peace” by surrendering and returning to mainstream communities.

In September 2019, the Provincial Board has declared members of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the NPA, as persona non grata in Quezon province.