By Visayas Today

Communist guerrillas have been ordered to “exert all effort to mount tactical offensives” against government forces, “especially those behind fascist crimes,” in the wake of the recent arrests of scores of activists in Negros and Manila.

At the same time, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), in a statement dated November 2, denied that the more than 50 persons arrested during simultaneous raids in Bacolod City on October 31 are members of the New People’s Army (NPA), calling the claim a “brazen lie” intended to “conceal the martial law crackdown on mass-based organizations.”

Among those nabbed in Bacolod were officers of progressive organizations, including the National Federation of Sugar Workers, Kilusang Mayo Uno and Karapatan, all of which the government and state security forces openly accuse of being “legal fronts” of the rebel movement.

Also arrested as Anne Krueger of the alternative media outfit Paghimutad.

Aside from the Bacolod raids, joint police and Army teams also made arrests in Escalante City and, in Manila, nabbed the chair of women’s group Gabriela and her husband, Kadamay-Metro Manila spokesperson Michael Tan Bartolome.

Authorities claimed to have found weapons, ammunition and explosives at the office of progressive groups. However, the targets of the raids insist these were “planted.”

The CPP said the mass arrest “marks a heightening of the Duterte regime’s fascist drive against all democratic forces” and called it “a brazen display of force and abuse of state powers” intended to “terrorize people” and “silence the broad masses against worsening oppression.”

It was also “a dress rehearsal for a nationwide crackdown,” the CPP added.

However, the statement predicted that the suppression would only lead encourage people “to join the New People’s Army or seek its protection.” #