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The Leonardo Panaligan Command of the New People’s Army Central Negros Guerrilla Front (LPC-NPA) found BGen. Benedict Arevalo ridiculous when he bragged about his achievements as 303rd Brigade Commander.

According to LPC-NPA spokesperson JB Regalado, Arevalo based his accomplishments on 21 alleged encounters of army troops with the NPA and even took into his account the many tactical offensives such as ambuscades launched by the NPA guerrilla fronts in Central, North and South Negros against the military.

“Included in the victories that he boasted about were the killings of innocent civilians as a result of Oplan Sauron, illegal arrests based on trumped-up charges, and fake surrenders of peasants,” Regalado said in a press statement today.

“These are only ‘pa-pogi’ points using awards to delude himself and his troops and to further his corruption in the E-CLIP program,” he added.

Regalado claimed that Arevalo did not gain any mark of victory during his more than one year term in Negros.

“Not one guerrilla front was decimated, no mass base was destroyed and, most of all, the membership of the Party and the NPA increased together with the expanding and strengthening of its mass base,” said Regalado.

Army recruitment crisis

Regalado pointed out further that the AFP is experiencing a recruitment crisis, also for the Civil Auxiliary Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU).

He said that as a result the [AFP] enforces a recruitment quota of 25 CAFGU per barrio on barangay officials wherein the army will sponsor firearms only for 10.

“In addition to their crisis is the numerous absences without leave in their rank in file because of the bad treatment of army officials towards their troops and their fear of the NPA’s tactical offensives,” Regalado said.

The 303rd Brigade has hidden their casualties during several NPA offensives from the public, said Regalado.

Last November 30, the LPC-NPA mounted simultaneous offensives on the CAFGU detachments of Barangay Balogo in Guihulngan City and Barangay Alingasaw in Moises Padilla town.

According to Regalado, CAFGU members were drunk and singing videoke when the NPA sniped and harassed the Balogo detachment fatally wounding two auxiliary forces and injuring more.

Call for peace

The LPC-NPA also unites with the people in calling for the resumption and the serious treatment of the GRP-NDFP peace talks that was sabotaged by militarists in the GRP.

“While the root causes of [civil] war in the Philippines are not resolved there is fertile ground for the revolutionary movement to flourish; for the implementation of agrarian revolution and national industrialization; and for the liberation of the country and people from indebtedness, backwardness and grave poverty,” it ended.###