Army to deploy special teams vs NPA rebels

FORT DEL PILAR, Baguio City — Special Operation Teams (SOT) will be deployed throughout the country to fight the resurgent communist rebels, the Armed Forces said yesterday.

AFP chief of staff Gen. Diomedio Villanueva said he has directed the additional deployment of SOTs in identified communist strongholds to try and decrease the number of dissidents this year.

He however acknowledged that government troops are having a hard time fighting the communists because of the increasing strength of the rebels.

Meanwhile, the Tarlac-based AFP Northern Luzon Command chief Brig. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia assured that they are winning "inch by inch" the war against the communist insurgency in northern and central Luzon with the recent debacles of the rebels based in these regions.

"Compared to other areas in the country, the NL and CL areas are relatively manageable in terms of the insurgency situation," Garcia noted, adding there are "only about 1,400 rebels now here compared to its peak during the late ’70s to late ’80s when there were battalion-sized NPA formations."

The Nolcom commanding general also noted it was in Northern Luzon where the national headquarters of the New People’s Army was stationed, somewhere in Sagada, Mountain Province in Cordillera.

The large camp serving as the headquarters of the NPA leadership then headed by Romulo Kintanar was overrun by the AFP in the early ’90s. Kintanar has since surfaced from the underground and now serves as consultant of House Speaker Jose de Venecia on the peace process.

Earlier reports by the AFP said rebels in Region I and the Cordillera rose to more than 11 percent last year compared to only a 4.5 percent increase in 2000.

"Lumalakas talaga ang puwersa nila (Their strength is increasing) because of the increase in their number and weaponry," Villanueva acknowledged during his visit to the Philippine Military Academy last Sunday.

Villanueva was guest of honor and speaker during recognition rites for the PMA Sanlingan Class of 2005 composed of 205 plebes.

He added that most of the NPA camps are located on top of steep slopes or in mountainous areas. "But with the deployment of more SOTs, we hope to start arresting and decreasing their numbers within the following months," he vowed.

Villanueva, at the same time, refused to comment on reports that soldiers participating in the RP-US joint military exercises would go after the NPA after finishing off the Abu Sayyaf.

"It is still premature to comment on that because even the terms of reference (TOR) for the Balikatan have yet to be resolved," he said.

The NPA believes otherwise and expects that both RP and US troops will turn on them after the group’s mission ends in Southern Mindanao.

Ka Sugpon, leader of the Mountain Province-based Leonardo Pacsi Command of the NPA, told reporters that he has already warned his men to prepare for the offensive that would come from the combined troops.