Leni supports deployment of troops, urges look at why insurgency has 'worsened'

MANILA, Philippines— Vice President Robredo on Sunday said she supports President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to deploy more troops in some areas in the Visayas and the Bicol region to quell “lawless violence.”

“We have no objection to augmenting forces. That news that the members of the AFP will augment the police is very welcome,” Robredo said in Filipino on her radio program “BISErbisyong Leni.”

On Thursday, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea signed Memorandum Order No. 32 on Duterte's orders.

M.O. No. 32 orders the deployment of additional police and military forces to Samar, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental and the Bicol region to “suppress lawless violence and acts of terror” and “prevent such violence from spreading and escalating elsewhere in the country.”

'Why did insurgency return and intensify?'

Despite her support for the Memorandum Order No. 32, Robredo said there is public distrust over the use of “lawless violence” as a basis for the order.

"Because it isn't very clear, many are afraid when the term 'lawless violence' is used," she said.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo, who is also chief presidential legal counsel, earlier claimed that there was "lawless violence" at the Bureau of Customs, which justified the deployment of military personnel to the agency.

"Now, the lawless violence certainly would refer to what is happening in BOC," Panelo said in late October. He insisted that "lawless violence" also means a kind of metaphorical violence that is "not as we understand in the limited sense."

This, despite Proclamation 55, which declared a state of emergency in the Philippines due to lawless violence, specifying acts of actual violence like "abductions, hostage-takings and murder of innocent civilians, bombing of power transmission facilities, highway robberies and extortions, attacks on military outposts, assassinations of media people and mass jailbreaks."

The vice president said on Sunday that lawless violence could be used as a ground for declaring martial law. "People are worried that this might be a platform to declare martial law, which, we all believe, even if there is an ambush here, is not necessary," she said.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines, which would be called on to implement martial law, said earlier Sunday that M.O. No. 32 is not a prelude to a nationwide martial law.

READ: AFP: Memorandum Order No. 32 no prelude to nationwide martial law

Robredo: Insurgency weakened in previous admins

She added the government should also look into why the communist insurgency seems to have worsened.

"I think we should focus on that because that had already receded. Under the previous administration, it was almost gone. We should study why it returned. Why it intensified," she said.

In December 2017, the AFP said that the bulk of the New People's Army was in eastern Mindanao. It also said then "of every four armed members of the NPA, three are Lumads," referring to the non-Muslim indigineous peoples of Mindanao.

Robredo said that augmenting military and police personnel in certain areas is a correct approach but added the government must focus on why the insurgency has seemingly intensified in parts of the Visayas and Bicol.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines has claiming that thousands of NPA rebels and supporters have been surrendering in batches since Duterte was elected into office. 

Duterte said in September that "if God is merciful, this would be over by about the second quarter of next year."

'Define state of lawless violence'

Meanwhile, candidates in the opposition senatorial slate—human rights lawyer Chel Diokno and former Rep. Lorenzo Tañada (Quezon)—questioned the existence of "lawless violence" to justify sending more troops to the Visayas and Bicol regions.

Tañada stressed that the Palace memorandum is “fearmongering” as the only lawless violence experienced  by the Filipinos are the high commodity prices and inflation.

“What was not serene was the 10 percent inflation in Bicol and the telling absence of National Food Authority rice from the markets of these provinces. The poor people are hardest-hit. That to me, was the only ‘state of lawless violence’,” Tañada said.

“Memo Order 32 is fearmongering. The government wants us to feel unsafe when the only thing we have to fear right now is how the economy is being managed. Something is very wrong with inflation, the massacre that is the [Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion] Law implementation, and the short supply of rice. But that is not lawless violence among the people; that is lawless violence in government, as it turns a blind eye and deaf ears to its people,” he added.

The former lawmaker said that the residents of the areas covered by the memorandum will only suffer with increased militarization as “they are already among the poorest provinces and hardest-hit by inflation.”

He said he “wants the government’s attention and resources to be directed at the real problem—which is inflation and sky-rocketing prices—not at imagined ones.”

Diokno, meanwhile, said in a separate press statement that there should have been a prior determination of the existence of lawless violence before M.O. No. 32 was issued.

"On Friday, the residents of Samar, Negros and Bicole woke up to their provinces being under a state of emergency," he said. "If the process is not followed, it paves way for abuse. Justice is what we want and not abuse."

M.O. No. 32 is actually premised on Proclamation No. 55, the two-year-old declaration of a state of emergency across the country in response to a fatal bombing at a Davao City night market in September 2016 that killed more than a dozen people.

Palace: Ambushes, attacks on police outposts justify augmentation of forces

AFP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo earlier clarified that Memorandum 32 is not a prelude to the declaration of nationwide martial law because the areas covered are specified.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo also cited ambush attacks, assault on police detachments, massacre of workers, clashes in some of these areas as events considered in issuance of the memorandum.

RELATED: Groups raise alarm on Duterte’s order to send more troops in parts of country

The memorandum also stressed that the public’s constitutional rights shall be respected by the military and police forces during the implementation of the order to prevent any abuse.