AFP Nolcom clarifies SOT role in Tarlac

CAMP AQUINO, Tarlac — The spokesman of the Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) based in this military camp has vehemently denied that the Special Operations Teams (SOT) they have dispatched to nine villages of Tarlac City were setting up vigilante groups.

Lt. Col. Preme Monta, head of Nolcom’s public information office, said that the SOTs are actually "non-combat teams" composed of "specially-trained soldiers for civil-military operations" deployed to implement President Arroyo’s Kapit-bisig Laban sa Kahirapan (Kalahi) program.

Earlier, city councilor Abel Ladera, chair of the council’s committee on peace and order and police matters, criticized the Kalahi program as an alleged camouflage for the "militarization" of Barangays Matatalaib, Trinidad, Banaba, Buhilit, Bora, San Pascual, Balingcanaway, Villa Bacolor, Sapang Maragul and Care.

All the barangays mentioned are regarded by both the police and the military as either "influenced" or "threatened" by the mainstream Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its respective armed and political wings, the New People’s Army (NPA) and National Democratic Front (NDF).

But Monta explained that Kalahi is a program hatched shortly after Mrs. Arroyo assumed the presidency in January 2001 designed "to bring the government close to the people."

He added that it is meant to consolidate various government line agencies, and that the AFP is a mere component of Kalahi.

According to him, Tarlac City is a priority area for Kalahi’s implementation, and that its launching months ago was even graced by Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo, a native of Tarlac. — Benjie Villa