No more NPA fronts in Cagayan Valley by March – Army

ILAGAN, Isabela – The Philippine Army vowed to crush the two remaining major fronts of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Cagayan Valley by next month.

Maj. Gen. Melchor Dilodilo, chief of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division based at Camp Melchor de la Cruz in Gamu town, said the remaining NPA fronts in the region have suffered heavy losses in firearms and men in previous encounters, and can easily be crushed within a month.

Dilodilo said the two fronts – the Northern Front in Cagayan and the Southern Front in Isabela – have been largely active in propaganda rather than actual combat.

“This means they are now having difficulties (recruiting) men from the communities where they operate, and like fish out of the water, the insurgency in the area will ultimately die without mass support,” he said.

Dilodilo said the Armed Forces has been relentless in its civil-military operations in a two-pronged effort to weaken the rebels militarily and eliminate their mass base.

“Army intelligence indicates that based on the (two NPA fronts’) loss of men and mass support, our target of eliminating (them) by March is achievable. We will be able to crush them as planned,” he said.

One of the Army’s biggest divisions, the 5th ID covers the entire Cagayan Valley and the Cordillera and Ilocos regions, where the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) used to wield considerable strength and mass influence.

The Marag Valley at the Kalinga-Mt. Province boundary was then considered to be the seat of the rebels’ “shadow government” until the government regained total control of the once-rebel infested area in the early 1990s.

“The rebels are now losing men and precious ammunition so that they are now the ones combining their own fronts, with their encounters mostly intended to indicate their presence rather than causing real harm to our troops,” he said.

What the Army considered to be the major blow to the guerrillas’ strength was last year’s neutralization of 79 local rebel leaders.

Among them were Elizabeth Principe, the CPP-NPA-NDF’s highest-ranking leader in Cagayan Valley, who was arrested in Quezon City in November, and Pancho Domincil, staff officer of the NPA’s Northern Front and member of the Cagayan Valley party committee, who was nabbed in Tuguegarao City last September.

According to the Army, at least five major NPA camps in Cagayan Valley, the Cordilleras and Ilocos region were overrun in a series of operations last year, notably the sprawling rebel camps in Quirino, Abra and Ilocos Norte.

More than 100 high-powered firearms were also recovered in a series of encounters in the three regions.

Earlier, Lt. Gen. Rodrigo Maclang, commanding general of the Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command based in Tarlac, said the military is right on target in eliminating the communist insurgency in Northern Luzon with the rebels’ presence practically weakened in the Ilocos region.

“Aside from this, the active members of the CPP-NPA in the three regions – Ilocos, the Cordilleras and Cagayan Valley – have been (reduced) to less than 250 armed regulars as of 2007, as compared to more than 1,000 five years ago,” Maclang said.

“The only areas with significant rebel presence are in Kalinga, the tri-boundary of Ilocos Sur, Mt. Province and Abra, and a few other areas in Cagayan Valley,” he said.