AFP: ‘Yolanda’ wreaked havoc on NPA ranks

A typhoon survivor, right bottom, cuts wood outside their newly built makeshift house at typhoon-ravaged Tolosa town, Leyte province, on Dec. 9, 2013. Supertyphoon “Yolanda” “disrupted the organization” of communist insurgents in Eastern Visayas and other areas hit by the powerful storm, the military said Tuesday, Dec. 17. AP PHOTO/AARON FAVILA

MANILA, Philippines—Supertyphoon “Yolanda” “disrupted the organization” of communist insurgents in Eastern Visayas and other areas hit by the powerful storm, as much as it affected the lives of some 1,200 soldiers from the Armed Forces Central Command (CentCom), the military said Tuesday.

The activities of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), as well as encounters between the insurgents and the military, were down to zero after Yolanda (international name: Haiyan), said CentCom chief Maj. Gen. John Bonafos.

“Everybody was affected by the storm, and the communist insurgents now have a disorganized structure,” Bonafos told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo.

Like everyone in the storm-hit regions, the communist insurgents likely lost contact with one another, he said.

They are looking after themselves as well, finding food and water after the typhoon’s strong winds and storm surges wiped out everything in their path, the official said.

After Yolanda, Bonafos said there was a drop in reports on insurgents’ activities in the Western, Central and Eastern Visayas.

“There’s almost no violent activity that has happened,” he said.

However, the communist insurgents are now probably starting to consolidate their groups and recruiting storm survivors to join the movement, he said.

Despite the “regrouping and reorganizing” activities, however, Bonafos said the military was preventing the “exploitation of the victims” of the typhoon by monitoring the communist insurgents’ activities.

The Philippines has the longest-running communist insurgency in Asia. But the military has said that membership in the armed movement of the CPP has been decreasing. But with the movement thriving on the poverty of the people, it has been difficult to wipe it out altogether, it said.

Bonafos said the military would not prevent the NPA rebels from helping the storm survivors, for as long as they do not have their guns with them.

Undersecretary Eduardo del Rosario, the administrator of the Office of Civil Defense, said the aftermath of the deadly Yolanda offered an opportunity for the communist rebels to show that they are truly for the masses.

“I am calling on the CPP-NPA to join us in the rehabilitation of the storm-hit areas. Now is the time to get together. They can prove to the people that they (NPA) are really for them (masses),” Del Rosario said.

The national government has yet to declare a suspension of offensive military operations (Somo) this Christmas.

In previous years, the monthlong ceasefire began on Dec. 16.