Palace to form task force to end insurgency, says Año

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año

TANAUAN CITY—Malacañang has ordered the creation of a task force that is aimed at ending 50 years of communist insurgency in the Philippines, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said here this week.

Año said the National Task Force to End Communist Insurgency would work both ways in fighting the rebel forces through focused military operations and social integration programs.

The proposed body took shape following the collapse of the government’s peace negotiations with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines leaders.

‘Level-to-level’ talks

Año said the government would engage in “level-to-level” talks with guerrilla front commanders of the New People’s Army (NPA), the military arm of the CPP.

“This would be (a) quicker (means to bring about solutions) than the international or national peace talks abroad that only came to nothing,” Año said here Tuesday at the launch of the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) for rebel returnees in Southern Luzon.

Cheaper than war

Earlier, President Duterte insisted on holding the negotiations in the Philippines before canceling the peace talks altogether in June.

Defense Undersecretary Reynaldo Mapagu said they were working on the President’s executive order creating the antirebel task force.

Mapagu said the task force would be composed of different government clusters, but a major component would be the E-CLIP.

Malacañang, through Administrative Order No. 10 in April, approved the E-CLIP, which awards cash and scholarship grants, livelihood opportunities, and legal assistance to rebel returnees.

Since 2016, about 3,000 NPA rebels have laid down their arms, according to the government. All of them were qualified to avail of beneifts from E-CLIP, which was given a P400-million budget for 2018.

During the program’s launch, 12 rebel returnees, with their faces covered, took their oath of allegiance to the government before receiving a check worth P65,000 each.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, during the same event, said the President was convinced that the government could save money through social programs rather than funding the war with the NPA.

“(It’s) cheaper and we will not be spending lives in fighting,” he said.

Lorenzana said local officials would also be asked to take a “course” with national agencies to facilitate the local peace talks.

“This (war) has been going on for 50 years and it has to stop now. As the President has always said: our country is like an airplane that cannot take off because of this problem,” he said. —WITH A REPORT FROM DELFIN T. MALLARI JR.