Sison pooh-poohs ‘end of NPA in mid-2019’ prediction
LUCENA CITY—Exiled Communist Party of the Philippines founding chair Jose Maria Sison poked fun at Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s claim that the military was on track to wipe out New People’s Army (NPA) rebels by the middle of 2019.
“He is a big liar and he does not know how to do arithmetic,” Sison said in a statement on Thursday as he refuted Lorenzana’s figures of the NPA’s supposedly dwindling strength.
On Wednesday, Lorenzana said the recent victories of government forces against the insurgents would lead “to the end of the communist insurgency by the second quarter of 2019.”
3,443 surrendered
According to him, a total of 3,443 rebels have surrendered as of September 2018, based on records of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Peace and Development Office.
Lorenzana also said 1,162 insurgents had either been arrested or killed by military.
The military also reported clearing 210 barangays of NPA influence and the dismantling of three guerrilla fronts.
In debunking the military’ss figures, Sison recalled that not long ago, Lorenzana had claimed that “the NPA had the strength of only 4,000 to 5,000, in contrast to the previous false claim of the [Armed Forces of the Philippines] that the NPA had the strength of only 2,000 to 4,000.”
‘Pipe dream’
“Now, he claims that 3,443 NPA fighters have already surrendered and that 1,162 have been either arrested or killed. These amount to the total figure of 4,605,” Sison said.
“Instead of claiming that the AFP has already fully or nearly decimated the NPA, he makes the false prediction that his objective or pipe dream will be fulfilled in the second quarter of 2019,” he added.
Sison claimed that the total number of armed NPA rebels “are far beyond 5,000 in more than 110 guerrilla fronts in 73 provinces, and are intact, alive and kicking.”
He said President Duterte’s “grossly traitorous, tyrannical, brutal, corrupt, bankrupt and mendacious regime” could not destroy the NPA that has become tempered in so many battles in 50 years.
