LUCENA CITY –– Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison has distanced himself from the reported plots of New People’s Army (NPA) rebels to assassinate government officials leading the government’s counter-insurgency program but called it a military “psywar.”
“I am not in any position to confirm or deny any reported operational matter involving the NPA,” Sison said in a statement from Utrecht in the Netherlands Thursday afternoon.
Sison issued the statement in reaction to an allegation by Major General Antonio Parlade Jr., Deputy Chief of Staff for Civil-Military Operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, that the CPP has launched a plot to liquidate state officials behind government projects and programs to crush the communist insurgents before the end of President Duterte’s term.
Aside from the three officials, Parlade said he and five former communist leaders helping the Duterte administration in its campaign against the insurgency are also on the hit list.
He said the list is part of “Oplan Hades,” which, he explained, was an alleged CPP initiative against counter-revolutionaries.
Sison retorted: “As it is his usual practice, Parlade is engaged in psywar.”
“It is a matter of public knowledge that the NPA carries out arrest and other punitive actions against the enemies of the people,” Sison said.
However, he maintained that the NPA would not divulge details on how they would carry out punitive actions against their enemies.
“I do not think that the NPA will give operational details to their enemy like Parlade,” he said.
Last month, Sison disclosed, citing CPP and NPA publications, that communist insurgents were reviving armed city partisan units called “sparu” or “Sparrow,” while preparing commando teams based in the countryside that could be deployed to urban areas on missions.
The communist hit squads were notorious for assassinating abusive police, military, and government officials and “enemies of the revolution,” particularly those with “blood debts,” in the ’70s and ’80s.
The hit squad, particularly the Alex Boncayao Brigade, gained notoriety for its summary executions of suspected government agents and “enemies of the revolution”.