Armed Forces of the Philippines. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Following the recent simultaneous attacks of New People’s Army rebels, including the ambush in Negros on Sunday which killed nine people, the military said it is pursuing the perpetrators but at the same time maintaining the need to solve the conflict by peaceful means.
Although saddened by the rash of rebel strikes, Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Emmanuel Bautista called on the communist rebels to abandon armed conflict.
“Nakakalungkot nga na nangyayari ito (It’s deplorable this is happening). We offered our brothers a chance to resolve issues in a peaceful manner and that remains to be our position, that our problems are going to be solved through peaceful means, that armed struggle, armed violence is not the solution to our problems,” Bautista told reporters at a press briefing at Camp Aguinaldo.
Bautista is one of the proponents of the military’s current anti-insurgency strategy, the Internal Peace Security Plan “Oplan Bayanihan.”
“We have a responsibility to protect our people kaya ngayon hinahabol ng ating security forces yung mga suspects dun sa incident na yun (that’s why now our security forces are chasing the suspects), but we will continue to sustain…, to pursue [our] agenda [in the] Bayanihan,… where we offer our people, our brothers a choice or an end to armed struggle,” he said.