NPA rebels joined polls in Bicol, Southern Tagalog, says Solcom spokesman

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

LUCENA CITY, Quezon, Philippines — The elections in Bicol and Southern Tagalog have been free of harassment by New People’s Army guerrillas because the rebels themselves participated in the elections, a regional spokesman of the military claimed.

“I strongly believe that the NPA is now participating in the election. And I believe that some of them are now busy casting their votes for their favored partylist group and candidates,” Lieutenant Colonel Neil Anthony Estrella, spokesman of the Armed Forces Southern Luzon Command, said in an interview Monday afternoon.

Estrella said he based his conclusion on the presence of NPA cadres in the urban areas and their mass base in the months before the election and during the campaign period.

He said they received persistent military intelligence reports that the communist guerillas campaigned hard for their favored candidates but he did not identify the candidates.

“It only showed that the NPA is now participating in our democratic processes,” Estrella said.

He expressed the wish that next time, “the NPA rebels themselves will run for any elective office for the sake of peace.”

Estrella said they have not been receiving reports of NPA harassment in Bicol and Southern Tagalog regions.

“What we’ve been receiving are arrests of gun ban violators, incidents of vote buying and PCOS malfunctions,” he said.

Early this month, the informal negotiation for the resumption of the peace talks between communist insurgents and the government bogged down anew after both parties were adamant in pushing for their respective terms for the start of the talks.