Military chief optimistic of communist insurgency’s defeat

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines—Armed Forces chief General Emmanuel Bautista says he is leaving the military service with high hopes that the communist insurgency, which dates back to the late 1940’s, will finally be defeated.

Bautista, who retires on July 20, said during a visit here on Thursday that a large number of provinces have already been “normalized,” meaning freed of communist rebels.

He credited the military’s Internal Peace and Security Plan, which was drafted under his tutelage as chief of staff, for the “downgrading” of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.

“We are midway [into the anti-insurgency campaign],” he said here on Thursday, adding that “we see big improvements in as far as urging the CPP-NPA to abandon its struggle.”

Bautista said that in Mindanao, for example, “a lot of communists had surrendered” and this was largely due to the Bayanihan concept, under which the military undertakes development programs in the countryside.

“Its top leaders have also been captured. We are hoping that this progress would continue,” he added.

Major General Domingo Tutaan Jr., Armed Forces spokesperson, said the military has “normalized 43” of the 75 provinces where the rebels had a presence.

AFP Chief of Staff General Emmanuel Bautista. PHOTO from AFP Public Affairs Office

He said by normalized he meant that these provinces had been cleared of communist rebels “and the threat posed by CPP, NPA and NDF had been degraded and we have seen them regressing to criminal acts.”

Military commanders in Mindanao said the NPA continued to carry out offensives but these were just part of its “last acts.”

But Isabel Fermiza, spokesperson of the NPA’s Mt. Apo Sub-regional Command, said such “successful offensives” as the July 10 assault on the police station of Alegria in Surigao del Norte and a July 8 ambush in Baracatan, Toril, Davao City, showed that the insurgency was alive.

“Up to now, the AFP has failed to wipe out any single guerrilla front in [Mindanao] and to prevent the NPA from forming more fighting and fully-armed platoons. The AFP has failed to stop Red fighters from persevering, prevailing, expanding and consolidating its mass base,” Fermiza said.

She said the NPA continues to gain the support of the communities because of its implementation of its minimum program of revolutionary land reform and revolutionary justice.

The mountains of Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon, Surigao del Norte, Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental and Davao City are known hotbeds of the communist movement in the country and are the focus of the military’s counter-insurgency campaign, Capt. Ernest Carolina, spokesperson of the military’s 10th Infantry Division based in Davao City, said.

Tutaan said Bautista also “wants to leave behind a road map for the transformation of the AFP into a world class military organization.”

Born on July 20, 1958, Bautista is a son of the late Brigadier General Teodulfo Bautista, an Army division commander who was killed along with 33 other military officers and men in a massacre by Moro National Liberation Front rebels in what was supposed to have been a peace meeting in Sulu on October 10, 1977.

The massacre led to the collapse of a ceasefire and a peace agreement that had been concluded between the government and the MNLF the year before.

The younger Bautista is the recipient of various citations, including five Distinguished Service Stars and an Outstanding Achievement Medal.

He graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1981 and served as commander of various units before being named chief of staff by President Aquino in January last year.