CPDF issues rejoinder on Sagada Peace Zone

BEHIND THE SCENES

By Alfred Dizon 

(Hereunder is a rejoinder of Simon 'Ka Simon' Naogsan on statement of Maj. Gen Gregorio Pio Catapang, commander of the Northern Luzon Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines regarding the Sagada peace zone.)

The pronouncement of Maj. Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr., AFP Northern Luzon Command head, that “Sagada cannot be treated anymore as a peace zone” pictures exactly the military mindset ever since Mountain Province (MP) dotted their map as a red area. This is no different  from the position in 1989 of Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the then Secretary of the Department of National Defense when the demand for military pull out was presented to him by the Sagada delegation when he said, “The demand for pullout runs counter to the principle of hot pursuit and in effect recognizes the belligerency status of the CPP-NPA-NDF”. Thus the intensification of militarization of Sagada and the whole of Cordillera.

Ever since, there has been no letup in the launching of massive military operations by the AFP and the PNP, along with overt and covert intelligence operations and recruitment for paramilitary forces as well as vilification campaigns against the revolutionary forces and the national minority people in the Cordillera region.

The presence of the military in the Cordillera is anathema to the full exercise of the national minority of their right to ancestral lands. The presence of the military in any part of the Cordillera region lends itself as “Investment Defense Force” for the aggressive entry of foreign and local extractive and destructive projects. More than 61% of the total land area of the Cordillera remains the total land area applied for mining companies and energy projects.

There is no lull in the rigodon of combat troops that entered MP including Sagada ever since the US-Cory Aquino regime and up to the present regime. The first army battalion constituted during the US-Cory Aquino regime in 1987 - the 54^th IB under then Maj. Guillermo Densen - was dispatched to MP. After the redeployment of the 54^th IB elsewhere a year later, followed the entry of the 3^rd Special Forces Battalion and the 50^th IB in 1989.

In mid-1991, a composite AFP unit attacked Mt. Sisipitan for two weeks,  clearing a hectare-wide thickly forested watershed for use as helicopter landing pad. For eight days, five heligunships alternately dropped an undetermined number of rocket bombs and conducted aerial strafing  in Mt. Sisipitan and its environs. In late 1991 came the deployment of the 702^nd Infantry Brigade. For the first three years, all its three organic battalions–the 24^th IB, 68^th IB and 69^th IB–focused on MP. After arrogantly declaring in 1994 that the 702^nd IBdeattained strategic victory in MP, the turnover of the counter-insurgency task to the local PNP was announced in mid-1995. 

But just as fast as they announced the turnover, this was immediately withdrawn after realizing the folly of their assessment. The last battalion of the 702^nd only withdrew in May of 1999 after figuring in the Dalican-Pidlisan fullblown tribal war.

In the frenzied implementation of failed Oplan Bantay Laya 2 during the US-Arroyo regime, two infantry brigades–the 501^st IBde and 503^rd IBde of the 5^th Infantry Division–were deployed in the Cordillera region. The 54^th IB focused on MP for the AFP's “one batallion, one province” scheme. The entry of the US-Aquino regime in 2010 did not change this set up. In fact, it activated the moribund CPLA as a recruitment balloon of local recruits and enjoined the PNP to its counter-insurgency operations. Admitting in their February 2013 assessment that Oplan Bayanihan failed to render the armed revolutionary movement into inconsequential level, the AFP is now at a loss as to how to punctuate their 2016 deadline.

Last February 2013, notwithstanding that it was the town fiesta of Sagada, the 54^th Infantry Battalion made a show of force around town before finally taking position along the Langsayan-Pilaw-Danum ridge while others encamped at Kiniway, Besao. They scoured the Ampakaw–Balintaugan ridge then proceeded to Barangays Data, Nacagang, Suyo and Antadaw, then returned to the Langsayan-Pilaw ridge before finally exiting.

Again, is MGen. Catapang making sense? A Sagada resident aptly sum up how he described the “peace zone” concept as napison! In the first place, the AFP and PNP never consider Sagada as a “peace zone”?

The NPA response is calculated and rational. For the period of 1990, the NPA in MP adopted a tactical defensive mode in consideration of the pull-out call. However, after what happened to a comrade who was arrested in 1990 at his own house in Poblacion, Sagada while on furlough, and the no-let up operations, it firm up its resolve that the ‘peace zone’ is a trap, misused and abused and will never be respected by the reactionary government much less its security forces. It is proper and fitting that the NPA has to defend itself, defend the masses it vowed to serve, defend the gains of the revolution and frustrate the massive attacks of the fascist AFP.

The CPDF poses the challenge to all sincere advocates of peace to study more objectively the viability of “peace zone” as a political solution of the armed conflict in the light of present realities. An armed and unarmed resistance is being resiliently waged by the revolutionary forces, the organized masses and the national minorities against the onslaught of imperialist development aggression that would ultimately disposes us of our ancestral lands and its natural wealth. Along with this is the massive deployment of the military to act as ‘investment defense force’ and now lately even the PNP is being trained to be plunge into the quagmire of counter-insurgency operations. It is unfair to just let loose the swaging imperialist plunderers and the fascist AFP and PNP to wreak havoc on the defenseless masses and their livelihood without a counter force to defend them. 

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) representing the revolutionary forces  has always opened its doorsto peace talks as an option for political settlement with the reactionary Philippine Government (GPH) since the time of US-Corazon Aquino regime until the present regime to address the root causes of the armed conflict. The peace talks have advanced, with significant binding documents signed between the two parties including the Joint Agreement on the Safety and Immunity Guarantees for the members of the negotiating panels, consultants and their staffs and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). 

However, in February 2011 the GPH unilaterally terminated the peace talks. The NDFP maintains its openness to resume the peace talks in accordance with previous agreements. This alternative for a political settlement of the raging armed conflict is more viable than the rhetoric of ‘peace zone” and/or localized peace talks being peddled again by the GPH. This has been previously rendered as a failure.  You have your choice!

Simon “Ka Filiw” Naogsan

Spokesperson

Cordillera People’s Democratic Front