MORE NEWS, BENGUET

NPAs influencing folks of Cordillera provinces
By Dexter A See

CAMP DANGWA, La Trinidad, Benguet – The communist movement is still a force to contend with in communities in the Cordillera especially in remote areas where New Peoples Army guerillas have been sighted frequently the past months.

Chief Supt. Eugene G. Martin, regional police director bared this saying police units region-wide were ordered to take a defensive positions against rebel attacks in police and military outposts and vital installations.

The directive to defend police units and vital installations was a move to prevent the rebels from taking advantage of the crisis in Mindanao and stage their own attacks in the region which might create a negative impression to the country’s overall peace and order situation.

Martin said the provinces of Abra, Mountain Province and Kalinga are still considered to be the haven of communist rebels because of their peculiar terrain that allows them to transfer from one province to another in a short span of time.

However, he said police are always ready to thwart any atrocity being planned by the rebels because the police and military have established strategic positions in identified critical areas to prepare for untoward incidents undertaken by the NPA.

NPAs had also been sighted in the tri-boundaries of Benguet, Mountain Province and the Ilocos and La Union areas as well as the tri-boundaries of Ifugao, Nueva Vizcaya and other pats of Region II, including the boundary of Apayao, Cagayan and the Ilocos Norte.

Martin said the police and military have joined forces to help realize the commitment of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to flush out the insurgency movement by 2010 but he cited the need for a revitalized police and military effort to rid the country of the remnants of the communist movement in the countryside.

He said local officials should also actively participate in helping flush out the NPAs in the next two years and not allow them to have control of their territorial jurisdiction.