CPLA blitzkrieg

BEHIND THE SCENES
Alfred P. Dizon

If Cordillera officials and other factions are smarting over the “closure agreement” signed by ArsenioHumiding as chief of the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army and President Aquino, it is because they are envious, according to my bubwit.

Humiding and his minions, he says, must be laughing at their detractors after they were promised by this Banana Republic’s top honcho P260 million for livelihood and socio-economic projects.

While his detractors bickered over Cordillera autonomy, Humiding must have put to good use lessons he learned when he was with the New People’s Army:have a plan, keep silent about it and execute it to the detail. Nobody from outside his group knew about it. And when the time was ripe, just like a Nazi blitzkrieg, he struck.

The result – an agreement with P-Noy for the CPLA to “cease” as an armed group and instead help government programs, with of coursea sizable amount of money for CPLA projects.

As to how these projects would be implemented, only the deep blue sea knows. According to our bubwit, top officials of the Cordillera particularly the Regional Development Council are mad that Humiding’s group put one over them. Likewise with his rivals who claim they are the genuine CPLA groups.

They say the “closure agreement” was a farce. They are aghast that Humiding and his group made the “right connections” in Malacanangand speeded up the “flawed process.” They are asking who Humidingis and his group to determine how the P269 million will be spent. Aha ha, ourbubwit, says, “Kahit ang matsing nalalamangan din.”

He goes further to say, “Ang magnanakaw, galit sa kapwa magnanakaw. Why don’t they also ask themselves how more than P50 million supposedly for information dissemination on autonomy was spent by the RDC?”

In the case of the autonomy funds, it also looks like it is only the deep blue sea which knows the real score. We are not saying Humiding and his group are thieves. After all, they still don’t have the money. Andwhatever messianic complexes they have of purportedly helping the people, that is their right.

But then, as my bubwit says, when taxpayer’s money is freely given to the CPLA to spend as incentive to lay down their arms, there is something wrong. It is like poor folks of this Banana Republic like us have electedourofficials to freely dispense out our money on whim.

First and foremost, most members of the CPLA, according to my learned bubwit, had been rogues all along after the group, then under Balweg, split from the NPA and signed the Mt. Data Peace Accord in September 1986 under the administration of the late President Corazon C. Aquino.

He says even rebel priest ConradoBalweg, the former CPLA founding chief had been implicated in the murder of respected Kalinga elder Daniel Ngayaan in 1987. The others, he said, have degenerated as human rights abusers, rapists, murderers, protectors of illegal gambling like jueteng and illegal squatters.

His questions: Is the government paying these CPLA members with P260 million for abusing Cordillera folks? How will the funds be audited? Will heads of local government units have a say in the allocation and disbursement of money?

We will leave the monetary aspect at that. In the meantime, how will the group of another CPLA faction who call themselves the “genuine CPLA” under its chairman Mike Sugguiayao and its Cordillera Bodong Administration president Andres Ngao-i with their elder Leonardo Bun-as take their being waylaid? Genuine items are not taken for granted. Will hell break loose as a result of this?

The talkative bubwit has a ready answer: All CPLA factions are just paper tigers so they should just have been ignored by the government and made to go home to their lairs and plant the biggest camote. He says no Cordilleran in his right mind should believe these impostors who claim to represent the people of the Cordillera and their aspirations.

You see, even Yours Truly finds it hard to understand why Jack Dulnuan, who is also from Ifugao like Humiding is the chairman of the Sugguiayao faction’s Cordillera Regional Assembly. Dulnuan is the rags to riches story about a man who made a name for himself in business. Dulnuan equals CPLA? Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Somebody should make a movie out of all these, my bubwit says. But then, he adds, it is doomed to flop. But if you add the President as one of the characters, then maybe it would gather interest. You see, even if P-Noy is the President, some matsing could still make a fool out of him like these CPLA characters and those who wanted to gain pogi points or maybe, some commissions from the P260 million.

Look now, but the RDC wouldn’t be pressing for a review of the agreement if they were informed earlier about it. What gets their dander is Humiding’sCPLA group had been recognized by the government not by P-Noy but also Brig. Gen. Jose Mabanta Jr., AFP Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (J3) who said they were the legitimate CPLA group.

Where the controversy is headed, our bubwit says, again, only the deep blue sea knows. But then, he adds, the RDC could stand up and show if their manhood is still intact so the public could be entertained other than talking about their warped version of Cordillera autonomy which they have come to believe as gospel truth -- in their minds.