Local ceasefire pushed

Despite atrocities allegedly committed by the New People’s Army, military and police officials yesterday said they will continue to push for a “local ceasefire” in Negros Occidental that will give local government officials and Negrenses a respite from violence and killings, so they can concentrate on economic endeavors.

“In the quest for peace, you have to widen your understanding, even if you are talking with incorrigible (persons),” Col. Oscar Lactao, 303rd Infantry Brigade commander, said. “At the end of the day, they are also our fellow Filipinos, apparently referring to communist rebels,” he added.

Senior Supt. Allan Guisihan, provincial police director, said the recent NPA atrocities will not hamper their plans to pursue the proposed locally-initiated ceasefire in Negros Occidental.

In the past three weeks, two former government militiamen and rebel returnees were summarily executed by suspected NPA rebels in Calatrava and Moises Padilla, on top of the recent burning of a farm tractor in La Castellana, police records showed.

Local military and police officials are now looking for a third party mediator, who can get in touch and be trusted by the top leadership of the CPP-NPA in Negros, and hinted these could be Church officials.

Lactao said he and Guisihan will discusss the proposed locally-initiated ceasefire with Governor Alfredo Maranon Jr. and members of the Provincial Peace and Order Council during the PPOC meeting next week.

He also called on the CPP-NPA leadership in Negros to assess the armed struggle they have been waging for more than 40 years now. If they are really bent on pursuing their agenda of change in the government, they should pursue the parliamentary struggle, he said.

The military estimates that there are about 195 NPA armed members still operating in Negros, but these are thinly dispersed into small groups, to avoid detection, compared to 250 last year.

Military records also show that the number of rebel returnees who surrendered in 2011 to Army units had risen to 44, and one of them was killed recently by his former comrades in Brgy Mina-utok, Calatrava.

Marañon had given financial and livelihood assistance to the 40 rebel returnees and their families, as part of their re-integration into mainstream society.

Guisihan said they are now finalizing the list of NPA leaders and members with pending arrest warrants, that will be released to the media soon.

Those not included in the list are free to come down and silently go inactive, with no harassment from government, Guisihan said.

Lactao said he has observed that some rebels are afraid to come down from the mountains, for fear of being arrested, even if they have no pending arrest warrants. * GPB

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