CAMP RAJAH SIKATUNA, Carmen Bohol (PIA) –With the death of five armed insurgents as an aftermath of police serving a warrant of arrest to known top New People’s Army (NPA) leader Domingo Compoc in Sitio Camocon, Matin-ao 2 Campagao Bilar, February 23, Governor Erico Aristotle’s wish of zero insurgency in Bohol comes to near realization.
Not really contented with the 2010 declaration of Bohol as insurgency-free which is something his father’s leadership earned for Bohol from the Department of National Defense and the Philippine Army, the young governor realized despite being that insurgency-free, the remnants of the defunct Bohol Party Committee (BPC) of the NPA still figures out in occasional fiery altercations with government troops.
And it comes out like a bad publicity for Bohol.
Aumentado does not want any of these to smear Bohol’s reputation and scare off investors even as administration sells the peaceful island as a best option for investments.
“Let’s have Bohol zero insurgents instead,” he declared during a press conference with the army’s Visayas Command (VISCOM) last year.
For that, the governor institutionalized the Provincial Cooperative Development Office with an army of community organizers tasked to form community bonds, generate feedback and keynote in identifying local development plans for local or national and international funding.
“It is the PCDO which organizes community empowerment training and engage people into helping plan for local development, and armed with an organized community fully participated by them, they become an impenetrable bond for the insurgents to pick on, shares Romeo Teruel,” provincial government’s focal person on Ending Local Communist Armed Conflict (ELCAC).
Deployed in geographically isolated and depressed areas (GIDA) with history of siding with the insurgents then, the PCDO also trained local Citizens Armed Forces of Geographical Units (CAFGU) into community organizing, Teruel added.
Incidentally, Teruel who is Capitol’s link with its ELCAC programs was also the same Teruel who headed the Bohol Poverty Reduction Management Office, which is tasked to coordinate for poverty alleviation measures using whole of government approach in conflict areas, which has been credited to the successful Bohol Model for Counter-Insurgency.
Last year, the government conducted a press conference after an encounter which killed 6 armed insurgents, also in Campagao, September 8.
Among those killed was a national indigenous people’s rights activist and a partylist nominee, Kerlan Fanagel, who hails from Saranggani Province in Mindanao.
During the press conference, media personalities asked how Bohol’s being insurgency free status fares with the recent bloody encounter.
At that time, 302nd Brigade Commander, Brig Gen Joey Escanillas revealed that insurgency free status means that the government internal security operators are in full control of the local situation, and that the encounters, which were all initiated by government troops, are just maintenance of the peace operations.
Over this, Aumentado insisted that zero insurgent status is way much better.
That time too, the police PSR listed the armed remnants of the defunct BPC as less than 10, while the military had even less.
In the recent encounter, reports leaked to media bared that four of those deceased armed insurgents are in the police Periodic Status Report (PSR), the female lawyer, notably the newest addition to the squad was not yet on the list.
PSR is a constantly updated list of active insurgents in the general area of responsibility of the local Philippine National Police command, explained Bohol police chief Colonel Lorenzo A. Batuan.
Neutralized during the Police operations were Domingo Compoc alias Commander Cobra, 58 years old former commanding Officer of Sandatahang Yunit Propaganda Platoon of the disbanded Bohol Party Committee who is from Dagohoy, Bilar; Hannah Jay Cesista alias Maya, lawyer of Poblacion 2, Catubig, Northern Samar, Marlon Omosura alias Darwin of Sampoangon, Calape, Bohol; Parlito Segovia alias Aldrin (believed to be from Inabanga) assistant squad leader and political guide; and a certain alias Juaning squad member.
The encounter transpired as the combined elements of Bohol Police Provincial Office (BPPO) and 47th Infantry Battalion launched a Joint Enhanced Military Police Operation (JEMPO) against the squad which was reportedly spending the night in a house among a cluster of houses in Sitio Camocon, barely 50 meters from the paved provincial road.
With the 5 killed during the coordinated operation to arrest high profile criminals, 47IB Commanding Officer LtCol Magno Mapalad explained that while media noted that the presence of armed encounters rebut the claim of being insurgency free, he pointed out that when these encounters are initiated by government troops, it should tell everyone that the remnants of the disbanded BPC have no capacity to launch offensives, and are not considered a threat to the entire province.
In fact, he also pointed out that the operation may have obliterated the last armed remnants of the NPA operating in Bohol. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
IMPLEMENTING CARHRIHL. 47IB commanding Officer Lt Col Magno Mapalad and 2Lt Charmaine Sancho met the PPOC Fact Finding Team looking at possible breaches by the government troops of the comprehensive agreement on the respect for human rights and the international humanitarian law. Col Mapalad also hinted that the disbanded BPC may have finally lost its last remnants during the recent encounter. (PIABohol)
SPOTS OF SUNLIGHT. With a roof riddled with shrapnel exploded to flush the pinned insurgents in the house of Francisco Bantolinao, Mercedes Calamba, daughter finally manages to smile as the PPOC CARHRIHL Fact Finding Team investigates if human rights laws were trampled during the operations. Mercedes successfully extracted his brother from the house, a few minutes before the shooting started. (PIABohol)
