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Macapagal Shifts Target from Abus to Communists

Not an empty threat

Tuesday, August 6, 2002
(12:42 AM Manila Time)
By Carlito Pablo & Martin P. Marfil
Inquirer News Service

After years of decline, the NPA is recovering lost ground. Barangays influenced by the NPA increased from 445 in 1995 to 1,969 barangays in 2001 and to 2,262 this year, according to military reports. In the first six months of the year, the NPA added five new guerilla fronts, according to the military.

After declaring war on crime syndicates and Abu Sayyaf bandits, President Macapagal-Arroyo is taking on communist guerrillas.

"Kung mayroon silang ipinapahayag na pulitika, basta't terorista ginigiyera natin iyon (The war on terrorism does not distinguish between ordinary terrorists and those espousing a political ideology)," the President said in a speech Monday at the mass oath taking of newly elected barangay officials in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.

The President is not issuing an empty threat. She has ordered the Department of National Defense and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to move troops from Abu Sayyaf-influenced areas in Mindanao to places where the communist-led New People's Army (NPA) is operating, according to Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye.

"Defense Secretary (Angelo) Reyes has received the orders from the President to start re-deploying forces to NPA-threatened areas now that we have effectively addressed the Abu Sayyaf problem," Bunye said at a briefing.

The troops may include units trained by U.S. forces in the recently concluded R.P.-U.S. Balikatan 02-1 exercise but Bunye declined to confirm this.

U.S. Special Forces have equipped and trained a number of Light Reaction Companies and other frontline Armed Forces units during the course of the six-month Balikatan 02-1.

Bunye did not say what areas would be given priority in the redeployment of troops.

"I think that's an operational detail that can't be divulged," Bunye said.

But Gen. Roy Cimatu, AFP chief of staff, said some battalions would be deployed back to Central and Northern Mindanao from Western Mindanao, where Basilan and Sulu are located. Basilan and Sulu are the strongholds of the Abu Sayyaf bandit group.

* Trade unions, too
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Dan