THERE has been a surfeit of New People’s Army (NPA) atrocities lately, rebel activities such as planting landmines that unfortunately were detonated by unsuspecting civilians, and attacking food deliveries by the police and the military in far-flung areas now suffering from lockdowns due to the pandemic.
Most despicable among these terrorist acts is the landmine blast that killed Kieth Absalon, 21, a promising amateur football player from the Far Eastern University, and his cousin, Nolven Absalon. They were just biking with Nolven’s son, 16-year-old Crisbin Daniel, when they ran into an area where the rebels had planted the landmines. The teenager luckily survived.
This incident was followed by another which was mentioned by President Duterte in his weekly televised remark Monday night. Reports reaching Malacañang said a squad of NPA rebels harassed and attacked security forces delivering food to a remote village in Buenavista, Quezon.
‘In all these, the leftist bloc in the House of Representatives and their friends in the Senate have been unusually silent. No word of condemnation or praise about the NPA atrocities is forthcoming.’
Sympathizers of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA, who claim that these are but isolated events, know that they are just fooling themselves. A break with reality is more like it.
People still remember what happened in Eastern Samar last year, when at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a band of NPAs attacked an aid distribution center and seized relief goods intended for the needy masses. Last November, their target in Quezon were the same relief goods for delivery to victims of typhoon “Ulysses.” There are many more in recent memory; some do not even make it to the regular media news lineup.
The communist-led rebel army likes to affirm that it is a “just war” that they are waging, that they sacrifice their lives for the good of the masses of our people, but the current incidents prove that this is farthest from the truth.
Civilian lives and properties are being lost in furtherance of their objective of seizing political power: what is “just” in that?
The NPA and its policymakers in the CPP say that in the conduct of war, they adhere to the Geneva Convention. Again, this is proven false by their use of landmines and recruitment of children fighters. Also, attacks on civilians, non-combatants and those who have laid down their arms are not in keeping with the spirit and letter of the Geneva accord.
In all these, the leftist bloc in the House of Representatives and their friends in the Senate have been unusually silent. No word of condemnation or praise about the NPA atrocities is forthcoming.
Why are these human rights advocates so silent now when months ago, when Randal Echanis and Eugenia Magpantay and other CPP leaders were killed, they aired the fiercest words of condemnation against the police and the military?
