BAGUIO CITY — The military stationed in the northern provinces flatly rejected calls by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to resume the stalled peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF).
Urging instead the remaining communist rebels to abandon the armed struggle, Army Major Rigor Pamittan, spokesman of the Isabela-based 5th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army, issued this challenge: “If peace is what they want, then (they should) drop their arms and return to the fold of the government.”
Mr. Pamittan claimed that the communist movement resurfaced its calls for government and the NDF to go back to the negotiating table amid the thinning ranks of the NPA in the northern provinces.
Last week, a bomb-making facility at a rebel camp in Pilar, Abra was overran by soldiers after a fierce gunbattle with some 30 communist guerrillas along the borders of Sta Maria, Ilocos Sur and Pilar, Abra.
He stressed that they cannot bite into the resurging propaganda of the rebels for peace talks when the numbers and influence of the Ilocos Cordillera Regional Committee of the CPP’s New People’s Army (NPA) has already thinned out in the north.
Major General Audrey Pasia, commander of the 5th Infantry Division, earlier ordered government troopers “to drive the final nail into the coffin of the communist insurgency in the northern provinces to sustain government’s gains.”
Mr. Pasia assured civilians of their safety during military operations determined to end the communist insurgency in Northern Luzon. — Artemio A. Dumlao