'Where are 20,000 NPA rebs?'

Military and defense department officials said the New People's Army (NPA)'s strength has dwindled from 20,000 in the late 1980s to 5,000 guerrillas in 1995, but Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile doubts these figures.

During yesterday's hearing of the Senate committee on national defense and

security, Enrile gave the third degree to National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre and Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado along with ranking military officials.

"Where are the 20,000 NPA rebels," Enrile asked them. "Were they hit by a cholera epidemic? Were they killed in 'Operation Zombie'?"

Enrile, vice chairman of the committee, said the military has not launched any major operation against the NPA between 1986 and 1995, so he is puzzled by the sudden decline in the NPA's strength during that period.

He said the military should submit an inventory of firearms seized from captured and dead guerrillas, as well as those who have availed themselves of the government's amnesty program to prove that its figures are genuine.

Enrile said the government cannot draw up an effective counter-insurgency program if it has no accurate statistics on the missing 20,000 NPA guerrillas.

However, Aguirre said thousands of communist guerrillas could have died in the bloody purge that the NPA unleashed in the early 80s to flush out deep penetration agents planted by the military in the rebel organization.

"The decline of the NPA is of its own making," he said.

Mercado, on the other hand, said the dwindling number of communist rebels could be attributed to various factors, including the national reconciliation and development programs of the Aquino and Ramos administrations.

He estimated the NPA's strength at 10,000 guerrillas, saying that the NPA has intensified its recruitment activities and has reactivated 71 guerrilla fronts throughout the country.

Mercado sought the mobilization of at least 30,000 militias belonging to the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) in remote barangays facing threats from communists and secessionists. -