Don’t pay NPA fees, pols told

DAVAO CITY — Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. warned aspirants in the May elections yesterday not to pay permit-to-campaign (PTC) fees to the New People’s Army (NPA).

"I am warning the candidates not to give in to what is illegal and not to pay the PTC fees imposed by the NPA rebels," Esperon told reporters during a visit to the Eastern Mindanao Command headquarters here.

The NPA has been imposing such fees on politicians who want to campaign in supposedly rebel-controlled areas.

The amounts depend on how these areas are classified and the electoral positions the politicians are running for.

Paying the PTC fees, according to Esperon, would only give the insurgents more resources to run their operations, which he said should not be the case.

He said the government is winning the war against the insurgents whose number has been reduced to a little over 7,000.

"We expect that by 2010, the NPA rebels would be down to only about 3,500 and that would no longer be a strong force to reckon with and the lowest that the insurgency movement would have in its history," he said.

Esperon said the government’s Bantay Laya anti-insurgency campaign has entered its second phase and is expected to bear more positive results within the next two years.

Amid Esperon’s warning to politicians though, the underground movement has asked aspirants to start talking to its leaders.

"Coordinate with us. Talk to us. Present to us your program of government," said George Madlos, Mindanao spokesman of the Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front.

Southern Mindanao is considered to be a communist stronghold in this part of the country.

In earlier interviews with local TV stations, Madlos claimed that the NPA has the upper hand against the military in the South.

"We are winning the war here," he said, claiming that in 2006 alone, local rebels launched over 400 tactical offensives against the police and the military, compared to only 200 the previous year.

But Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Obaniana, commander of the Eastern Mindanao Command based here, said the military’s efforts against the insurgency problem are on the right track.

"We have taken the right steps in pursuing the rebels and we will win this insurgency war," he said.