COLLABORATION. Department of the Interior and Local Government-Negros Oriental provincial director Farah Gentuya (left) exchanges pleasantries with provincial engineer Maelene Jimenez and Lt. Col. Van Donald Almonte, commanding officer of the 94th IB, during a recent meeting on the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program. The Army commander said they are continuing operations in at least four towns in Negros Oriental province that are still affected by communist insurgency. (Photo by Judy Flores Partlow)
DUMAGUETE CITY – The 94th Infantry Battalion (94IB) of the Philippine Army is keeping a close watch on at least four towns in Negros Oriental that are still affected by communist insurgency with relentless operations underway, a military official said on Tuesday.
Lt. Col. Van Donald Almonte, commanding officer of the 94IB, told the Philippine News Agency that the four municipalities are Tayasan, Ayungon, Bindoy and Manjuyod.
“Bindoy and Manjuyod have the strongest supporters of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) that is why we have to sustain our operations there without let-up,” he said in mixed English and Cebuano.
Almonte said some of their activities include visiting former rebels and former supporters to ensure that they will not be influenced and recruited back into the underground movement.
The Army commander also noted that one of the three rebels who died in the Feb. 4 and 5 encounters with NPAs in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental province was from Barangay Tanglad, Tayasan town.
Barangay Tanglad is known to have some residents still active in the NPA, he noted.
He said this is an indication that there are still members of the NPA’s guerrilla front operating in central Negros that come from the Oriental side of the island.
Three barangays in Ayungon, one in Bindoy, and one in Manjuyod are listed as priority areas under the Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (TF-ELCAC) under the government’s whole-of-nation approach.
Meanwhile, Almonte said NPA forces in his area of jurisdiction are “dwindling”, meaning, “their strength is negligible and their firepower suffered successive setbacks” following encounters with government troops since last year.
Some barangays have also been cleared through their Community Support Program although he did not mention these villages.
Almonted called on the remaining NPA members to surrender and avail of the government's Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) for former rebels to reintegrate them into mainstream society. (PNA)
