Military to remain vigilant despite truce

By Joel Guinto
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 03:10pm (Mla time) 12/22/2006

(UPDATE) THE MILITARY will still guard against rebel attacks and extortion activities even while the four-day holiday truce with communist rebels is in effect, a spokesman for the Armed Forces said Friday.

Troops will remain on "defensive mode" when the unilateral ceasefire is in force from 12:01 a.m. on December 24 to midnight of December 25 and from 12:01 a.m. on December
31 to midnight of January 1, said Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved the ceasefire on Thursday as a "yuletide gesture." The New People’s Army rebels, who last year did not call for a similar four-day cessation of hostilities, have not responded to the truce declaration.

Bacarro said soldiers would continue on foot patrol in the "immediate periphery" of their camps to prevent rebel attacks and thwart extortion activities.

"There will be no pullout of troops [but] there will be no offensives,” Bacarro told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo, adding that under the truce “military operations are on defensive mode.”

"Sometimes the rebels take advantage of the situation, when they know that soldiers are just inside the camps," Bacarro said.

Also on Thursday, Arroyo approved Oplan Bantay Laya 2, the military's second internal security master plan that will take effect in January, after its predecessor, the five-year Bantay Laya 1, ends.

Under Bantay Laya 2, security forces are tasked to "defeat" the NPA by the end of Arroyo's term in 2010, "destroy" the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf at the "soonest," and "contain" the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Since Bantay Laya 1 was launched in January 2002 until end 2006, the NPA strength has been reduced to 7,100 from 12,000, Military Chief General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said.

The 7,100-strong NPA is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging a protracted rebellion against the government since 1969.

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