Communist rebels will escalate their attacks across the country from Oct. 11 to 17, a high-ranking military official said, citing recovered documents on the so-called Red October plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.
“The plan fizzled out a bit when we exposed the Red October plot. But based on our indicators now, the trend is that they will still continue with the attacks and these will be nationwide,” Armed Forces deputy chief-of-staff for operations Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade said in a phone interview.
“We have yet to determine the significance of those dates, and if they have recalibrated after the plot was exposed,” he added.
The attack teams were coded based on the recovered documents, Parlade said.
“There is the code ‘supermarket’ to refer to attacks against police stations and army detachments where they aim to seize arms and ammunition, ‘bulldozer’ to refer to mining firms and government infrastructure projects, ‘tabasco’ to refer to suspected Oplan Tokhang agents, ‘casino’ to refer to military intelligence assets, and ‘Hades’ to refer to government personalities with a blood debt to the New People’s Army,” Parlade said.
“This is the last hurrah of Joma,” he added, referring to self-exiled Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison.
He said the attacks are expected to continue until December.
The CPP Central Committee last year released its plans for its 50th anniversary on Dec. 26.
“The Filipino people are suffering gravely under the Duterte regime. The entire Party and all revolutionary forces must exert vigorous efforts to unite the Filipino people in a broad united front to resist and overthrow the fascist Duterte regime,” the CPP said in a statement last year.
A leftist student group dismissed talk of “Red October.”
“There is no ouster plot against the President. He is the one digging his own grave because of his anti-poor policies, extrajudicial killings, Oplan Tokhang and other [oppressive] economic policies, such as the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion law,” said Kara Taggaoa, national spokesperson of the League of Filipino Students.
“This widespread disinformation is a conscious move by the government forces to discredit the people’s growing dissent, lay down the conditions for establishing their ‘revolutionary government’ and railroad Charter-change. This is a nationwide conditioning for martial law,” she said.
She also slammed the Duterte administration for its second tax reform package known as the Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High-Quality Opportunities (TRABAHO).
“The essence of the new tax reform is not to create more job opportunities, but only to protect the interests of big corporations through tax exemptions,” she said.
The proposed tax reform measure aims to lower corporate income tax rate from 30 percent to 20 percent and broaden the tax base (income subject to tax) by removing several of the preferential or lower corporate tax rates under the Tax Code and setting stricter rules on transactions between parties. With Rio N. Araja