FIFTEEN suspected communist guerrillas including six women have been killed in a gunbattle, the Philippine military said on Wednesday, days after President Rodrigo Duterte called off peace talks and told security forces to “shoot” on sight any armed communist rebel.
Duterte last week vowed to go to war with the rebels and threatened to categorize them a “terrorist” group over deadly attacks against soldiers and police.
Late Tuesday residents reported seeing armed men boarding a van and a truck in the town of Nasugbu 65 kilometers south of Manila, prompting authorities to send troops, said local military spokesman Col. Teody Toribio.
When soldiers tried to flag down the vehicles on a highway, a gunbattle broke out that left 15 suspected guerrillas dead, including a female university student, while five soldiers were wounded, added Toribio.
One suspect was captured while an undetermined number escaped. Thirteen firearms were recovered, he said.
Regional military chief Brig. Gen. Ernesto Ravina said the operation was “anchored on the pronouncement of the president on the termination of peace talks.”
The Communist Party of the Philippines has been fighting since 1968 to overthrow a capitalist system that has created one of Asia’s biggest rich-poor divides.
In a related development, Duterte on Wednesday told security forces to “shoot” any armed member of the communist New People’s Army, saying they deserve to take a bullet for “destroying the country.”
“If there is an armed NPA there or terrorist who is holding firearms, shoot and tell any—I will answer,” Duterte said in a speech at Sual, Pangasinan.
The President said the armed communist rebels deserved the shoot order.
“And so? You are destroying my country and you expect me to pat you on the back and say, you go easy?” said Duterte.
The President also stressed he did not mind if there would be condemnation from human rights groups, saying he would claim responsibility for their actions.
“You just shut up. Do not answer if that issue of human rights [comes up]. You say, ‘You go to Duterte. It is and was his order,’” he said.
In the same speech, he also told the military to re-arrest communist leaders, but he might allow old ones out, citing humanitarian reasons.
He also said he might exclude some elderly rebels from those to be sent back to jail, saying they no longer posed a threat.
“For one, those who were above 70 like me, it is like I am the one exhausted on their behalf. Although leaders, I say ‘You can go.’ Anyway, they cannot go far,” he said, adding old revolutionaries “cannot climb those mountains there.”
“You will find them in… hospitals or rooms where they are resting.”
The President said he was preparing a document declaring armed communists as “terrorists” for doing too much havoc to the state.
“I am preparing now…the executive order declaring them to be terrorists and they will be afforded the treatment of being criminals.”
He added: “And there will be no filing of cases under the public security like rebellion because rebellion is considered sometimes a noble undertaking, it’s only because you want your country to do better.”
Duterte said he did not want to start “a really violent war”—“but if the NPAs, just like the terrorists, would do it, then we will give them the favor.”
Brig. Gen. Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos, commander of the Army’s 202nd Infantry Brigade said the 15 belonged to the NOA’s Guerilla Unit 3 of the Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee which operates in Batangas and Laguna provinces.
The rebel contingent that figured in the clash were believed remnants of the same group, suffering heavy death tool last September clash with the Air Force 730th Combat Group under Maj. Engelberto Nioda in Brgy. Utod, Nasugbu town that resulted in the killing of the Secretary of the same unit and a platoon leader.
Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Rhoderick M. Parayno, Commander of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, said the NPAs which the government forces engaged in had been on the run since September.
“This is in line with the president’s pronouncement that NPAs are terrorists. Your soldiers are more committed than ever to push harder and finally put an end to this insurgency to protect the Filipino people from fear and atrocities which the NPA terrorists plan to sow while ensuring the safety of our citizens in the area,” Parayno said
“The NPAs will face the full might of the government that is why we call on their families to convince their relatives who are still blinded by their false ideology to give up their arms and prevent them from suffering the fate of the 15 terrorists who died tonight,” he said.
Talks to end the conflict, which the military says has claimed 30,000 lives, have been conducted on and off for three decades.
They were revived last year after Duterte—a self-declared socialist—was elected president.
But the fiery Duterte steadily backed away from the talks, accusing the guerrilla’s 3,800-member armed wing, the New People’s Army, of carrying out attacks despite his peace efforts.
One of the fatalities in Tuesday’s clash was identified as a student of the premier state university. Toribio told AFP the military believed she was an NPA member and the suspects had been under surveillance for some time.
“What is she doing in a vehicle with those weapons of war?” Toribio said.
“We are 100-percent sure about them [being rebels].”
However CPP founder Jose Maria Sison said troops might have committed human rights violations.
“There are many cases now of killings. There are quick accusations that the victims are NPA rebels when in fact they are civilians,” Sison told ABS-CBN television on Wednesday from exile in the Netherlands.
