MANILA – The Communist Party of the Philippines said it would intensify attacks of its military wing, the New People’s Army, against government forces to compel the present administration to talk peace with the insurgents.
“Indeed, the only way to compel the enemy to engage in serious negotiations is to inflict major defeats on it and make it realize the futility of its attempt to destroy the revolutionary movement, especially the people’s army,” the CPP Central Committee said in its 43rd founding anniversary message last Monday (December 26).
The CPP added, “However, we continue to express our desire for peace negotiations in order to prevent the enemy from claiming falsely that we are not interested in a just and lasting peace and also to keep open the possibility that the enemy regime would be compelled by the crisis and/or by our significant victories in people’s war to seriously seek negotiations.”
President Aquino earlier announced an 18-day holiday ceasefire starting Dec. 16 until midnight of Jan. 3. On the other hand, the CPP ordered all NPA commands and units across the country to stop offensive operations against police and military forces starting from Dec. 24 up to midnight of Dec. 26, and on Dec. 31 up to midnight of Jan. 2.
On December 16, a day after the President declared a unilateral ceasefire against the communist insurgents, the NPA killed 5 soldiers and wounded two others in Surigao del Sur.
Two days later, the NPA bombed a military truck, killing a 63-year-old grandmother and wounded six soldiers.
Lilia Lalisan, a resident of Sitio Maputi, barangay (village) Doña Carmen, Tagbina, Surigao del Sur, hitched a ride with the soldiers from the 75th Infantry Battalion when the guerillas detonated a landmine in the interior road of barangay (village) Bincongan, Hinatuan. The explosion killed Lalisan and wounded the soldiers who are now recuperating at a local hospital.
