Still Saturday, Feb. 28th, 2009 and it is now 1:36 AM here in the Philippines.
CONTINUATION...
NPA wise...
The NPA just released a handbill locally, which has interestingly been picked up by the local press, at least here on the island, threatening to kill a General from Mindoro (an island far to our north) who is coming down here to head a PDEA (our equivalent of the DEA in the US) to "tackle" our "drug problem," are we not so lucky?
The man, General Jovito Palparan will be working on the local task force to target 85 barangays in Davao City.
A "barangay" as I have explained is a term used to describe the second smallest municpal unit. Here you live in a "Sitio," which means "Site/Location." The Sitio is in ether a "Barangay" or "Purok" which essentially mean the same thing, sort of like a nigghbourhood. when speaking English though, Filipinos often describe a barangay as a "village" which it technically is not.
Well, I need to clarify. See, here, it is actually a village in many cases but not in the Western sense of the word. Many "villages" belong to a town or city, which are each defined according to set parameters. For example, my village of San Franz is the largest in our province, and yet we are not called a "city," or even a "town" but just "municpality." It can be confusing for new people.
When I use the word village here though, I use it to in relation to the Western usage, as denoting a town, etc.
Anyway, 85 barangays are being targetted, but only in our largest city, Davao City, one of the largest in the world actually in terms of overall square kilometers, etc.
2 of the barangays though are in very outlying areas since as I said, a city is not exactly along the parameters of a Western city, Marilog and Paquibito are home to large tracts of cannabis. The NPA is said to be involved in narco-terrorism as the phrase (a stupid one if ever there was one) goes. It is true that those 2 barangays though, are fimrly controlled by the NPA under Ka Paragos so again, go figure.
The NPA also released another handbill, this one does not seem to have been picked up by the media though. For a long time the army has accused the NPA of violating IHL (international Humanitarian Law) on the use of Land Mines.
The NPA though pointed out correctly that they almost always use (in their words "always") Remote Detonated Mines, which are as the phrase suggest, detonated under controlled conditions so that one can target purely military targets.
The NPA says those mines are not "Anti-Personel" but actually "Anti-Vehicular" (no such phrase exists mind you) . Of course RD Mines are just as Anti-Personel as any other mine, albeit totally legal under International Law.
The NPA also mentioned in that same handbill that the army has targeted Lumad (Tribal) villagers in a B'laan (a tribe) settlement with MG-520 gunships causing 300 families to become Refugees.
A 2 week long operation that began on 2/2 and ended around 2/13 when the army withdrew away from NPA positions in Barangays Banayal, Paraiso and Bituan in Tulunan village near the border of Magsaysay village in Davao del Sur Province. The 57th infantry under Lt. Col Mifredo Meligrito which is based in Barangay Bacung in Magasaysay claims to have killed 8 NPA soldiers but the NPA's Front 72 (whose territory is there) denies the claim. Army says it managed to inflitrate the NPA's main area camp also in Bacung.
Earlier in the operation, the army claimed to have captured Front 72's leader who they called Danilo Maligante but the NPA denied the man is even a guerilla let alone a Front Commander.
The army has only 8 months left to finish its 3 year old "Op.Plan Bantay Laya Part II" which President Arroyo has long promised woul exterminate the communist insurgency before 2010. Good luck ma'am.
With the longest running communist insugency, a Maoist movement in a very rural and depressed place they do not have much chance, but hey, they have managed to make incredible strides as they have here in San Franz with the last Op, although they merely pushed them back up into the mountains, andsince we are in a mountain range it is not saying much, yes?
Last Saturday, in Barangay Dagonoy in Talaing-D village in Davao del Norte Province, near here, 2 NPA died when engaged by the 60th Infantry early in the day.
Yesterday, in Barangays Puntiari, Palacapao, Minsamongan and H-Handumanan in Quezon village, an area deep in the bush of Bukidnon Province near here, the army's 29th Infantry engaged the NPA in running gun battles but no word on total death count yet with at least 8 NPA and 6 Govt. soldiers dead though, along with 800 families made Refugee.
Crime wise, they have stopped holding up busses, and now there is a rash of vehichle break-ins around Butuan.
Still have not released the bank owner in Surigao, or done anything about the gold robberies, etc but that is life in this part of the world. Noone expects the govt. to do a thing. This is why we all have many guns.
CONTINUATION...
NPA wise...
The NPA just released a handbill locally, which has interestingly been picked up by the local press, at least here on the island, threatening to kill a General from Mindoro (an island far to our north) who is coming down here to head a PDEA (our equivalent of the DEA in the US) to "tackle" our "drug problem," are we not so lucky?
The man, General Jovito Palparan will be working on the local task force to target 85 barangays in Davao City.
A "barangay" as I have explained is a term used to describe the second smallest municpal unit. Here you live in a "Sitio," which means "Site/Location." The Sitio is in ether a "Barangay" or "Purok" which essentially mean the same thing, sort of like a nigghbourhood. when speaking English though, Filipinos often describe a barangay as a "village" which it technically is not.
Well, I need to clarify. See, here, it is actually a village in many cases but not in the Western sense of the word. Many "villages" belong to a town or city, which are each defined according to set parameters. For example, my village of San Franz is the largest in our province, and yet we are not called a "city," or even a "town" but just "municpality." It can be confusing for new people.
When I use the word village here though, I use it to in relation to the Western usage, as denoting a town, etc.
Anyway, 85 barangays are being targetted, but only in our largest city, Davao City, one of the largest in the world actually in terms of overall square kilometers, etc.
2 of the barangays though are in very outlying areas since as I said, a city is not exactly along the parameters of a Western city, Marilog and Paquibito are home to large tracts of cannabis. The NPA is said to be involved in narco-terrorism as the phrase (a stupid one if ever there was one) goes. It is true that those 2 barangays though, are fimrly controlled by the NPA under Ka Paragos so again, go figure.
The NPA also released another handbill, this one does not seem to have been picked up by the media though. For a long time the army has accused the NPA of violating IHL (international Humanitarian Law) on the use of Land Mines.
The NPA though pointed out correctly that they almost always use (in their words "always") Remote Detonated Mines, which are as the phrase suggest, detonated under controlled conditions so that one can target purely military targets.
The NPA says those mines are not "Anti-Personel" but actually "Anti-Vehicular" (no such phrase exists mind you) . Of course RD Mines are just as Anti-Personel as any other mine, albeit totally legal under International Law.
The NPA also mentioned in that same handbill that the army has targeted Lumad (Tribal) villagers in a B'laan (a tribe) settlement with MG-520 gunships causing 300 families to become Refugees.
A 2 week long operation that began on 2/2 and ended around 2/13 when the army withdrew away from NPA positions in Barangays Banayal, Paraiso and Bituan in Tulunan village near the border of Magsaysay village in Davao del Sur Province. The 57th infantry under Lt. Col Mifredo Meligrito which is based in Barangay Bacung in Magasaysay claims to have killed 8 NPA soldiers but the NPA's Front 72 (whose territory is there) denies the claim. Army says it managed to inflitrate the NPA's main area camp also in Bacung.
Earlier in the operation, the army claimed to have captured Front 72's leader who they called Danilo Maligante but the NPA denied the man is even a guerilla let alone a Front Commander.
The army has only 8 months left to finish its 3 year old "Op.Plan Bantay Laya Part II" which President Arroyo has long promised woul exterminate the communist insurgency before 2010. Good luck ma'am.
With the longest running communist insugency, a Maoist movement in a very rural and depressed place they do not have much chance, but hey, they have managed to make incredible strides as they have here in San Franz with the last Op, although they merely pushed them back up into the mountains, andsince we are in a mountain range it is not saying much, yes?
Last Saturday, in Barangay Dagonoy in Talaing-D village in Davao del Norte Province, near here, 2 NPA died when engaged by the 60th Infantry early in the day.
Yesterday, in Barangays Puntiari, Palacapao, Minsamongan and H-Handumanan in Quezon village, an area deep in the bush of Bukidnon Province near here, the army's 29th Infantry engaged the NPA in running gun battles but no word on total death count yet with at least 8 NPA and 6 Govt. soldiers dead though, along with 800 families made Refugee.
Crime wise, they have stopped holding up busses, and now there is a rash of vehichle break-ins around Butuan.
Still have not released the bank owner in Surigao, or done anything about the gold robberies, etc but that is life in this part of the world. Noone expects the govt. to do a thing. This is why we all have many guns.