Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Volume 2, Number 30              September 1 - 7,  2002            Quezon City, Philippines







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Army Commander Insists Bayan
and Ang Bayan are One and the Same

This business of labeling progressive groups such as Bayan Muna as “terrorist” is proving to be dangerous: countless activists have been killed allegedly by military and paramilitary forces. In Negros, the island’s top Army commander has linked Bayan to the underground Left – and he cites as proof copies of Ang Bayan supposedly found in sites of recent armed clashes involving the NPA. Bayan activists who sense danger in this absurdity, see an imminent crackdown.

By Edgar A. Cadagat and Karl G. Ombion
Bulatlat.com/Cobra-ans

BACOLOD CITY – Negros Island’s top military commander proved to be the butt of jokes among radio listeners here when he accused the militant Bayan-Negros as a subversive organization with links to the outlawed armed Left. Proof he said was that copies of Ang Bayan (The People) were found in two recent clashes involving New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas and a rival group.

Bayan leaders were, however, not amused.

In a radio broadcast Aug. 28, Col. Alphonsus Crucero, 303rd brigade commander, said that Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan)-Negros, had links with the underground Communist Party of the Philippines and its military component, the NPA, based on subversive papers Army soldiers seized following a clash in a hinterland village of a city and another in a town in southern Negros' CHICKS area.

Crucero’s accusation also came on the heels of an ambush by the NPA in Negros Oriental on Tuesday.

The Army commander said that aside from Ang Bayan seized were copies of "Paghimakas" (Struggle), a revolutionary newsletter published by the CPP in Western Visayas.

Crucero said that the CPP newsletter which by inference carried the name of “Bayan” proves that the militant group is linked to the underground party. Interviewed in Radyo Agong's Prangkahanay Ta Program (Let's Be Frank) by broadcaster Sandy Villano, he challenged Julius Mariveles, Bayan-Negros secretary-general, Julius Mariveles - a former journalist- to visit the Army headquarters and look over the evidence of Bayan's link with the CPP-NPA.

But Mariveles who was also placed on the air along with Crucero appeared not amused, explaining that Ang Bayan was a publication of the CPP and was not in anyway linked with the militant. (The paper was first published in 1969 following the re-establishment of the CPP while Bayan, a legal alliance of 14 mass organizations, was founded about 16 years later.)

The military commander was referring to two recent armed clashes – the first in Taysikan Subvillage, Balicotoc Village, Ilog town and the other in Agtao Subvillage, Tapi Village Kabankalan City, August 26.

Sources said these were chance encounters between the NPA and a rebel faction. No casualties were reported.

Mariveles chided Crucero for implicating Bayan-Negros in every opportunity he gets and especially when there are clashes between the NPA and the military.

Bandied about

"These issues have been bandied about even when the Marcos dictatorship was in power, and by the various administrations which followed it and until now," Mariveles said. "This became more pronounced when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared all-out war against the mainstream revolutionary movement and when the United States declared the CPP-NPA as a Foreign Terrorist Organization."

The Bayan-Negros leader said the military must have a plan up its sleeve: an imminent crackdown on progressive organizations in Negros.

Crucero countered that Bayan and other militant groups should stop criticizing the government but Mariveles said it was the people's right to criticize what they feel should be brought to public attention.

It remained unclear whether Mariveles’s simple explanation was convincing enough to Crucero.

Last week’s verbal match between the Army commander and the Bayan leader was the latest in a series of public debates they have had following armed encounters between the NPA and government troops.

Meanwhile, two ambushes were reportedly staged by the NPA in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental last week. Killed were Chief Insp. Leopito Gallego, police chief of Vallehermoso town, and two other policemen. Three other policemen were wounded while two more went missing.

Other reports described one of the ambushes as a misencounter between police and military forces. Bulatlat.com


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