By Herbie Gomez
THERE’S nothing new in the assertion of the commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Franco Nemesio Gacal, that the New People’s Army (NPA) is losing in its protracted war in northern Mindanao and Caraga.
We’ve heard that before. Every general that became Camp Evangelista commander has said something like that. I remember Gen. Miguel Sol saying that when he was 4th ID commander. Yet, the NPA didn’t lift a finger to make the mestizo general leave his “White House” post in Camp Evangelista. It merely took a small group of long-haired and bearded indigenes from Agusan del Sur led by then-renegade colonel Alexander Noble to do that with their October 1990 pocket rebellion against the administration of then-president Cory Aquino.
We’ve heard Armed Forces chiefs of staff mouthing the same thing over and over like a broken record. Gen. Joselin Nazareno, the first Armed Forces chief of the Estrada administration, said that, too, when he was 4th ID commander. I remember Nazareno’s vow to crush the NPA in the region. Well, he died in 2006 with the NPA still alive and kicking just like Joma Sison.
In 2016, Maj. Gen. Eduardo Año, as Army chief, vowed to reduce the number of NPA rebels to less than a thousand before the year ended. He subsequently became Armed Forces chief and is now then Interior secretary of the Duterte administration.
Clearly, Año failed in his commitment to make the NPA workforce less than a thousand because, if we are to take Gacal’s word as gospel truth, close to five thousand NPA rebels surrendered to the government in northern Mindanao and Caraga from January to November. Yes, this year, 2019, three years after Año said he’d reduce the NPA rebels’ number throughout the country to less than a thousand by year-end 2016.
Our generals should stop talking like politicians and cut the crap.
It makes me wonder: If thousands of rebels turn themselves in every year, just how many Filipinos have joined and are still fighting in the hills right now? And just how much precious taxpayers’ money has been spent for the military’s “balik-baril” program? You do the math.
As for the generals who are fond of giving false hopes, make a vow with a wager. Like, what should taxpayers do to you if you fail? Pastilan.
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