‘Communist rebels at doorstep of Davao City’

Davao City has new NPA rebel front

By ROGER M. BALANZA

The military said New People’s Army rebels have opened a new front committee in Davao City, as it admitted the communist movement is getting stronger in the city’s outskirts.

Task Force Davao commander Col. Rainier Cruz the NPA has established Front Committee 54 which operates in Calinan, Tugbok and Baguio Districts. The new rebel front joins two other old fronts: Front Committee 51 operating in Toril and the city’s boundary with Davao del Sur, and Front Committee 52, which operates in Paquibato district and boundaries with Bukidnon and Davao del Norte.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Cruz admitted the growing influence of communist rebels in Toril, helped by mass supporters through payment of revolutionary tax and relay of information to rebels about the presence of troopers.

At the moment, we can feel the enemy is already at the doorstep of the city, said Cruz. Upland barangays of Toril, particularly the barangays of Catigan, Eden and Catigan, where rebel sightings have been frequent of late, is only about 70 kms inland from the city proper.

To counter the rebel penetration, Cruz said the military and police would conduct massive operations involving about 300 policemen and soldiers in 25 barangays in Toril, backed up special operations teams to be deployed in the communities for two months for counter-propaganda campaign.

Cruz vowed the operations would dismantle the NPA’s tax collection system, intelligence network and the entire revolutionary committee. “After Toril we will move to Calinan, Tugbok and Baguio, and then to Paquibato,” he said.

The reports about the NPA building a new front in Davao City surfaced two months ago after the killing of trader Vicente Ferrazini in Davao City. The NPA admitted the assassination carried out by the Paking Quimbaolibot Command, which was known to operate in Compostela Valley. Ferrazini was killed for allowing the military to set up a base in his farm in Catigan. The NPA would however later apologize for the killing saying a low-level rebel unit erred in meting the death sentence on Ferrazini, from an old-time Davao family of Italian descent running ice cream and pastry houses here.

Toril has been the scene of sporadic clashes between troopers and rebels since the Ferrazini killing. Last week, suspected communist rebels disarmed two policemen in Lizada, Toril manning a checkpoint along the national highway. In a bold move on Wednesday, communist rebels set up also in the national highway in Astorga in Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur.