EastMinCom: NPA a new Mafia
By ROGER M. BALANZA
The spokesman of the AFP Eastern Mindanao Command said the New People’s Army is a “new Mafia” feeding on extortion of capitalists, and slammed verbal attacks by a communist leader that big business was behind people’s misery.
Kumander Parago should stop his assault on capitalists because he is personally making money out of businessmen by extortion, said EastMinCom spokesman Major Randolph Cabangbang.
Parago, true name Leonardo Pitao and leader of the NPA Pulang Bagani Command operating in the Davao Regio-Bukidnon-North Cotabato boundary, said last week in a phone interview with a Davao City radio station that the NPA would continue to protect the people from big business he accused of land-grabbing and harassment and other anti-people crimes.
But Cabangbang, also in a radio interview with radio station Bombo Radyo, said Parago should instead thank big business for the financial benefits he gets from them.
In Davao Region, large agricultural plantations, mining and logging operations and the construction business are said to be coughing up millions of pesos to the rebels to avoid being harassed or their equipment and properties burned. The NPAs already had publicly acknowledged the series of burning of Smart and Globe transmission towers in the Davao provinces, which the military said were carried out after the telecoms refused to pay evolutionary tax.
Parago should thank the capitalists because after extorting them, he was able to build a high-walled house in Bago Gallera, sent a daughter to nursing school, bought a motorcycle for a son on top of maintaining several wives, said Cabangbang.
Filed under: Military, NEW PEOPLES ARMY, NPA, davao city, parago
