Leyte province awaits rebel-free status declaration

HINABANGAN, Samar, June 8 (PNA) -– The Philippine Army will soon declare Leyte as insurgency-free, the third province in Eastern Visayas free from threats of armed communist rebels.

Under the Army’s 8th Infantry Division’s timeline, the target is to declare Leyte province as peaceful, stable internal security condition or insurgency-free on June 30.

Leyte province has been under the manageable conflict-affected and development ready area status since 2006.

The current status of the province is an indicator that the root causes of conflict were appropriately addressed, said Major Gen. Jet Velarmino, commander of the 8th Infantry Division.

“Winning the peace on the ground was made possible by the strengthened collaboration among various stakeholders for peace and development, and the improved capacities of a strengthened constituency,” Velarmino said.

Currently, Eastern Visayas has two declared insurgency-free province - Southern Leyte and Biliran.

The three provinces in Samar Island are also placed under the normalization process or at the status of peaceful and ready for development, a first step in the declaration for insurgency-free area.

The Army has resumed the assessment of provinces, cities and towns to find out if some areas are insurgency-free after performing election duties.

They temporarily stopped the assessment and declaration of areas at the height of election period this year.

“We have timeline for that, but due to the elections, we opted to set it aside and now we will resume it starting with Leyte,” Velarmino said.

Declaring an area as insurgency-free is beneficial to the locality as this will attract investors that would result to economic growth.

Although handling the peace and order management job will be turned over to the local government and the Philippine National Police for “insurgency-free” areas, military presence is still assured, according to Velarmino. (PNA)
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