Colonel Alex Luna,
commander of the Philippines Army’s 801st Brigade based in Fatima village, this
town said on Thursday that while they intensify combat operations against armed
rebels, they’re not setting aside efforts to win the hearts of vulnerable
villagers.
“Our main job here is
to sustain peace in areas prone to rebel’s influence. Our efforts to dismantle
rebels must continue. These humanitarian services are all in addition to that,”
said Luna, leader of the battalion tasked to fight insurgency in Samar and
Eastern Samar provinces.
Outreach activities
have been effective to counter recruitment activities of the New People’s Army
in the island of Samar, known as one of the rebels’ strongholds in the country,
Luna said.
“If people see us
doing humanitarian activities in their communities, we gain their trust and
respect. Through these efforts, they’re not easily convinced to join communist
rebellion,” he added.
The army official
said government troops had been engaged in gun battles with the NPA in more
than four decades, but insurgency remained as a serious threat to Samar’s peace
and order.
The two areas belong
to the poorest provinces in the country. In the 2015 report by the Philippine
Statistics Authority, Samar had a poverty incidence of 39.5 percent while
Eastern Samar recorded a 37.4 percent poverty rate.
Samar provinces have
been a stronghold of armed rebels due to its terrain consists of densely
forested mountainous areas, high poverty incidence, and issue of widespread
landlessness, according to a 2013 study of William Norman Holden of the
University of Calgary in Canada.
The NPA launched its
first tactical operation in the country in Calbiga, Samar in 1974, when it ambushed
an army scout patrol and seized a number of their weapons. (JB/PNA)
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