By Priam Nepomuceno – PNA
MANILA — The unit that will be tasked to counter New People’s Army (NPA) hit squads will be formed sometime this month, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Tuesday.
He added that the core of the anti-SPARU (Special Partisan Unit) formation will be made up of personnel from the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), who will be augmented by intelligence personnel coming from the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force.
“I think now the core of this unit will be (from) ISAFP. Meron namang intel units ang Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines so they could form the core of this anti-SPARU unit,” Lorenzana said in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source.
The DND chief said he supports the formation of the special unit in order to protect military personnel from the attacks of the NPA hit squads.
“I’m supporting it per se. I support the anti-SPARU unit that will protect our soldiers but I said let us be very careful in organizing these people. Some quarters are saying we’ll get civilians to do it I think no, this will be very difficult for civilians to do this (as) they might think they have blanket authority to just kill anybody they suspect of being NPA. I want soldiers to be our anti-SPARU unit members and this should be supervised by officers,” he added.
The Chief Executive mulled the creation of such units following reports that 136 people, majority of them military, police, and rebel surrenderees, were assassinated by the rebels in the past three years
