ILOILO CITY — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will provide an area security in the places of engagement of politicians who received threats from rebels.
Lt. Col. Sisenando Magbalot Jr., commanding officer of the army’s 61IB, said in an interview on Wednesday that three candidates have received extortion letters from the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).
“This is not a new issue. Every time elections come, we receive news about the extortion activities of the rebels. The information that they are being extorted reaches us,” Magbalot said, as he presented a copy of the letter to the local media.
Magbalot added they are deploying their troops to the areas where there are reports of extortion by the CPP-NPA.
“We are not providing security to anybody. That’s the PNP’s (Philippine National Police) job. We just continue on deploying our troops,” he added.
He said they assume that the CPP-NPA’s ultimate goal is to threaten the candidates for them to give in.
Also, apart from extortion letters, some candidates were even summoned by the rebels in the mountains for a negotiation.
“We heard about news of politicians going to the mountains to do some negotiation. They have meeting places and we have identified some meeting places. We put the presence of our army for them to look for another place,” the commander said.
Candidates found to be negotiating with the rebels will be met with appropriate sanctions.
“The DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) and the President (Rodrigo Duterte) himself said he will not tolerate politicians who support NPAs. So eventually we will validate these reports. We are actually required by the national headquarters to submit names,” he said.
Attached to the extortion letter are documents and photos to prove the legitimacy of the rebel group.
The AFP also identified five candidates surrounded by inactive members of the CPP-NPA but refused to name them.
“They can still use these lie-lowed members and they can use the contacts of these members,” he said.
The amount being extorted from the candidates are not fixed and may vary depending on the rebel commander’s will.
The United States and the European Union have declared the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group.
