He added that the return of the troops would not be done automatically nor would they return to their previous assignments as it would depend on the request of individual barangays.
Bunye stressed that the military personnel are there for civic action projects.
He said at present the 16 barangays that hosted the military personnel welcomed their presence and even requested that they be redeployed after the election period as their presence helped deter crime.
The soldiers were pulled out Thursday in anticipation of the May 14 elections.
Meanwhile, a top military official said he was glad when residents of a depressed area in Manila drove away scores of leftist militants and a Catholic bishop who tried to convince them to oppose the deployment of soldiers in the urban poor communities in the metropolis.
Brigadier General Nestor Sadiarin, commander of the military’s Civil Relations Service based in Camp Aguinaldo, said the military felt vindicated over the actuation of the residents of Parola compound in Tondo, Manila last Wednesday.
The groups identified with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) swooped down on the urban poor community to convince the residents that the soldiers should be pulled out from their locality immediately.
Ironically, the picket was conducted by leftist militants shortly after Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr. ordered the pullout of troops starting that day up to last Friday to avoid possible allegations that the soldiers were involved in the upcoming elections on Monday.
Esperon has said the matter on whether the soldiers would be re-deployed after the elections would be subject to his review and approval but the National Capital Region Command (NCRcom) said if it would have it its way, the soldiers should be returned to the barangays.
The soldiers were deployed to the depressed communities starting November last year to prevent the NPA from infiltrating the barangays. The deployment had a civil military operation component that allowed the soldiers to pursue medical and dental missions and engineering works.
Sadiarin said what the driving away by Parola residents of leftist militants only shows the “widespread feeling among the residents of depressed communities” to the military deployment. (VR/Sunnex)
