Saturday, November 25, 2006 Police eye heightened terror moves By Dante M. Fabian
CLARK ECOZONE -- The PNP recently warned local government executives of separate plans by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to go on heightened offensives.
Calderon bared these during the Forum on Internal Security and Anti-Terrorism held at the Holiday Inn Resort in Clark Field last Thursday.
The PNP chief said the NPA plans to attain company strength with at least 100 armed regulars for each front, so that “they can start flexing their muscles in preparation for their extortion activities in the coming elections.”
CPP-NPA forces have also been linking up with young military and police officers to infiltrate the ranks of the PNP and the Armed Forces, and have been expanding their mass mobilization activities in urban centers by exploiting sectoral issues, Calderon noted.
As for Moro extremist groups, Calderon reported that the Abu Sayyaf, which has links to international terrorist organizations like Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), is poised to resume its terrorist activities in urban areas by bombing commercial centers and other public places; sea-jacking commercial shipping vessels, taking siege of villages, and mounting another wave of kidnappings.
Calderon said with the lingering impasse in the peace talks between the government and the MILF, the police have gathered information that the MILF has taken advantage of this lull by going on manpower and arms buildup, in preparation for possible attacks on power lines, bridges and communications facilities once the negotiations collapse.
Calderon said the activities of the CPP-NPA and the ASG would include attacks on military and police units, communities, commercial establishments and vital government installations.
Calderon said communist insurgents, for one, plan to consolidate and expand their guerrilla fronts by 20 percent from 105 to 140 fronts in preparation for more tactical offensives, terror, which would involve heightened assaults against police and military units and attacks against private establishments for the purpose of extorting money in the guise of collecting so-called “revolutionary taxes”.
The forum was also attended by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Ronaldo Puno.
The two-day forum was attended by over 300 governors, mayors and other local elective officials from the country’s 79 provinces; the regional and provincial police directors of the PNP, as well as key officials of the Napolcom and the DILG.
Aside from Puno, present in the forum were Senator Juan Ponce Enrile,
National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, and National Police Commission (Napolcom) commissioner Miguel Coronel.
They provided inputs that helped local government units (LGUs) draw up their respective security action plans at the close of the gathering.
During the forum, the DILG and LGUs agreed that the monitoring of these security plans will be done by the secretariats of the POCs in tandem with the regional and provincial PNP offices.
Reiterating these points in his report to the President, Puno said “government efforts to check these possible national security threats will require greater public vigilance down to the barangay level.”
