THE National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) is confident that the remaining three guerrilla fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) in the Visayas including the Negros Island will be dismantled.

Secretary Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the National Security Adviser and NTF-ELCAC vice chair, said in a statement that hopefully the villages in these regions will be cleared of communist terrorist group (CTG) infiltration.

Esperon said the sustained ground engagements of the national and local government agencies using the whole-of-nation approach in tackling community concerns and the Barangay Development Program (BDP) will end the insurgency problem in the islands of Bohol and Negros.

He admitted that the Central Negros 1 and Central Negros 2 front are still operating in the provinces of Negros Oriental and Negros Occidental.

But Esperon stressed that they were “declared weakened last April 21 and are in the advanced stage of being dismantled.”

"The 3rd Infantry Division has proclaimed recently that a total of 142 CPP-NPA-NDF (combatants) were neutralized in Western and Central Visayas since last year up to now,” the official noted.

The Philippine army emphasized that the clearing of the Visayas villages from NPA insurgents has paved the way for various barrio-level peace and development projects.*