AMID security apprehensions of banana exporters on continuous extortion activities of the communist groups, the Armed Forces of the Philippines urged companies not to give in to their extortion demand and rather invest in improving their security measures.
Philippine Army's 10th Infantry Division assistant division commander Brigadier General Bienvenido Datuin said on Wednesday, September 6, that a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is being finalized between the Department of National Defense and companies to address extortion concerns and to come up with a better solution to the pressing problem.
"That is why we talk to different banana plantations, construction firm, transportation and express to them what we call critical investment protection security operations. We are conducting dialogues with them telling them to invest in security," Datuin said.
The MOA, Datuin said, includes a recommendation on the establishment and training of Cafgu Active Auxiliary II (CAA II) who will secure the company establishments that are victims of extortion of the New People's Army (NPA).
He said the NPA, oftentimes, will demand money from business establishments, which is an extortion resource generation to support their operations, and when their request is not granted, they usually resort to burning of facilities of the company or abduction.
Datuin added that even when the peace talks were ongoing, the rebels continue with their illegal activities and harassments to civilian business entities.
There is reportedly about P1.5 billion extortion money collected from construction, mining, transportation and agriculture companies by the rebels every year, he said.
"Ito ang challenge namin ngayon (This is our challenge now on) how to really convince these people not to give in to extortion demands and of course to invest in security," Datuin said.
He admitted that they cannot secure all the business establishments because of the manpower limitation, thus, they encouraged stakeholders to establish a stiffer security.
"The details of this will be ironed out but right now, that is the best solution. That is the challenge that we have right now is to train these SCAAs to really support the security needs of various LGUs and companies to avoid extortion," he said, adding that there are companies who signify their support on the provisions of the MOA.
"We have been receiving positive feedbacks and we will be having developments on this before the yearend," he said.
They are also discussing the contentious issue of who will provide the compensation of the CAA II but he said that the company will fund their salary, allowance, among others but the Local Government Unit is looking for available funds and from their end, they will provide the training as well as the firearms.
They are making sure that the investment on security is cheaper than the extortion money they give to the rebels to further encourage to rather invest in CAA II.
"We will be training these people and giving them the necessary firearms. Meron kaming part, meron din silang part (We each have our own parts). We can start with the training after the MOA signing and MOA refining and they have been positive about this," he said.