THE New People's Army (NPA) rebels were only able to get a measly P26 million from their permit-to-campaign collections in the recently concluded midterm elections. Not a huge amount considering their target of P500 million PTC fee from candidates, according to the military.
Armed Forces of the Philippines' (AFP) Public Affairs Office chief Major Ramon Zagala said the figure came from documents the military recovered from various armed engagements with the rebel group.
"As you know documents and reports reveal that the rebels targeted P500 million during the election but they were only able to collect an estimate of, or reports P26 million, so that is a very far target," Zagala said in a press briefing Wednesday.
The AFP official said the PTC fee range from as low as P50,000 to as much as P5 million depending on the position the candidate is running for.
Zagala said the low turnout of PTC collection by the NPA could be attributed to the AFP's increase in operational tempo.
"In the past we learned that during the election they are aggressive in collection so the unified commands recognized this and increased the operational tempo…We were able to restrict the movements of the rebels in their collection …more field work for our intelligence operatives and we were able to find out and step ahead of them so we attribute it to that," Zagala was quoted as saying.
The military said the communist rebel group have earned at least P2 billion in "revolutionary taxes" from businesses across the country since 1998.
In resource-rich Davao area, numerous bandit groups have reportedly established guerrilla fronts to share the enormous sum collected from gold mines and large farms including telecommunication companies.
Former AFP chief-of-staff Gen. Delfin Bangit revealed that several years back they have seized documents in Luzon that showed Smart Telecommunications paying the NPA revolutionary tax.
Bangit said the documents were seized from three NPA members who were arrested by authorities in Quezon province. It has long been rumored that Smart is paying revolutionary taxes to the rebels considering that no Smart cell sites was destroyed by the rebels, only towers owned by Globe Telecoms.
Smart Telecoms had repeatedly denied it is giving in to what the military had described as "extortion activities" of communist rebels.
Zagala, meanwhile, said that this clearly proves that the NPA's "are clearly just doing extortion and terroristic actions so this is no longer about ideology, no longer about issues but actions that will undermine not just government but the Filipino people."