MALIBCONG, Abra – Police and military authorities vehemently belied the allegations of human rights organizations in the region that people in the remote villages of this municipality are now experiencing hunger following the alleged food blockade done by government forces running after the New Peoples Army (NPA) rebels that attacked the Malibcong Municipal Police Station, saying that it is the supporters of the rebels who could not deliver food for the insurgents because of the intense police and military operations in the town over the past several days.
Senior Superintendent Alexander Tagum, provincial director of the Abra Provincial Police Office, said people can freely move around the municipality but it is the supporters of the fleeing rebels who could no longer provide them their supply of food and ammunitions because of the intense operation coupled with the fact that the communist rebels are already trapped in a certain area in the remote village of the municipality.
“We will not be surprised if there will be a series of encounters between the pursuing government forces and the communist rebels in the coming days because they are now confined to a certain area around Malibcong,” Tagum stressed.
The police official said the reported incidents of forest fires in the area because of the alleged bombings done by the government’s air assets is again not true because the forest fires were allegedly initiated by suspicious-looking individuals in the towns of Baay-Licuan, Dangalas, Lagayan, Tinbeg and Laginden purposely to divert the attention of the operating troops to leave the area for the rebels to be able to flee but he underscored that the government forces did not bite into the bait of the rebels.
For his part, Lt. Col. Thomas Dominique Baluga, commanding officer of the Philippine Army’s 24th Infantry Battalion, expressed his disappointment over the false information being circulated by human rights advocates regarding the actual situation in the municipality, saying that many of the people in the different barangays have been affected by the recent atrocities of the rebels, saying that there is no actual food blockade in the town as relief supplies from the provincial government have been arriving and were distributed to the people over the past several days.
Baluga claimed the human rights advocates are trying to mislead the people by making it appear that people in the municipality are having a hard time accessing food when it is the communist group that is now having a difficulty getting their food supplies from their supporters because of the presence of police and military troops operating in the area and going after them.
“If the rebels really sympathize with the current condition of the people, then they must also provide them with their supply of food because they could no longer go to their farms and till the soil for their food for fear that they might be caught in the crossfire in case of an encounter,” Baluga stressed.
Lak-ey Punong Barangay Marcos Sangdaan also denied the existence of food blockade being enforced by the police and military, saying that people in his remote village have access to the food supplies being provided by concerned government agencies and the provincial government while the situation remains uncertain in their place.
By HENT