Communist insurgency ending in RP

Communist insurgency ending in RP

MANILA (AFP): Philippine President Fidel Ramos yesterday announced plans to switch most counterinsurgency duties from military to police personnel, saying the fight against communist rebels was in its "final chapters."

"We are closing the final chapters of our more than 20 years of struggle against insurgency," he said, apparently referring to the movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military arm, the New People's Army (NPA).

In his speech to mark the 59th anniversary of the armed forces, Ramos said the number of villages where the CPP were active and exerted influence had dropped from about 1,000 in 1993 to only 700 now.

He said this represented only 1.7 percent of the country's villages.

He credited this to the end of the Cold War which had weakened the appeal of communism, as well as to government reforms including an amnesty program extended to insurgents.

Ramos said the weakening insurgency should allow the military to concentrate on civic action, engineering projects, environmental protection and disaster relief to develop the economy, as well as on external defense, which it has largely ignored while devoting its resources to fighting guerrillas.

But he said the transition would require the modernization of the ill-equipped military and urged congress to pass a bill this year allocating more funds for modernization of the military.

Ramos also confirmed that he had approved guidelines for the transfer of the military's counterinsurgency duties to the national police on Jan. 1. But he added that the military would remain in charge of such duties in several designated large areas.

These include the southern island of Mindanao and its surrounding islands as well as the mountainous region of the Cordilleras and several other underdeveloped islands and regions, Ramos said.

He did not say why these areas were exempted from the transfer although many of them are strongholds of the NPA or other armed groups like Moslem gunmen.

Despite the exemptions, Ramos said the transfer showed there was "an improved peace posture and climate," in the country.

Although the communist guerrillas' ranks have dwindled in recent years from a record high of about 25,000 during the 1980s to about 8,000 this year, they still stage sporadic attacks on the military.