Peña: NPA has been in Negros for 50 years

By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

Moises Padilla Mayor Magdaleno Peña expressed his support for President Rodrigo Duterte’s plan to form “hit squads” to counter the New People’s Army (NPA) and other communist rebels.

In a statement forwarded to Watchmen Daily Journal, the mayor said he hopes the offensive also looks into NPA supporters in government, including the politicians and businesspeople who reportedly provide material and financial support to the terror group.

He said the local NPA and Frank Fernandez, who heads the terror group in Negros, have remained in the mountains across the island for the past 50 years, calling the group leader the “de facto governor.”

Peña also accused politicians in the Negros Occidental fifth congressional district of supporting the NPA, blaming them for the recent spate of murders that have occurred in the area.

In Moises Padilla alone, from 2010 to the present, he said there have been at least 19 victims of the NPA.

He added, more than half were retired soldiers and police officers.

Meanwhile, the mayor also responded to Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison and the Commission on Human Rights, who both expressed opposition to Duterte’s plans, saying, the NPA must immediately halt their “murderous rampage.”

“You reap what you sow,” he added./DGB, WDJ