By Dominique Gabriel G. Bañaga

A local labor leader in Negros Occidental accused the New People’s Army (NPA) of harassment.

Allan Gozon, chairman of the Democratic Alliance of Labor Sector (DALO), revealed yesterday morning to local media, that he received information that the NPA’s Special Partisan Unit had deployed a team in Bacolod City’s Barangay Bata.

Gozon, a resident of the said village, claimed that on May 6, two individuals, believed to be in their 30s, were spotted on closed-circuit television cameras, acting suspiciously outside his sari-sari store.

The following day, a group of individuals were spotted near his house.

He claimed he verified the identities of the spotted individuals and he strongly believed that they were members of the NPA.

On May 8, he again spotted another group － a female and three males － monitoring his movement.

The group leader said the same individuals were spotted again by his neighbors yesterday morning.

Due to the incident, Gozon decided not to stay inside his home, as he is now classified as a “fixed target.”

Gozon, also the secretary-general of the then Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade － a breakaway group from the NPA who have signed a peace agreement with the national government － questioned the insurgents as to why they were targeting him.

“I am not a combatant [and] I’m not anti-people,” Gozon said.

He further stated that his movement is legal as he regularly goes to the offices of the Department of Labor and Employment, the National Labor Reconciliation Commission and other government agencies.

Gozon added that if the NPA was planning to assassinate him, he told them that it would not be good propaganda for the group.

“It seems that they want to prove that they are a strong movement by assassinating individuals who are not even their enemies,” he said.

He further added that his group doesn’t want to wage war against them and they are just looking out for their own people./DGB, WDJ