No quarter to hit squads - Arroyo

President Gloria Arroyo yesterday vowed to give "no quarter" to communist urban hit squads preying on former comrades who have given up the underground movement's 34-year-old armed struggle.

"We shall not give any quarter to terrorist groups. The government will not allow the murder and intimidation of former rebels who have come back to the fold," Arroyo said at the general assembly of the Philippine Military Academy's Alumni Association.

A new police task force is "empowered to use all available means in our democratic arsenal to account for the perpetrators (of the killing of former communist leader Romulo Kintanar) and carry out my general instruction," stated Arroyo.

"I have no tolerance for those terrorists who manipulate them (the poor whom they are allegedly fighting for). The terrorists deserve a cold jail cell," said Arroyo. "I believe all armed groups know we are serious about engaging them militarily should they not choose the path to peace.

"In order to wipe out terrorism, we must have more than successful military engagements. I will continue to make tough decisions and let the chips fall where they may," Arroyo noted.

At the same time, Arroyo said she is serious about negotiating for peace, adding that "we will only make peace with those who are committed to ending their links to violence and terrorism".

Despite the killings, the president revealed that the cabinet oversight committee on Internal security has finished its review of a draft of a proposed final peace agreement with the communist National Democratic Front (NDF), which has been holding peace talks with the government since 1992. She said she is waiting for the committee's recommendations before the draft is sent to the NDF.

Silvestre Bello III, chairperson of the government-negotiating panel, said he is awaiting final instructions from the palace for the resumption of the talks.

A source said the Bello panel may be dispatched soon to the Netherlands, the base of the self-exiled leaders of the CPP-NDF, led by CPP founder, Jose Maria Sison.

President Arroyo said she sees no problem in talking peace with the NDF despite the terror tag attached to the group by the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and members of the European Union.

Kintanar, shot at on Thursday, was former chief of staff of the communist New People's Army (NPA).

In the 1980s, he launched urban hit squads in Mindanao, which eventually resulted in the creation of other terror groups in Metro Manila and other urban areas.

Kintanar left the CPP-NPA when Sison called for the abolition of the Alex Boncayao Brigade and other urban hit squads.

Kintanar joined the so-called rejectionist leftist faction and was behind the forging of a peace settlement between former president Joseph Estrada and Sison's rival group, the Revolutionary Proletariat Army, in December 2000.

The police and military said the NPA was behind Kintanar's assassination. But Sison claimed that other external forces instigated the murder so that it would be blamed on him.

The military recently identified the new communist hit squad as National Partisan Command, and that it has 20 other targets, including Arroyo, Presidential Chief of Staff Rigoberto Tiglao Defence Secretary Angelo Reyes, Intelligence Officer Victor Corpuz, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople, and businessman Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco.

Meanwhile, Police Chief Superintendent Romeo Maganto revealed his plan to revive an anti-communist vigilante, which was effective in crushing the communist hit squads in the 1980s.

Arroyo appointed Maganto as head of the task force probing Kintanar's killing. At the same time, Police Chief Hermogenes Ebdane said investigations are continuing on reports that Kintanar's gunmen were also members of the NPA's urban guerrilla squad.

The military recently identified the leaders of the NPA's new urban hit squads as Leo Velasco, Philip Limjoco and Bartolome Melchor.