Manila winning war against communists, defence chief says

Manila: Philippine officials on Friday said that they are winning the battle against insurgency, claiming they have reduced the number of communist rebels to 4,800 fighters from 5,200 last year.

Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. praised the military for its accomplishment during the past five months against the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA), which President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wants defeated before the end of her term next year.

Teodoro said that no less than Arroyo, the military's commander-in-chief, expressed satisfaction over what the military had done in the fight against the CPP-NPA rebels from January to May, this year.

Last Monday, the military reported that the strength of the four-decade-old rebel group is now at its lowest since the group had peak membership of about 25,000 in the 1980s.

"No one is more satisfied than the President and me. They (military) have done so much with so little. You go and ask every expert in the armed forces and they will tell you how amazed they are on how we are accomplishing our mission," said Teodoro, a former congressman and reserve pilot of the Philippine Air Force.

The defence chief said the military accomplished this feat while at the same time addressing the threat posed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in central Mindanao, the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in western Mindanao and at the sametime engaging in disaster response.

"We are attending four fronts - the CPP-NPA, MILF, the Abu Sayyaf and natural disasters and calamities. We are addressing these at the same time. The mere fact that the country's security situation is still stable, this is already a big accomplishment by our military and the police," said Teodoro.

Asked whether it is still wise to revive peace negotiations with the communists, Teodoro said he is in favour of resuming the talks with them for as long as the issue that would be discussed would be their surrender to the government.

Peace talks between the government and the communists bogged down in 2004 after the United States included the CPP-NPA in its list of foreign terrorist organisations. Efforts by both sides are underway to revive the formal talks.