General Tabaquero made
the statement during the Regional Media Interview with President
Arroyo at Barangay Rebong, Las Navas, Northern Samar on
June 16, 2009.
“Of the eleven active
guerilla fronts in Eastern Visayas, seven were already dismantled,”
General Tabaquero disclosed.
The good General said
that only four active guerilla fronts remain active, two in Northern
Samar and two in Western Samar. Three of these fronts will be
dismantled before the end of 2009, the General said.
This campaign against
insurgency will become a reality especially if the people will
continue to give their support and cooperation and work hand in hand
with the military, with the government, General Tabaquero stressed.
President Arroyo
agreed with General Tabaquero and called on the people to help the
government in its campaign to rid the country of the communist
insurgency problem.
“The fight to
eradicate insurgency is every one’s fight. We all have a duty to
perform and a challenge that must be met,” the President said.
The President, while
citing the remarkable progress attained by the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) in the drive to dismantle the Communist Party of the
Philippines/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front (CPP/NPA/NDF),
admitted that more efforts are still needed to resolve the 40-year-old
insurgency problem.
“We have made a lot of
success in our fight against insurgency. However, there are more that
need to be done if we are going to remove this challenge which has
plagued the government for many years,” the President told a regional
media interview here.
Military data as of
May 2009 showed that the membership in the communist terrorist
movement dropped significantly from 7,170 in 2006 to 4,874 in 2009.
The same data
disclosed that from 100 guerrilla fronts in 2006, only 75 remain
active.
It was also noted that
the number of armaments in insurgent hands had been reduced
nationwide: from 6,060 in 2006 to 5,143 in May 2009.
Likewise, the
number of affected barangays had been reduced from 2,121 in 2006 to
1,378 in May 2009, the President said.
