NPA not involved in Biliran bus burning incident

Press Release
By EFREN MARTIRES COMMAND, NPA-EV
March 9, 2011

The Efren Martires Command of the New People's Army-Eastern Visayas today slammed the Philippine National Police for accusing the NPA of involvement in the burning of two buses of Silver Star Bus Liner in Almeria, Biliran that also killed two drivers last March 5.

"The NPA had nothing to do with the Biliran bus burning incident," said Ka Karlos Manuel, EMC spokesperson. "But Agence France Press quoted PNP spokesman Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz as claiming that "initial investigation" pointed to the NPA as behind the bus burning for "revolutionary taxation." Cruz did not even show a shred of evidence for his claim from the police's so-called "initial investigation."

News reports clearly showed the incident to be a common crime. The PNP's accusation is therefore nothing more than lazy, baseless and incompetent work and invented out of thin air. It also seems the PNP is spreading disinformation against the NPA after its successful ambush on police elements in Arteche, Eastern Samar last Feb. 26."

Manuel added that revolutionary taxation was an assertion of political authority and not a punitive action. "Companies that do business inside the revolutionary territory have to comply with the laws and policies of the people's democratic government. That includes respecting the communities involved, desisting from counterrevolutionary activities, and protecting the environment, among other regulations that may be clarified. Revolutionary taxation is thus just one of the laws and policies that businesses have to comply with inside the revolutionary territory, and not even the decisive one. For example, large-scale mining is banned totally because of its pro-imperialist, anti-people and anti-environment nature. Similarly, commercial logging is also banned totally, and trees may only be cut by the peasants for their personal use such as in constructing their houses.