ANAD BACKS GONZALES’ CALL FOR POLITICAL ACTION VS CPP-NPA-NDF

Davao City – The Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy (ANAD) Partylist in Mindanao supports the call of Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales for the government to shift from military to political action in order to finish off the country’s communist insurgency.

ANAD has been advocating increased political action and reduced military presence in NPA-infested areas, with local government officials playing the lead role.

“Instead of merely sitting in the backseat, local officials should instead be asked to take the lead role as the communist insurgency problem is not military but political in nature,” ANAD Partylist Mindanao Spokesman Arthur Tariman stressed.

According to Tariman, the four component responses of the government’s National Internal Security Plan (NISP) includes Political/Legal/Diplomatic that seeks to tap the full cooperation of LGUs and civil society to promote good governance and citizen’s participation in the implementation of the plan. It also highlights the legal and diplomatic responses to insurgency; develops and propagates the democratic tenets to confront communist ideology; and prescribe the political offensives necessary to deal with the insurgent party and its mass organizations.

The other three component responses are Information, Socio-Economic/Psycho-Social, and Peace and Order/Security. The component responses are customized, need-based, site-specific, and strategy-driven actions to address a particular threat.
Military action is only part of the Peace and Order/Security component response that also includes law enforcement.

The Political Offensive under the enhanced NISP seeks a political solution to insurgency and applies the rule of law at all times. It also tries to correct the notion that insurgency can be solved by the military solution alone, by increasing the role of the civilian sector and the civilian agencies of government.

The political offensive will also focus on a national campaign that will be founded on a rejection of all forms of armed rebellion and the promotion of culture of peace.

“Overcoming insurgency is not within the core competence of any single government entity because it requires a highly coordinated and integrated multi-disciplinary approach. Alone and by itself, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) cannot defeat the intricate web of communist insurgency,” Tariman pointed out.

This is the rationale behind ANAD’s counter-insurgency legislative agenda, to wit:
•Categorical designation of the CPP-NPA-NDF as a terrorist organization;
•Designation of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) as lead agency in the counter-agency campaign;
•Reorganization of the government information bureaucracy with the abolition of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and in its stead, established a cabinet-level Public Information Department that would spearhead the Strategic Communication Offensive as prescribed under the enhanced NISP.

Tariman clarified that ANAD’s participation in the partylist election is in support to the government’s political offensive against the communist terrorists which the military cannot do by itself. (ANAD PARTYLIST-MINDANAO NEWS AND INFO BUREAU)