Philippines: Police captives on show in rebel video

By Roy Ramos

ZAMBOANGA, The Philippines (AA) – Communist rebels on Sunday released video of five Philippines police officers they claim to have captured last week in troubled southern Mindanao island.

Five clips received by Anadolu Agency via email show the officers assuring their families not to worry, saying they are safe and being treated well by the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

“I am Police Chief Inspector Leonardo Valdesco Tarungoy, with badge number 1017802, Station Commander under Police Station 7 of Paquibato, Malabog, Davao City,” one of the officers says.

“I am appealing for my family to not worry, to my children, Baby, Didi, Leonard, don’t worry for I am doing fine here. I am safe. They treat us well. They treat us as human beings.”

The NPA released the video messages of the five “Prisoners of War” who they said have been under the custody of the 1st Pulang Bagani Battalion-NPA since April 16, 2016.

In a message accompanying the clips, NPA spokesperson Rigoberto F. Sanchez said that the army’s “obstinate and aggressive stance” was posing “grave and major risks in the lives of the” POWs.

In the attached transcript and video, the five appeal for the cessation of the military and police operations in Davao City’s southern Paquibato district.

Sanchez claimed that the men had almost died in April 18 army bombing, airstrike, and ground operations.

The NPA spokesperson called on the next Philippines president to push for the resumption of peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front, the CPP’s political front, and the government to expedite their early release.

The Philippines goes to the polls May 9, with incumbent President Benigno Aquino III barred from seeking re-election

Sanchez added there is no truth to a police claim that the prisoners were being kept in “makeshift animal cages,” saying that they are non-combatants who are victims of a criminal act of abduction.

“The five police officers are combatants who have fallen into the power of the New People’s Army. The Geneva Conventions stipulate that members of the armed forces of a party to the armed conflict are combatants,” Sanchez said.

“Only medical personnel and religious chaplains covered by the Third Geneva Convention (art. 33) are exempted. Thus, the NPA rightfully captured Tarungoy and the four other police officers who responded to the NPA raid in the 72nd Infantry Battalion CAA detachment on April 16 in Sitio Quimanao, Brgy. Salapawan, Paquibato District.”

Since March 1969, the NPA — the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines — has been waging one of Asia’s longest running insurgencies, which the military says has claimed more than 3,000 lives in the last eight years alone.

Philippines authorities have tagged the rebels as notorious extortionists and blamed them for harassing banana, pineapple and rubber plantations, as well as poultry farms and mining outfits.

As of late last year, there were estimated to be about 4,700 NPA rebels, mainly in the poorest regions of the Philippines.

Peace talks between the National Democratic Front — the communist groups’ political arm — and the government collapsed in early 2013 due to rebel demands that detained comrades be freed.

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