BY FRANK LLOYD TIONGSON
MANILA TIMES
The Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB) has long “degenerated” into a private army of Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. and the Arroyos in the Negros provinces, according to members of the negotiating panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the current peace talks with the government.
Fidel Agcaoli, a member of the NDFP negotiating panel, noted that aside from integrating itself as a paramilitary unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that was actively involved in attacking units of the New People’s Army (NPA), the RPA-ABB also served as hired guns of landlords in Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental.
“The ABB of Nilo de la Cruz has become a paramilitary unit of the AFP. Together with the RPA, the ABB of Nilo de la Cruz has been integrated into the AFP as paramilitary unit of the GRP/GPH [Government of the Republic of the Philippines] long before their formal surrender to the Estrada regime in 2000,” Agcaoili said.
“The RPA-ABB has also been hired as security guards of landlords, particularly on Negros Island in the haciendas of Danding Cojuangco and Mike and Iggy Arroyo, and as bodyguards and guns-for-hire of politicians, businessmen and mining companies,” he added.
Mike is Jose Miguel Arroyo, the husband of former President and now Rep. Gloria Arroyo of Pampanga province.
Iggy, Mike’s brother, is also a lawmaker representing Negros Ocidental.
Cojuangco, a major controlling stockholder of San Miguel Corp., has been cited as the person who brokered a peace agreement between the RPA-ABB and the government.
He owns vast tracts of land in Negros Occidental.
The Cojuangco-brokered peace agreement, noticeably, did not compel the RPA-ABB to surrender its arms to the government.
The agreement was inked on December 6, 2000 in Quezon City.
In attendance was then-Executive Secretary Edgardo Angara along with Cojuangco and Arturo Tabara, a former leader of the RPA-ABB.
According to the alternative online news magazine Bulatlat, the peace agreement gave the RPA-ABB a special license to carry firearms.
All charges filed against leaders of the RPA-ABB were also dropped.
In the agreement, moreover, the government pledged to give the RPA-ABB up to P510 million for “development projects” as provided for in Article IV, Section 4, and Article V, Section 1, of the cited agreement.
Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita, during the term of then-President Gloria Arroyo, urged Malacañang in 2002 to recognize the RPA-ABB as a paramilitary unit of the AFP.
The move, according to Karapatan, a human-rights watchdog, was backed by then-Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman as cited in Bulatlat.
Soliman is now also the Social Welfare chief of President Benigno Aquino 3rd.
Meanwhile, Luis Jalandoni, the chairman of the NDFP negotiating panel, claimed, “In the alleged peace agreement between ABB and the [government], the ABB (were) allowed to hold on to their firearms. They acted as part of the security of then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she visited Negros. They have carried out military actions against the NPA or suspected supporters of the NPA.”
Jalandoni said that the NDFP did not pursue any effort to reintegrate the RPA-ABB with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-NPA-NDF.
“There were no efforts to reintegrate them because by 1993 when they left the revolutionary movement, they had degenerated with anti-people activities and then later joined the GRP as a paramilitary unit. Their units in Negros also acted and are still acting as a private armed group for Eduardo Cojuangco (Jr.), the big comprador-landlord who exploits and oppresses the Negros farmworkers and peasants,” he explained.
Monetary reward
Jalandoni and Fidel Agcaoili, another member of the NDFP negotiating panel, also noted that the RPA-ABB was not a proper entity that could enter into any peace agreement with the government since the group had been fully integrated into the AFP as a paramilitary unit.
“There are no real peace talks between the [GRP] and the ABB. Since the late 1990s, the ABB (has been) part of the [GRP’s] armed units, just like the Cafgu [Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit],” Jalandoni said.
Meanwhile, Agcaoili asked, “What kind of negotiations could there be between the [GRP] and its own paramilitary unit? Unless one could call the discussions on the handing out of monetary rewards to a paramilitary unit as ‘peace settlement’?”
Earlier reports revealed that the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), under the leadership of Secretary Teresita Deles, disbursed P31 million reportedly for socio-economic development projects of the RPA-ABB.
A supposed peace pact between the government and the RPA-ABB called for financing of such projects for rebel returnees.
For Agcaoili, however, the P31 million was in the nature of a monetary reward for the assistance of the RPA-ABB in military operations against the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA-NDF (CPP-NPA-NDF).
“I think this amount constitutes a monetary reward or payoff to this group for services rendered as paramilitary unit of the [government] in the latter’s ‘counter-insurgency operations’ against the revolutionary movement,” he said.
“The disbursement of this amount would also be a source of corruption in OPAPP,” Agcaoili added.
Jalandoni, moreover, believed that the peace agreement with the RPA-ABB merely served as a smokescreen for the improper disbursement of funds, which, according to various reports, were used to finance the campaign of Mrs. Arroyo for the 2004 elections.
She won the race for Malacañang that year over opposition standard-bearer Fernando Poe Jr.
“[The disbursement of funds] is to nurture the illusion that there are peace talks between the [government] and the ABB and the granting of funds to ABB and their families is an alleged achievement of OPAPP and Secretary Teresita Deles,” Jalandoni said.
“This is done especially now that Secretary Deles is under severe criticism for using OPAPP funds in 2004 to campaign for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and wasting taxpayers’ money with Pamana [Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan] funds being given to false claimants like ABB and CPLA [Cordillera People’s Liberation Army],” he added.
Severed links
According to Agcaoili, there are absolutely no more links between the CPP-NPA-NDF and the RPA-ABB.
He also claimed that “The few elements of the ABB that [Nilo] de la Cruz was able to bring with him when he and Felimon Lagman left the revolutionary movement in 1993 — taking with them the name ABB—were individuals who had been involved in such criminal activities as extortion, holdups, robberies and kidnap for ransom.”
“At the time, these elements also had links with criminal gangs, such as the Red Scorpion Group that was responsible for the kidnapping of an American business executive,” Agcaoili said.
Subsequently, de la Cruz parted ways with Lagman and joined the RPA that was based mainly in Negros Occidental to form the RPA-ABB, according to Agcaoili.
“Since its formation, the RPA-ABB has been incorporated as a paramilitary unit of the AFP long before its so-called peace agreement with [the government] under the Estrada regime in December 2000,” he added.
Jalandoni, moreover, also noted that the RPA-ABB has been involved in various human-rights violations.
“People’s organizations and human-rights groups have accused the ABB of various human-rights violations in Negros, Panay and Metro Manila area,” he said.
Agcaoili, who also heads the NDFP-Nominated Section of the Joint Secretariat, confirmed, “There are complaints submitted to the NDFP-JS against the RPA-ABB for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”
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