by Miriam G. Desacada
Tacloban City–The total downfall of the insurgency movement in Eastern Visayas is closing in, leading to the eventual declaration of the region as one of the insurgency free areas in the country, came the implied statement of Major General Camilo Ligayo, commander of the Philippine Army’s 8th Infantry Division (8ID).
Ligayo issued this message following the confirmation by the CPP-NPA-NDF of the death of top terrorist couple-leaders Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria-Tiamzon last August 2022, which Secretary Eduardo Año, national security adviser, said is a welcome development in the country’s fight against insurgency and terrorism.
Benito Tiamzon, chairman of the CPP Executive Committee, and wife Wilma, the CPP’s secretary general, were killed in an encounter off the seas of Samar with government forces last year, but this was initially denied by the terrorists’ group.
On April 20, this year, however, the CPP issued a public confirmation that its top leaders, the Tiamzon couple, were already dead, but insisted still that the couple “were tortured first and killed by government troops, by strapping them, along with others, on an explosive-laden boat that was blasted off the Samar coast, while making it appear that there was a mid-sea encounter.
Año earlier said that, with the death of the Tiamzon couple coming on the heels of the death of CPP founder Joma Sison, the terrorist groups is now “headless with no clear national leadership … now groping in the dark with no direction nor future in sight.”
Ligayo, when asked by the 8ID Press Corps, declared: “The death of the Tiamzon couple and other CPP-NDA-NDF leaders is one of the causes that significantly derailed the plans of the remnants to continue the insurgency movement in Eastern Visayas,”
Ligayo said the insurgents in the region are now having difficult times to continue their aimless fight, especially that they longer have the support of the masses, due to the big strides of the regional ELCAC program.
“We are thus confident that the military leadership in Region 8 could finally topple the remaining two guerrilla fronts, which the regional command is targeting to neutralize before the year ends,” said Ligayo
Ligayo also belied claims of the CPP that the Tiamzons and others were tortured first before being killed by blasting. He said their deaths came as a result of a legitimate encounter.
Backing the Ligayo declaration was Deputy Speaker and Minority Leader, Representative Marcelino Libanan of the lone district of Eastern Samar.
Libanan, in his message during the groundbreaking ceremony of the 20-MW solar energy project of Taft Hydro Corporation in the province, said: “This (industrial development) in the region, is a clear sign that insurgency is coming to an end. We have now a peaceful community. Economic development could now easily come into Eastern Visayas.” —Miriam G. Desacada