Rep Teves: Pichay, et al ‘hurt by the truth’

By Christian V. Esguerra
Inquirer
Last updated 06:50pm (Mla time) 06/29/2007

MANILA, Philippines — Initially silenced by Malacañang officials, outgoing Negros Oriental Representative Herminio Teves came out again Friday following accusations his son, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, was himself involved in extortion activities.

 

The elder Teves laughed off the allegation made by outgoing Representatives Prospero Pichay and Rolex Suplico, who, as members of the Commission on Appointments (CA), were apparently incensed by the Negros Oriental solon’s disclosure of alleged extortion activities by members of the powerful body tasked with confirming presidential appointments to high office.

 

“The truth hurts,” the 87-year-old Teves told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net. “Even a dog, if it gets hurt, will go crazy and bite without reason.”

 

Pichay and Suplico on Thursday made public a pending graft case against the younger Teves before the Office of the Ombudsman.

 

During CA deliberations in October 2006, a lawyer named Daniel Romana accused Teves of demanding half of the P10 million he was supposedly trying to withdraw from the Land Bank of the Philippines.

 

Teves, then the bank’s president, allegedly wanted the other half as commission for his “friend,” Reynaldo Guevarra.

 

The elder Teves on Friday questioned the timing of the two congressmen’s allegation. “Why are they talking about this only now?”

 

He said was confident the public will not buy Pichay and Suplico’s allegation, claiming that more and more government appointees have been “validating” his disclosure of extortion by certain members of the CA.

 

Last week, an Army general told the Inquirer that an influential member of the CA had once allegedly demanded P50 million from the command service in exchange for the confirmation of its chief.

 

The same lawmaker, a member of the lower house, also allegedly went on a personal trip to the United States with a “woman other than his wife,” only to ask the military attaché to shoulder the couple’s hotel expenses, according to the general who declined to be identified for security reasons.

 

Pichay and Suplico on Thursday asked the elder Teves to issue a public apology, noting that he had yet to present evidence to back his allegation.

 

“Why would I apologize for telling the truth?” Teves replied Friday.

 

He said he was willing to participate in an official investigation, including a planned inquiry in the coming 14th Congress. “We have to change the system of corruption and hopefully, the 14th Congress will do better.”

 

Opposition Representative Rufus Rodriguez of Cagayan de Oro said on Friday he will file on Monday a resolution calling for the creation of an ad-hoc committee to look into the alleged extortion racket within the CA.

 

He suggested that the special committee be composed of seven members, headed by a three-term congressman. The rest of the group should involve three lawmakers from the administration and another three from the opposition, he said.

 

“The House of Representatives should look into the matter because it tends to besmirch Congress as an institution,” he told the Inquirer. “We should recommend prosecution to the guilty and improve the image of Congress.”

AFP: We can beat NPA rebels without US help

By Christine Avendaño
Inquirer
Last updated 03:03am (Mla time) 06/29/2007

MANILA, Philippines — The military can very well fight and defeat the communist New People’s Army (NPA) without the help of the United States, the military’s spokesperson said Thursday.

 

“Strategically, yes. Strategically (we can beat them),” Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, information chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, told reporters when asked whether the AFP could crush the NPA without US assistance.

 

Bacarro said the military was even ahead of its deadline to defeat the rebels by 2010.

 

He was reacting to the statement of the US Pacific Command chief, Adm. Timothy Keating, that Washington was willing to help Manila fight the NPA.

 

Bacarro said it was up to the AFP leadership to respond to Keating’s statement.

 

At a briefing, Bacarro said he was not in a position to respond whether the country would take up the offer of Keating as this was a policy issue.

 

Here on a five-day visit, Keating the other day said the United States would continue to support the Philippines in its fight against Islamic militants — the Abu Sayyaf and Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiyah.

 

The US Pacific Command chief said the United States wouldn’t mind should the Philippines ask for its help in fighting other organizations designated by both countries as terrorist.

 

Keating was in the country for the Mutual Defense Board and Security Engagement Board meetings with the AFP chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr.

 

Regional security

 

In Malacañang, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Thursday discussed regional security with Keating during his courtesy call.

 

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Ms Arroyo assured Keating of cooperation not only by the Philippines but also on a multilateral basis with Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.

 

Ms Arroyo is this year’s chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

 

Bunye said Ms Arroyo thanked Keating for the US government’s assistance in relief and rescue operations during the recent typhoons.

 

Ms Arroyo welcomed the presence of the USS Peleleu, which brought US Navy personnel who are undertaking humanitarian missions in typhoon-ravaged areas in the Bicol region.

 

Human Security Act

 

Bacarro noted that Keating made the statement about the United States helping Manila fight groups classified as terrorist.

 

The NPA has yet to be classified as a terrorist group because the Human Security Act will take effect only next month, Bacarro said.

 

The anti-terror law requires that those deemed by the government to be terrorist undergo a “proscription” process, which Bacarro said was a “tedious” process.

 

“So it has something to do with policy. It would even be beyond the AFP to comment on the statement made by Admiral Keating,” the AFP information chief said.

 

Human rights violations

 

Self-exiled leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its political arm, the National Democratic Front, condemned Keating’s statement.

 

“Admiral Keating’s statements appear to be coordinated with attempts of the Arroyo regime to use the so-called Human Security Act in trying to intimidate the NDF,” said CPP founder Jose Maria Sison in a statement from the Netherlands.

 

Sison said “far worse” human rights violations would be committed by government forces should the United States take part in counterinsurgency.

 

In a separate statement, Fidel Agcaoili, NDF human rights committee chair, called Keating’s statement “interventionist.”

 

Agcaoili said that despite continuous US military support in the form of the Visiting Forces Agreement and Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA), the government had failed to quell the communist insurgency.

 

The communists have been waging a 37-year-old insurgency.

 

NPA strength

 

Their forces are spread throughout most of the country, straining the manpower and supply lines of the 120,000-strong AFP and the 110,000-member Philippine National Police.

 

Latest estimates by the military show that the NPA has about 7,100 fighters, down by at least 5,000 men from its forces in 2002.

 

The military reported that at least 850 NPA rebels were either killed or captured last year, including 13 guerrilla front secretaries. About 500 of the rebels were reportedly killed in encounters.

 

But the rebels belied the military’s figures, claiming that they have the equivalent of 27 battalions or about 13,500 full-time fighters with high-powered rifles, and are backed by “tens of thousands” of militias nationwide.

 

The CPP also claims the NPA now operates in more than 120 guerrilla fronts.

 

Bacarro said the military intended to cut the number of NPA members by 1,000 every year starting last year.

 

“If we reduce them by 1,000 every year, we will be able to reduce them by 2010 to a very inconsequential level that they will not be able to make major attacks,” he said.

 

Bacarro said the government was not only using military force but was also tapping other agencies to “fast track” the efforts against the NPA.

 

Covert operations

 

The CPP spokesperson, Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, said the US military forces had long been directly engaged in unconventional and covert combat operations against the NPA.

“The US military has … provided training, technical assistance, weaponry and intelligence information in the counter-revolutionary war to suppress the armed and unarmed patriotic forces,” Rosal said in a statement.

 

US forces have been using joint military exercises, terrain and “social mapping,” and humanitarian and disaster-relief operations to increasingly trespass in and familiarize themselves with the areas where the NPA is strong, according to Rosal.

 

Rosal claimed that the US military carried out intelligence-gathering operations in Bicol and Quezon in late 2004 and Leyte in 2006 using humanitarian missions as cover. With reports from Juliet Labog-Javellana in Manila and Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon

US willing to help RP troops in fight vs NPA

By Christine Avendaño
Inquirer
Last updated 05:57am (Mla time) 06/28/2007

MANILA, Philippines — The United States vowed Wednesday to support Filipino troops in their fight against Islamic terrorist groups in Mindanao and said that it wouldn’t mind helping out as well in the fight against Manila’s other terrorist foe — the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

 

At the conclusion of a meeting with military leaders on RP-US mutual defense and security interests in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, visiting US Pacific Command chief Admiral Timothy Keating said information sharing and the grant of more hardware was in the pipeline to sustain the offensive against priority targets Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and “any organization designated as a terrorist organization by the government of the Philippines and the US.”

 

Asked whether the US would consider the NPA in their cooperative efforts against terrorism, Keating said: “We’re just right now focused on the Abu Sayyaf Group but if the government of the Philippines tells us that they need help on the New People’s Army, we would consider and respond. So, yes.”

 

The Abu Sayaff and its Indonesian ally JI are tagged as allies of the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden. Both Manila and Washington have also tagged the NPA as a terrorist group.

 

Keating, who earlier visited US and Filipino troops in Sulu province, was at Camp Aguinaldo Wednesday for the start of a two-day meeting of the RP-US Mutual Defense Board (MDB) and Security Engagement Board (SEB).

 

The Constitution bars US troops from engaging in actual combat but they can provide intelligence and technical support.

 

In a joint news conference with Keating, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. added that the meeting saw them updating and planning future joint activities to battle “both traditional and non-traditional threats.”

Trillanes Take His Oath

Senator-elect Antonio Trllanes IV takes his oath of office in his hometown Caloocan City on Friday, Holding a bible held is his 7-year-old daughter Thea Estelle. INQUIRER.net/JOEL GUINTO