Razon told the Commission members: Unless and until we accept this, we will not be able to solve this 37-year-old insurgency that we have in this countryLet us not be fooled into believing that these are different organizations.
Thus, Hustisya, which groups families of victims of summary executions and forced disappearances, as well as Karapatan and other NGOs are prompted to believe that Task Force Usig seems to be more concerned with justifying the killings and vilifying the victims. Razons statements, according to them, serve to obfuscate the issue rather than to unearth the truth.
The mounting cases of extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances, governments apparent lack of political will in investigating and prosecuting the cases, and the witnesses and evidences pointing to the culpability of state security forces lend credence to assertions that these are part of state policy particularly of its counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya.
Oplan Bantay Laya
Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL) is the Arroyo governments counterinsurgency program implemented in 2002 replacing Oplan Balangai. Documents about Oplan Bantay Laya obtained by Bulatlat show an alarming connection between the governments counterinsurgency program, the patterns in cases of extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances, and the actions of troops on the ground as told by survivors and witnesses.
OBL identified 13 priority areas in seven regions, including Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, Central Visayas, Bicol, Northern Mindanao, Southern Mindanao, and Ilocos Cordillera, as the focus of intensive military operations. These are also the regions with the highest number of cases of extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances.
Second, OBL documents claim that the protracted peoples war of the CPP-NPA is carried out by sectoral front organizations. These sectoral front organizations are to be the subject of target research. The output of target research would be a sectoral/front Order of Battle.
It categorizes two types of organizations as targets: the local communist-infiltrated organization and the sectoral front organizations. Local communist-infiltrated organizations, among others, actively participate in activities or organizations established by the CPP-NPA-NDFP.
