The citys largest district of over 40,000 people, Paquibato has become a virtual garrison these days. People cannot move around the place without identification cards bearing the signature of soldiers.
On the veranda of the village hall of barangay Mabuhay, government soldiers mounted an M60 machine gun, a menacing reminder among its residents of the silent war in their midst. In a place called Crossing Hasil towards the border with Panabo, soldiers at a checkpoint stopped all vehicles for inspection.
Earlier this month, a fuming Mayor Rodrigo Duterte had declared he will keep his hands off Paquibato, raising fear that rights of civilians might be violated in the resulting armed clashes between government and rebel forces in the area.
Paquibato has long been considered battleground between the military and the Communist New Peoples Army. Its hinterlands have been a stronghold of NPA leader Leoncio Pitao, the elusive Kumander Parago whose 20 year old daughter, abducted and killed on March 4 in Davao city, was buried last week.
Duterte has kept good rapport with the rebels through the years, a policy that relatively kept peace in the area in the past but which apparently clashed with armys thrust to crush the 40-year old insurgency through military might. Read on.
NDF pledges revolutionary justice for Rebelyn’s killers The National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao condemns in the strongest possible…
New Peoples Army (NPA) leader Leoncio Pitao, alias Kumander Parago, pins down four members of the military intelligence group (MIG) behind the killing of her 20-year old daughter Rebelyn. Photo taken inside Parago’s operational command in the hinterlands in Davao City. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)
Commander Parago, the nom de guerre of Leoncio Pitao, leader of New Peoples Armys (NPA) First Pulang Bagani Command in Southern Mindanao, is grieving for the loss of his daughter.
Where journalists found him in Paquibato, a mountainous district at the outskirts of the city, Parago could have easily come down and visit the wake of his daughter. Rebelyn Pitao was abducted on March 4, her body found dumped in an irrigation canal in Carmen town, Davao del Norte a day later.
But just as how hard it is for the military to climb the mountains of Paquibato, so it is for Parago to come down.
He is the most wanted rebel leader in Southern Mindanao. Major General Leo Joggy Fojas, the former area command chief of 10th Infantry (Agila) Division of the Philippine Army, pronounced last year that they would be able to capture the rebel leader by the end of 2008.
A new commanding officer has now replaced Fojas. But Parago is still very much around, leading one NPA tactical offensive after another. Read on.
