The NPA command in Southern Mindanao decried the treatment of their comrade in the hands of their enemy. They challenged the 10th ID to treat Ka Jinggoy as prisoner of war (POW), in the same way they treated captured AFP combatants. The NPA said they respected their captives’ rights based on international war protocols.
Ka Jinggoy’s unit, the 4th Pulang Bagani Company of the NPA in Southern Mindanao, was involved in recent high-profile tactical offensives of the NPA in the region which resulted to the capture of high-ranking military officers, namely: Lt. Vicente Cammayo, company commander of the 3rd Special Forces Battalion and Corporal Dominador Alegre, detachment commander of the 72nd IB in barangay New Kapatagan in Monkayo, Compostela Valley.
Ka Jinggoy’s unit was also part of the custodial force of the captive officers in two separate incidents. Cammayo and Alegre were released later by the NPAs on humanitarian grounds.
Finally, Jinggoy was moved from the Camp Panacan Hospital to the Davao Regional Hospital in Tagum City on March 2 upon a court order.
Ka Jinggoy bids goodbye to Corporal Dominador Alegre released by the NPA in November 2009. (davaotoday.com file photo)
He was later put inside the Tagum jail where he is presently being kept. His case is a tale of the battle fought by the communist guerrillas against the Philippine government.
The Philippine military would never consider an NPA combatant they capture in battle as a prisoner of war. They treat captured NPA combatants like Ka Jinggoy as common criminals.
Far from merely a quibble over semantics, calling captured combatants ‘prisoners of war’ would give the NPA the status of belligerency that the government would never do.
But as far as the NPA is concerned, the war they have been waging over four decades has already reached an advanced stage. They claim they are now poised to win it.
In its most recent anniversary statement, the NPA declared that they have “developed the basis to reach the stage of strategic stalemate in the next five years,” owing to the experience they acquired in the last four decades of war.
The Philippine military however is not taking things sitting down. It has declared 2010 as decisive for finally ending the communist rebellion in the country. The AFP leadership has vowed to make the NPA an “inconsequential” force this year.
But it looks like they will have to pound hard first on the likes of NPA fighters like Ka Jinggoy and the 13 others who showed defiance even in jail.(Cheryll D. Fiel/ davaotoday.com)
