Heading the joint council meeting, Calamba City Mayor Justin Marc SB Chipeco (center) approved the creation of the City Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (CTF-ELCAC) which aims to solve labor unrest propagated by the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA). (PNA photo)
Calamba City, Laguna – A former New People’s Army (NPA) member bared the communist terrorists group’s move to incite labor instability.
Now a member of the government’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the anonymous ex-NPA member spoke at the joint meeting of the City Development Council (CDC) and City Peace and Order Council (CPOC) led by Mayor Justin Marc SB Chipeco.
The Ex-NPA bared that Calamba is among the cities identified by the CPP-NPA as a special “White Area” which the armed group aims to complement as its “Red Area”, known as the armed wing, since the city employs many workers who could probably be NPA recruits or at least supporters.
She cautioned that “the organizers may not be able to penetrate easily inside the economic zones since they are not employees but they will be present in the villages, live with the workers and organize.”
Under their Regional Trade Union Bureau and the White Area Committee, the ex-NPA stressed that the CPP-NPA uses “legal fronts” to push for urban-based mass movement. She further emphasized the need to unite “locators” in industrial and economic zones “to conduct labor awareness.”
She said these workers cannot survive a prolonged strike or labor unrest themselves without the support of the legal fronts of the CPP-NPA, which aim to paralyze company operations.
“The industrial workers and economic zone laborers have been vulnerable to recruitment in their struggle that lasted 50 for years now,” which has been creating much harm rather than truly addressing the concerns of the legitimate workers.
During the same meeting, Chipeco approved the creation of the City Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (CTF-ELCAC) that is aimed at guaranteeing industrial peace and job security.
He also approved the joint resolution which formed a special committee which would involve the city’s legitimate and duly-accredited civil society organizations (CSOs) as the big concern also comes from the legal organizational network that is now penetrated by the left-leaning factions not only in the labor sector and civil societies but even in schools. (Jojo Mangahis)