Palace: Fresh NPA attacks show they lost sense of nation-building

Recent attacks by the New People’s Army show they have lost their sense of nation-building, Malacañang said, as it continues to cast doubt on the resumption of the peace talks.

“The government will undertake appropriate steps to deal decisively with these forces that seem to have lost their sense of nation-building,” presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said in a briefing in Malacañang.

Abella said that NPA conducted attacks in Sarangani, South Cotabato, Surigao del Sur, Palawan, and Masbate, fueling “the public’s doubt about the talks with the group.”

“The communist rebels disarmed officials involved in the counterinsurgency program in Sarangani and South Cotabato. They abducted a tribe leader and a CAFGU member in Surigao del Sur and ambushed a military convoy in Palawan killing—and also killed a policeman in Masbate,” he said.

So far, the NPA had admitted conducting operatives in Sarangani and South Cotabato. But they were yet to issue any statements on alleged attacks on other areas Abella mentioned. — BM, GMA News