NAGA CITY – The community development program of the Philippine police and military being implemented in Bicol is a pretense for increased militarization and repression of activists. This was the message of progressive groups led by Bayan Bicol during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) protest in Naga City on July 24. 

No less than Pres. Marcos Jr. reported that the Barangay Development and Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Programs were supposedly effective in addressing armed conflict in the countryside through community development and livelihood programs. 

The government’s anti-insurgency agency, the National Task Force to End Local Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) allotted a budget amounting to Php1.72 billion this year for Bicol region. This translates to about Php6.6 million per target barangay for their counterinsurgency activities. Among the 81 target barangays, the areas in Camarines Sur have the reportedly the highest allocation. These include the municipalities of Baao, Balatan, Buhi, Bula, Calabanga, Caramoan, Goa, Iriga City, Lagonoy,  Minalabac, Ocampo, Pili, Presentacion, Sagñay, San Fernando and Tinambac. 

According to human rights group Karapatan, none of these so-called community development programs were new. “The programs run by the NTF-ELCAC have resulted in various human rights violations including fake surrenders, harassment, and threats to freedom of association and to free expression” the group said in a statement.   

In fact, when the military provided relief goods in Brgy. Concepcion Grande last April, they made residents sign a document. According to Camarines Sur peasant leader Marites Cello, there were 27 individuals who signed in their community. “They army forced people to sign as NPA surrenderees, with the help of the barangay captain,” she said. 

Cello added that she was also forced to sign the document, but she refused when two military officers came to see her. “I told them that I’m an activist fighting for our land so why would I sign,” she said. 

Exploiting poverty 

Cello, a member of women’s peasant group Amihan, spoke during the People’s SONA in Plaza Quezon. “They are deceiving the people,” she said in her speech. “The military and the police try to blind those in the community by giving them relief goods in exchange for what the state forces want.”  

Cello added that since last year, her movements around her community have become limited. “The NTF-ELCAC program being implemented in our area is meant to silence activists like me,” she said.  

Being continuously under surveillance from state forces and being tagged as a member of the New People’s Army, she said she was dismayed when their village leader, Brgy. Captain Michael Oliva, expressed support for the NTF-ELCAC’s community development and livelihood programs. Oliva allowed the deployment of joined forces of AFP-PNP in their barangay. 

“They stayed in our community—elements from Civil-Military Operations, from the 9th, 83rd, some from the 21st Infantry Batallion,” Cello said. 

Continued militarization  

For Nida Barcenas of Karapatan Bicol, state fascism intensified in the region under the year-old Marcos Jr administration. She explained that programs like the Retooled Community Support Program (RCSP) and Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) are being implemented aggressively in the communities. 

These peasant communities include areas such as Barangays San Antonio, Old San Roque and San Agustin in Pili, Camarines Sur, where as much as 100 civilians were reportedly forced to surrender as communist rebels.  

Karapatan also slammed Pres. Marcos Jr’s proposal of amnesty for rebel returnees, calling it a “shallow approach” that does not address the root causes of the armed conflict. “It will guarantee not the end but the continuance of armed conflict,” Karapatan stated. 

Under Bongbong Marcos Jr. administration, Karapatan Bicol has documented 95 incidents of human rights violations, and four extrajudicial killings. It added that there are still 33 political prisoners in the Bicol region. 

Food and wages 

During the SONA protest in Naga City, Cello said that the AFP-PNP “planted” civilians to join the protest to supposedly take photos and do surveillance on activists. But they are undeterred, she said, because those in the protest understand the need to express their opposition and demand real solutions.  

Cello was with various progressive groups from different sectors in Sorsogon, Albay, and Camarines Sur who faced heavy rains brought by Typhoon Egay during the protest.  They marched from National Irrigation Administration office in Panganiban drive to Plaza Quezon to present their demands. 

On stage, Cello said, “I will not be surprised if I’m killed or planted by a gun the next day because it’s not far from what the military and police would do.” 

During the People’s SONA, multisectoral group BAYAN Bicol also called for an end to human rights violations perpetuated by the state forces.  

“Residents from the communities in all of the provinces in the region are being fed up by militarization,” Jen Nagrampa, BAYAN Bicol spokesperson, said. “Bicolanos should be heard and the government must fulfill their demands for higher wages, more jobs, affordable food, respect for human rights and national sovereignty.” (By Reynard Magtoto)