From the Business Mirror (Mar 15): Davao favors village watchmen than Alsa Masa vigilantes—gov
The plan to organize armed vigilante groups in Davao del Sur was shelved in favor of the more acceptable civilian-headed security task force, the governor said.
The plan to organize armed vigilante groups in Davao del Sur was shelved in favor of the more acceptable civilian-headed security task force, the governor said.
Gov. Claude Bautista clarified on Friday that the plan to organize an Alsa Masa-type vigilante group in the villages of the province was actually proposed by the mayor of the town of Matanao, where the New People’s Army (NPA) raided its police station at dawn on Monday and killed two policemen on duty.
The proposal was put forward during a supposed closed-door meeting a day after the NPA attack, and was quickly endorsed by Mayor Franco Calida of Hagonoy town.
Calida was the brains behind the Alsa Masa vigilante group in Davao City in the middle of the 1980s to counter the increasing presence of the liquidation teams of the NPA assassination squads called Sparrow Units.
“The proposal was adapted by the League of Mayors of the province as a probable action to thwart any and further guerrillas attacks on government and military installations in the area,” Bautista said, to clarify reports linking him to the proposal.
The proposal was replaced, however, with the activation of Task Force Davao del Sur, and endorsed by the mayors during the same meeting that Bautista convened to address the two NPA operations in a span of one week.
The NPA ambushed an Army patrol a week earlier in a mountain village of Bansalan town. The NPA exploded a landmine that night as the Army attempted to retrieve its 11 wounded soldiers. The blast injured civilian rescuers however as they rode on a Red Cross vehicle and a city ambulance in an Army convoy.
Bautista said the task force would no longer organize vigilantes and arm them. Instead, he said, the task force would tap the barangay tanod and civilian militia members as the village first line of security.“The task force is headed by the provincial governor and the police and the military units would be placed directly under the authority of the provincial governor,” he said. “It is a civilian organization.”
Neither would the existing barangay tanod and militia members be given weapons.“The existing structure in the barangays would remain; only this time, half of these groups in all the areas would be placed directly under orders of the task force,” he said.
He said the police and the Army were still doing the inventory of these barangay tanod.
Bautista was here in Davao City to witness the opening of a new music radio station which he own. Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte also attended the launching, and when interviewed for reaction on the Alsa Masa plan, said he did not favor it. “This would only create animosity among the residents and to pose peace and order problems later,” he said, citing the experience of the city.
“As the presence of the NPAs waned, these civilians used their guns and power to create problems when they turned holdupmen, carjackers, robbers and thieves,” he said.
“I would suggest that the government talk to the NPAs,” he said.
Bautista said the establishment of the task force should not be misunderstood as cutting off communication lines with the NPA. “As we don’t know which unit or who among their leaders and units are responsible for the attack, we have to organize this security task force,” he said.