THE Armed Forces ordered the troops on Sunday to be vigilant against attacks by the New People’s Army (NPA) following the successive operations of rebels against government forces around the country over the weekend.

The order was issued by Gen. Alexander Yano, Armed Forces chief of staff, following NPA attacks on Friday and Saturday in Davao, Abra, and Compostela Valley, against government forces. The guerrillas seized more than 15 high-powered firearms in the attacks.

Lt. Col. Ernesto Torres, Armed Forces spokesman, said Yano directed the soldiers to be wary of the intensified attacks by the rebels as earlier ordered by the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

He said the soldiers were ordered to fortify their defensive and offensive positions to repel any further attack by the rebels.

Torres said that Yano also directed the soldiers in the field to coordinate and develop a security plan with local policemen to counter any threat from the communist rebels.

The military denounced the stepped-up attacks which came while it was busy assisting local government officials in preparing for the opening of classes.

Torres said the first attack against soldiers happened in Davao, which was immediately followed by a raid on a militia detachment in Sallapadan, Abra, on Saturday morning.

In the Abra raid, the rebels burned the detachment and wounded one soldier and four militiamen.

Torres, however, said reinforcements sent to beef up the beleaguered detachment caught up with the guerrillas, killing five of them.

On the same day, another band of rebels raided a Citizen’s Armed Force Georgraphic Unit detachment in Nabunturan, Compostela Valley, and burned three bunkers. The rebels also seized 14 World War II-vintage M-1 “Garand” rifles.

The CPP congratulated members of the NPA for the latest attacks that it carried around the country.

In a statement, CPP spokesman Gregorio “Ka Roger”  Rosal said the series of attacks against the Armed Forces “only shows how totally baseless and self-delusionary President Gloria Arroyo and her new Armed Forces chief of staff’s boast of strategically decimating the revolutionary movement by 2010.”

”With the government forces suffering more losses the more they try to pursue their military offensives against the revolutionary forces, it is they and not the revolutionary forces who will be significantly weakened by the target end of their current counter-insurgency Operations Plan Bantay Laya II,” Rosal added.

Emergency powers on food, oil nixed

PRESIDENT Arroyo can still manage escalating oil and food prices with the present presidential authority and has no immediate plans to seek emergency powers, according to chief presidential counsel Sergio Apostol.

LOCAL employers are finding it hard to recruit qualified people to fill in vacancies in health, aviation, construction, technical services, human resources and education industries, a survey by the labor department showed.

SAYING that the case was prematurely filed, the Court of Appeals (CA) has dismissed the petition filed by a group of taxpayers seeking to declare as unconstitutional Executive Order (EO) 683 allocating the P6-billion share of Palawan, from the Camago-Malampaya oil and natural gas project as part of the pork barrel of the governor and the two congressmen of the province.

SENATE Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has opposed any move to extend the term of President Arroyo by using the proposed federal system contained under Joint Resolution 10 that was backed by at least 16 senators.

THE Armed Forces ordered the troops on Sunday to be vigilant against attacks by the New People’s Army (NPA) following the successive operations of rebels against government forces around the country over the weekend.

DAVAO CITY—The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said it would hold mass demonstrations here, including a lakbayan and caravan rally on Tuesday to mark the 20th year of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which it criticized as a failure.

A NONGOVERNMENT organization has called on Environment Secretary Lito Atienza and Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman to stop the conversion of agricultural lands into other uses such as tourism and mining.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The Zamboanga City police on Sunday said the principal suspect of the May 29 bombing outside a military base in this city is a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s Special Operations Group (MILF-SOG) based in Central Mindanao.