DESPITE ongoing peace talks, the communists remain the number one internal threat to national security, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon said Thursday.
Esperon said that while communism isn’t an outright threat, the ideology espoused by members of the Communist Party of the Philippines, National Democratic Front, and their armed wing the New People’s Army is “something that would not really be the way of life… that the Filipinos would want.”
“So if the basis is [our] way of life, then I would say the Communist Party, the NPA, and the NDF would be the number one threat,” he added.
In a statement Wednesday, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza said while the fifth round of talks with the communists would push through in The Netherlands from May 27 to June 1, he was dismayed by the NPA’s attacks that led him to question their sincerity in pursuing peace negotiations with the government.
The communists signed a joint interim ceasefire with the government during the last round of talks in The Netherlands, but incessant attacks by the NPA were recorded in Davao and other parts of Quirino province — leading calls for the government to drop the negotiations and pursue an all-out war.
While government and communist negotiators continue to engage with each other, the Communist Party of the Philippines had earlier branded Esperon, along with Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief Gen. Eduardo Año as “peace-spoiling stooges of US imperialism in the military establishment” after security officials tagged the group as “terrorists” for their revolutionary tax collection and territorial claims.
Aside from the communists, local terror groups who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State also constitute a major threat to national security, Esperon said.
“If you look at other dimensions like freedom of movement and fear, unwarranted fear, mass destruction, extremism, then we would be looking at terrorists,” Esperon said.
“Therefore, I would rank the terrorist as very high, especially now [with] reports that ISIS members are here already and they have a ready force that would be willing to join them,” he said.
Esperon said that threats by extremist groups almost disrupted the Asean meetings in the Central Visayas, only averted because of “good intelligence and immediate action” by security forces.
“We would not want people to be believing that the Philippines is the center for kidnappings and beheadings. That’s bad for our image,” he said.
But Esperon played down an ISIS declaration that they were behind a bomb attack in Quiapo that police have attributed to local gangs.
In his statement, Dureza said he was dismayed by the NPA attacks that victimize civilians.
“Although a bilateral ceasefire is not yet in place, the public’s common reaction to these incidents questions the sincerity of those whom we talk and deal with across the table. The public also questions their capacity to manage and control their forces on the ground. There are even calls now to stop the talks altogether and pursue an all-out military offensive against their armed groups,” he said.