‘This Is the Worst . . . What Cease-Fire?’ : Rebels Take Higher Toll as Philippine War Intensifies

Lt. Danny Pabunan stared blankly at the bullet-riddled jeep--the shattered windshield, the twisted metal, the matted blood on the ground beside it--all a grisly roadside monument to 17 years of Philippine civil war.

It was not simply that the 14 soldiers who were killed in an ambush here just a few hours earlier were all his friends. Pabunan has been fighting the Communist rebels in the villages, the back roads and the mountain jungles of Cagayan province for four years. He has seen many of his men die.

It was different this time. It was the way they were killed.

Even after all 14 men of the patrol had been shot in that brazen morning ambush last Wednesday, the guerrillas had gone up to each soldier and fired a final bullet into their faces at close range.

That--combined with the fact that, in the last three weeks, more than 50 government soldiers have been slain by the rebels in Cagayan--left Danny Pabunan and the remaining men from his Bravo Company of the 17th Infantry Battalion shaking their heads by the roadside in this remote town 250 miles north of Manila last week.

“This is the worst--the worst of the worst,” Pabunan said as the sweat cut channels through the dust on his face. “In Manila they’re talking about cease-fire. What cease-fire?”

Bloody Insurgency

More than two months after President Corazon Aquino assumed office, calling on the Communist rebels to lay down their arms, one of Asia’s bloodiest and oldest Communist insurgencies not only continues unabated but has actually intensified in recent weeks.

With last week’s ambush in Alacapan, which triggered a continuing offensive with tanks, artillery and helicopter gunships in the region, the death toll of soldiers, civilians and rebels has climbed to more than 700 since Feb. 26--the day Aquino succeeded Ferdinand E. Marcos after a civilian and military rebellion drove him into exile.

Military commanders privately concede that the carnage is the worst since the Communist New People’s Army began the insurgency as a ragtag band of only a few hundred armed ideologues in the the late 1960s.

Residents Are Fearful

Residents in the towns most affected by the escalation say they have never been as afraid as they are now--both of the military and the rebels. And soldiers like Pabunan and his men, battered day after day by the loss of friends and equipment, said their morale has never been lower.

The sharp increase in the fighting is being blamed, at least in part, on the government’s military commanders--for overreacting to guerrilla attacks, for starting offensives that contradict Aquino’s cease-fire proposals and for failing to take sufficient precautions to protect their patrols.

In one case two weeks ago, the military retaliated for a rebel attack by shelling an entire village to flush out suspected Communist troops.

‘Smell From the Dead’

“Later, I was told by the people from there I could not enter the barrio because of the smell from the dead,” said Father Renato Urbayo, the Roman Catholic priest from a nearby town.

Many other villages have become virtual ghost towns, as hundreds of families have fled their homes and farms in fear that the same--or worse--may happen to them, either by military or by rebel action. They have either moved to the nearest large town or simply uprooted themselves to rebuild in another place.

The Communist leaders have cited the military’s excesses as the reason for continuing what they call their “people’s armed struggle.”

A statement issued last week to reporters by the National Democratic Front, the political front group of the Communist Party of the Philippines, charged Aquino’s military with committing “killings, torture, food blockades, looting, burning, bombings and strafings,” adding that “mere words do not suffice to convince the masses that the old puppet fascist army has indeed changed its nature.

“The Aquino government speaks with many voices.”

Military commanders concede that they have taken the offensive in some regions despite Aquino’s cease-fire call, but they insist that such measures are vital to protect the country from the spread of communism. They blame rebel intransigence for the increase in bloodshed.

The rebels’ attacks have become more brazen than ever before, military leaders said. Civilians who betray them by aiding the military, as well as rebels who attempt to desert the insurgents’ ranks and surrender, have been brutally executed in their homes.

And in encounters such as last week’s ambush, the rebels have not only used company-sized detachments to seal off vast tracts of land and kill the government soldiers almost at will, but also disfigured them afterward.

Estimating the strength of the rebels at 16,000 armed regulars who now hold influence in one-fifth of the country’s 41,000 villages, military Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos last week declared the insurgents to be “the main threat” to the nation’s security and stability.

Despite the removal of Marcos, which was one of the Communists’ major demands until Ramos and Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile staged the mutiny that deposed him--the New People’s Army “continues to be firm in its avowed objectives of seizing political power through violent means,” Ramos said.

Continuing Carnage

But even Ramos tacitly acknowledged last week that the military is partly to blame for the continuing carnage. Within hours of the ambush in Alacapan, he fired the military commander in charge of the Cagayan region, where most of the recent violence has taken place. Sources close to the chief of staff said he did so because the regional commander had mishandled the counterinsurgency effort.

A closer look at the desolate and impoverished region known as the Cagayan Valley, on the extreme northeastern tip of Luzon Island, explains much of the government’s failure to contain the insurgency after the February coup, which was hailed by most Filipino leaders and the Reagan Administration as a golden opportunity to turn the tide against the rebels.

At least 85 people have died in Cagayan province in the last two weeks, making it what one soldier in the region called, “the ‘killing fields’ of the Philippines.”

Commander Was Fired

In an interview a few hours before Gen. Ramos fired him last Wednesday, regional commander Col. Bernardo Ramos, who is no relation, conceded that the killing began only after he made the decision to “launch major operations” against the rebels.

“For four weeks before, we did not go on the offensive because of the national call of our president to bring these brothers and sisters of ours into the fold,” Col. Ramos said. “But we found that these insurgents were not prepared to heed the call. They think President Aquino is just another president like President Marcos. They’re still doubting her sincerity.”

‘Might Think We Are Weak’

Besides, the colonel added, “If we do not act on the offensive now, the enemy might think that we are weak.”

Col. Ramos cited several incidents of rebel activity to justify his offensive operations. Chief among them was the April 13 arson attack by Communist guerrillas on a hospital in the remote town of Lasam.

The town itself is a dusty outpost two hours by jeep north of the provincial capital of Tuguegarao. No one knows the exact population of the town, not even the local priest. But Father Urbayo said there are fewer now than there were a month ago. Many have fled, he said. Others have been killed.

Hospital Attacked

The trouble began at 4 a.m., local residents said, when a band of more than 100 rebel soldiers, among them several women, entered the government-owned hospital, which was named after former President Marcos’ mother.

The rebels removed all 10 patients, stole every piece of surgical equipment and medicine, and then set fire to the building. Several local doctors said they believe the rebels, who live in jungle hideouts in mountain camps, needed the medical supplies to survive, and saw the hospital as an easy government target.

“We could not just sit and watch as they burned buildings and kidnap civilians,” Col. Ramos said. In short, he said, the military could no longer tolerate the vast control wielded by the New People’s Army in a region that local residents themselves call “NPA Country.”

Rebels Control Towns

An ambush on April 20 showed just how complete rebel control has become in Lasam, Alacapan, Lal-lo and other adjacent towns.

A foot patrol conducting what military officials call “clearing operations”--hunting down rebels in jungle outposts and the huts of civilian supporters--had passed by more than a dozen peasant farmers as they made their way across a paddy field that day.

“Suddenly, the farmers behind the patrol reached down, picked up M-16 assault rifles and opened fire on the soldiers, killing three of them.

Sniper Posts Set Up

“What has happened is the rebels are no longer living up in the hills here--they are living in the houses and the fields,” said Lt. Pabunan after last week’s ambush. “That is how they hit us this time. They set up sniper posts in the houses all around us.

“When the ambush is over, they hide their weapons, go back to their houses, and we cannot touch them. They’re civilians, and if we harass them, we’ll be accused of violating human rights.”

At one point during the current offensive, the provincial commander of the rebel unit used one of the many field radios rebels have seized from the military and cut in on the military’s frequency. The rebel leader spoke to Lt. Abraham Bagasin.

‘Why Are You Still Fighting?’

“I asked him, ‘During the time of President Marcos, you wanted that President Marcos go down,’ ” the lieutenant recalled. “ ‘Now the President is already changed. Why are you still fighting?’

“The commander said, ‘We do not want the present government either. We want only that we should be the government.’

“What we have now is a deadlock,” the lieutenant concluded.

Most of the residents of Alacapan and Lasam were too frightened last week to talk to an outsider about the struggle that has torn their region apart. After the ambush, most of them had been herded into clearings for questioning by the military.

Heavy-Handed Actions

But Father Urbayo said the military’s recent operations in the area are seen as heavy-handed by most of the residents.

“After the shelling of the barrio last month, I tried to ask questions of a man from that place who came to town for medical treatment,” the priest said. “But he does not want to answer because of fear.

“They are afraid of both camps now. If they help the military, they will be in trouble with the NPA. If they do not help the military, their houses may be bombed.

“For the people here now, it is war, and they are in the middle.”