MANILA (AFP)--Slumping world oil prices should help the Philippines defeat its long-running Maoist insurgency, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said Thursday.
Lower military operating costs from cheaper fuel should trump whatever popular discontent might be kicked up by the ongoing global economic slowdown, he told a news conference.
"The unintended benefit to the armed forces of the Philippines and the defense establishment of the worldwide economic slowdown is the drastic fall in the price of oil," Teodoro said.
Since this was a "major component" of the military's operating expenses in their internal security operations, "we are in a very good shape for 2009," he added.
Despite these factors, armed forces chief of staff Gen. Alexander Yano said there was no doubt as to the "colossal" challenges remaining for the armed services, which have been locked in low-level combat with the Communist Party of the Philippines and its New People's Army since 1969.
Yano said the rebels operated shadow governments in 62 areas that the insurgents deem to be in their control, called "guerrilla fronts".
The NPA's 5,239 members pose an armed threat not only to military, police or government entities but also to economic targets such as businesses singled out for extortion, he added.
The NPA killed a policeman, abducted three other officers and set fire to a rubbish truck in an attack near Rodriguez town on the eastern outskirts of Manila last weekend, police reported Thursday.
Teodoro said the authorities have yet to see the potential impact of job losses on the recruitment of the rebels, whose NPA ranks fell 9% last year to their lowest levels in seven years, according to Yano.
"We don't see that right now," Teodoro said of the potential political fallout of reduced economic growth or economic contraction.
However, the two officials said natural calamities, as well as a Muslim separatist insurgency in the south, could also affect the defense department's operating budget, despite an 18% annual increase from 2008.
Peace talks between the government and the communists collapsed in 2004 after both sides failed to sign an agreement ending hostilities in the countryside.
Yano said the military dismantled 25 "guerrilla fronts" last year, well short of its target of 40, and the leftist rebels remained in 1,381 villages.
Yano also said the ranks of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, or MILF, fell from 11,769 to 11,668 in 2008.
This drop came after a faction of rogue MILF commanders broke the ceasefire with the government and launched attacks on Christian communities in August, said Yano.
The Communist Party of the Philippines and its military arm, the NPA, has been waging a 39-year campaign to seize power. It has said it hoped to exploit the world financial crisis to destabilize the Philippine government.
The MILF has been fighting for an Islamic state in the south of the largely-Christian Philippines since 1977, but signed a ceasefire with the government in 2003 to open the door to peace talks.
However in August, the Supreme Court struck down a draft accord with the MILF intended to lead to peace talks, sparking renewed fighting.
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Publié le 08 janvier 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones