From: news@netnews.upenn.edu (USENET News System)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Ramos Belittles Communists
Date: 4 Jan 93 17:00:21 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.filipino
Organization: University of Pennsylvania


	MANILA, Philippines (UPI) -- President Fidel Ramos Monday belittled
the communist insurgency, saying its reduced capability could now
threaten only communities in remote parts of the country and no longer
endangered national security.
	In his weekly news conference, Ramos said the strength and firepower
of the Marxist movement had been cut substantially although it remained
a threat in isolated areas far from government centers.
	``They are not a national threat of the proportion that it used to
be,'' he said. ``They, however, constitute a threat to some local
communities, especially in very farflung areas.''
	Ramos made the statement as a rift in the communist movement worsened
Monday when a leading Marxist death squad blamed for the killing of a U.
S. army colonel and more than 200 policemen and government officials
since 1984 defied an order to disband.
	The decision was disclosed by leaders of the Alex Boncayao Brigade in
an interview with the Daily Inquirer newspaper in which they also said
communist leaders based in Manila have ignored instructions to abandon
the urban center and concentrate instead on strengthening rebel forces
in the rural areas.
	In the article, leaders of the ABB, a guerrilla unit of the 13,000-
strong communist New People Army operating in the capital, said these
policies were issued by an ``illegitimate, non-existent and bogus''
leadership.
	``We are still intact and we will certainly pursue our revolutionary
tasks not only in metro Manila but in other urban areas as well,'' the
Inquirer quoted Sergio Romero, head of the ABB operational command, as
saying.
	He said the decision to pull out the ABB was really an ``alibi'' to
remove units refusing to recognize the leadership of Jose Maria Sison,
founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines who lives in exile in
the Netherlands.
	In the Inquirer article, Romero and colleague Carlos Forte described
Sison as ``a degenerate communist and an unremoulded misfit undeserving
of our revolutionary respect and high regard.'' 
	Sison was reportedly reelected as party chairman in a meeting last
July attended mostly by his supporters.
	The meeting sparked a heated debate within the ranks of the Marxist
movement. The rift became public knowledge last month when Sison, who
has denied being a CPP leader, accused three comrades of being
government agents who betrayed the movement. The three denied Sison's
charges.
	Romero and Forte insisted the ABB was an effective and necessary
component of the communist rebellion.
	``The nature of the struggle in the urban areas is simply defensive,
and now they want to make it defenseless,'' Forte said.
	Observers said the rift in the CPP leadership has complicated
government efforts to end the 23-year-old communist insurgency which has
already been snagged by Sison's demand that peace talks be held abroad
despite Ramos' insistence they take place in the Philippines.
	Ramos has offered amnesty to military rebels and Muslim separatist
groups.