Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) Against the New People's Army (NPA)

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PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
EO 465 to form Arroyo's fascist armed vigilantes -- CPP
October 14, 2006
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today urged the Filipino people to oppose the Arroyo government's Executive Order No. 465 to form a new Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) that will be used as Gloria Arroyo's fascist armed vigilantes. The CPP anticipates the intensification of human rights abuses as these CVOs will be used to suppress legitimate opposition to the ruling regime.
A brainchild of Interior and Local Goverments Secretary Ronaldo Puno, EO 465 was signed recently by Gloria Arroyo for the mobilization, training and arming of CVOs as local armed auxiliary units working under the supervision and command of the Philippine National Police (PNP) "to counter terrorist threats." The CVOs will be in addition to the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs) under the supervision and command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said Malacañang's formation of a new armed CVO "has the actual objective of building Gloria Arroyo's fascist armed vigilantes at the 'grassroots' livel to support its military, police and other state apparatuses. It aims to terrorize and lord over barangays and local governments, consolidate and perpetuate its hold on power and fight people's revolutionary and democratic resistance and other legitimate opposition to her regime."
"Arroyo's CVOs will only add to the fascist atrocities of the AFP's CAFGUs, death squads and other fascist paramilitary forces and will raise human rights violations to unprecendented levels of intensity," Rosal said.
Rosal said that Puno's planned nationwide barangay and town-based CVO setup is no different from Marcos' notorious Barrio Self-Defense Units (BSDUs) and Civilian Home Defense Forces (CHDFs); Fidel Ramos' CVOs, CAFGUs and other armed anti-communist and anti-Muslim "vigilante" groups initiated since the Aquino regime; and the Davao and Cebu-based "death squads" which have heartened Gloria Arroyo. "Like these notorious vigilante groups, Arroyo's CVOs will be used as instruments of violent suppression in the vain effort to perpetuate itself in power."
Rosal recalled that it was also Puno who originally conceived and initiated the Barangay Tanod under Marcos' martial law dictatorship. "Inspired by Hitler's Brown Shirts Stormtroopers, he planned to transform the barangay tanods into a loose local fascist force." Rosal said that Puno had already set up a number of secret training schools to train local goons to put up a barangay-based Marcos army, but this was frustrated by the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship.
shocking effect at first, but it will not take long before their political and military weaknesses begin to show and disintegrate them.
"These CVOs are viable targets of political work or military operations by the New People's Army. The more arms the government supply to these auxillary groups of theirs, the more arms will eventually be available to the NPA either in the course of battle or in the course of neutralizing or winning them over to the side of the revolution."

Reference:
Marco Valbuena
Media Officer
Cellphone Numbers: 09179776392 :: 09282242061
E-mail:cppmedia@gmail.com

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