By Villamor C. Visaya
(Published in its print edition on September 6-12, 2025)
IF we have to believe what the military is saying, particularly by Maj. Gen. Gulliver Señires, commander of the 5th Infantry Division in an online interview with media personalities, five of the six guerrilla fronts or threat groups have been neutralized and only the remnants are left being pursued.
It sounds too good to be true that the Division targeted until December 31 this year to fully annihilate the threat groups.
The same trumpeted prediction—failed at that—have been aired by military honchos in the past years but to no avail.
While he has the reason to show why the 100-percent neutralization is not yet attained—the remaining comrades have pending cases, these rebels are fearful that they will be tortured or killed by military officials, or they lack opportunities to earn aside from engaging in armed battle.
The livelihood programs intended for the rebel-returnees must be given to all of them, not on a selected list or a piecemeal basis.
If these rebels are victims of deception by the Reds, then their eyes must be opened to the positive ways, help them start their lives as civilians, and let them do their chores with military intervention.
It is then that we can be sure that the rebel-returnees and would-be returnees have refocused their lives for good things and works.
No one will be going back to the mountains, for sure.#
