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Shun NPA extortion racket, candidates told


The military on Sunday appealed to candidates in the coming May elections, particularly in the local level, not to give in to the extortion demands of the communist rebels. “Our call to the candidates is not to pay permit-to-campaign [fee]," said Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., chief of the Armed Forces’ public information office. It has always been the practice of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), to solicit permit-to-campaign fee from politicians every election. In the 2007 midterm polls, it was able to extort P150 million. Brawner said giving in to the extortion demands would just embolden the insurgents, which President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wants crushed on or before her term ends in June. Candidates who have been asked by the rebels to pay such fees should approach the military and the police for a security arrangement, Brawner said. “If they [candidates] want to campaign in a certain area, we can arrange an area security so that they go to these areas and campaign," he said. Last Wednesday, troops from the Army’s 1st Infantry Battalion intercepted three NPA rebels at a checkpoint in Lumban town in Laguna. The three yielded explosives and cash amounting to more than P203,120. Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, commander of the 1st Infantry Batallion, said the cash came from Laguna politicians who gave in to the rebels’ permit-to-campaign scheme. He declined to name the politicians. - KBK, GMANews.TV

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