Addressing the officers of the 10th Infantry Division, Pitao said, in Cebuano, “See you here (in the countryside).”
He told reporters Sunday in the mountains of Paquibato, three days after his 20-year old daughter Rebelyn was found dead in an irrigation canal in Carmen, Davao del Norte, that he is optimistic and “100 per cent sure” that the government cannot defeat the communist movement.
Rebelyn was abducted early evening of March 4 while on her way home in Bago Gallera, this city, from the St. Peters’ College of Toril where she was teaching. Late afternoon of March 5, she was found in the irrigation canal, bearing several torture marks and five stab-wounds from an ice pick.
Rebelyn’s mother, Evangeline, said she was “100 per cent sure” her daughter was abducted, tortured, raped and killed by the “evil, vicious men from the military intelligence group.”
Pitao himself blames the military for his daughter’s abduction and killing and said they “made a mistake” because what happened will even strengthen the movement.
“I’ve been an NPA (guerrilla) since 1978 and we are getting stronger. I believe they cannot just defeat this people’s democratic revolution against this abusive state,” the 51-year old rebel leader said.
“The military set a deadline to capture me in 2008, but they failed,” he added.
He said the continuing military abuses and corruption in government would even strengthen their organization.
Last year, Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Alexander Yano admitte that the government might not be able to wipe out the 40-year-old communist movement by 2010.
Retired AFP chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo set the 2010 deadline.
The NPA, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, turns 40 on March 29. (Keith Bacongco / MindaNews)
