CPP-NPA to Comelec: Our targets are not your PCOS machines but their AFP escorts

While the Communist Party of the Philippines insisted it is not interested in the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines now being delivered en masse to the farflung provinces of the country, it warned elections officials on Saturday that the equipment may be damaged in New People's Army (NPA) ambushes if they are transported by the military. The CPP "advised" the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that the PCOS machines and other poll automation equipment could be "inadvertently affected" in NPA tactical offensives that target Army-escorted convoys going into what it claims to be its “guerrilla fronts." The CPP contested the claims of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that recent ambushes by the NPA in Mindoro, Masbate and Catanduanes targeted the PCOS machines. "It was only incidental that the military units ambushed by concerned NPA units were transporting the said PCOS machines. The ambushes were carried out in accordance with prevailing rules of war," it said in a statement posted on its website Saturday afternoon. The statement pointed out that in all those incidents, the NPA units did not seize any of the machines. The CPP-NPA statement said "the revolutionary forces do not have an objective of sabotaging the conduct of the May 10 elections through the use of force or by any means." As it is turning out, the statement said, they do not even “need to do anything for the reactionary elections to fail or become utterly incredulous," since the elections are now being threatened “by the series of anomalies and glitches that are now coming out of the rotten woodwork." The communist leadership said its “revolutionary forces" are maintaining their presence and will continue to ensure the "peaceful" conduct of election-related activities in its territories. The CPP also claimed that in the past weeks, NPA units confiscated “at least 50 firearms from private armed escorts, as well as police and military escorts of warlord-politicos who have violated the policies of revolutionary authorities." Such policies, the statement explained, include the ban on carrying arms and taking along armed escorts “in areas covered by the authority of the people's revolutionary government."—JV, GMANews.TV