NCR intel chief: Barangay leaders key to anti-insurgency campaign

 

by: Jerome Paunan 

MANILA, (PIA) — Most Filipinos don’t know their barangay chiefs are actually heading local anti-insurgency task forces, the capital region’s intelligence chief said Tuesday, highlighting a key step in the government’s fight against communist rebels.

“Barangay captains themselves are chairmen of the barangay task force,” said National Intelligence Coordinating Agency-NCR Regional Director Dennis Godfrey Gammad during the Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas media forum. “In our cascading of leadership, it starts with our President [Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.] as the national chairman, then regional, provincial, municipal, and at the lowest level, the barangay captain.”

Gammad emphasized that the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) approach improves living standards while addressing security concerns.

He encouraged citizens to report concerns to their nearest government representative, starting with local leaders.

“This whole-of-nation approach is what we previously called ‘total war,’” Gammad said. “It involves not just government employees but everyone — fisherfolk, tricycle drivers, nurses, teachers, street vendors. We all need to work together.”

Department of the Interior and Local Government NCR Assistant Regional Director Ana Lyn Baltazar-Cortez, for her part, highlighted citizen engagement as a key principle in their local government empowerment cluster.

“We value community participation in governance,” Baltazar-Cortez said. “We expect citizens to participate in community programs and capacity-building activities, especially for NGOs and civil society organizations, so the government can identify pressing issues that need prioritization.”

The NTF-ELCAC was established as a civilian-led strategy aimed at addressing the decades-long communist insurgency through development initiatives rather than purely military solutions.

NICA-NCR heads the regional counterpart of the Situational Awareness and Management, one of the operational clusters of the anti-insurgency task force.  (JCO/PIA-NCR)