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By Anthony Vargas, Reporter
THE military on Saturday admitted
that it had deployed troops in several poor communities in Metro
Manila as part of the government’s antiinsur-gency efforts.
About 26 teams of 10 soldiers
each were assigned to depressed communities in the cities of Manila,
Caloocan, Taguig and Quezon, officials from the military’s
National Capital Regional Command said.
The NCRCOM chief, Maj. Gen. Ben
Dolorfino, said the deployment started in November.
“This is part of a novel
approach that we are trying to introduce in the National Capital
Region out of the belief that if we want lasting peace… it should
be community based,” Dolorfino said at a briefing in Camp
Aguinaldo.
He made it clear that the troops
were involved in civil-military operations.
“We believe that there are so
many problems in the communities and if we neglect these problems,
later on they will become peace and order problems. We are trying to
be proactive,” Dolorfino said.
He brushed aside the allegation
of several left-wing party-list groups that the soldiers were sent
to campaign against them or harass their supporters.
Still, Dolorfino said, he had
directed his chief of staff to quickly issue a memo to their units
to immediately investigate the allegations.
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