End of an era for CPP-NPA in Bohol

WITH the death of Domingo Compoc last February 23, a chapter of the communist insurgency in Bohol has ended. The circumstances surrounding the violent deaths of Compoc and his four comrades in Barangay Campagao, Bilar, are still being vigorously debated. The authorities on one side and on the other, the national democratic movement — the Communist Party of the Philippines and allied aboveground and underground organizations — are insisting on their respective version of events. Shootout or massacre, however, will not alter the fact that the death of the leader of the CPP-NPA Bohol marks the end of a brief era that began in 2017 when Compoc was deployed to Bohol as commanding officer of a platoon and deputy secretary of the Bohol provincial committee (Apolinario Gatmaitan Command-NPA Negros Island, March 1, 2024).

In 2010, after decades of insurgency, Bohol had been declared insurgency-free. The late governor Erico Aumentado, the father of incumbent Gov. Aris Aumentado, is credited with turning an insurgency-plagued, poverty-ridden province into a peaceful tourist destination. However, in 2017, while Bohol's police and military were busy chasing Abu Sayyaf terrorists, the NPA fired shots at a Cafgu detachment in Inabanga. More incidents of harassment followed in the next seven years, as did liquidations and encounters.