MANILA - Tropical Depression Pepeng (international codename Parma) has also taken its toll on the communist New People’s Army in Cagayan and Isabela provinces with some rebels reported to have left their lairs and are now staying in evacuation centers, a military spokesman said Monday.

Some of those who are serving the rebel-evacuees at the evacuation centers are soldiers, who are incidentally tasked to end the insurgency problem on or before President Arroyo finishes her term in June next year.

“We have reports that members of the New People’s Army have gone down (from the mountain) and are some are now in evacuation centers, availing of the relief goods because of the lack of food in the mountain,” said Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr.

Brawner could not immediately say how many rebels are in the evacuation centers but the reports state that these are in Cagayan and Isabela provinces, which are under the area of responsibility of the Army’s 5th Infantry Division.

“There are reports that some (rebels), identified by the people, are going down but since we want to help, since they are fellow Filipinos, we gave them relief goods,” said Brawner.

The AFP spokesman said the military could not arrest these rebel-evacuees because they are not bearing firearms and they have no arrest warrants. “We cannot arrest them because they have no firearms and we cannot just also arrest those who have no warrants,” he said.

He also noted that Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr has ordered to military to suspend offensive military operations against the insurgents and focus on the disaster relief and rehabilitation in areas affected by typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng.

“Last week, Secretary Teodoro issued a directive to temporarily suspend our military operations in the areas (affected by typhoons) to give way to our focus on rescue, disaster relief and rehabilitation,” he said.

When asked how do they feel serving the enemies they aiming to defeat, Brawner said assistance should be given even to enemies in times of disasters. “If they are dying, even if they are enemies, we have to help them,” he said.

As of 4 a.m. Monday, the Office of Civil Defense has recorded 249 fatalities in the Cordillera region alone: 164 in Benguet, 55 in Baguio City, 29 in Mountain Province and one fatality in Abra.

NDCC Chairman and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said most of the fatalities were from Benguet where seven landslides took place during the onslaught of “Pepeng.” He added that the NDCC will continue to conduct retrieval and relief operations in Tarlac, Pangasinan, Benguet, Baguio and the rest of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

Teodoro said the government is shifting its efforts to sending relief in northern provinces devastated by floods and cut off by landslides.