Manila sends more troops after communist rebels

MANILA, June 22 (Reuters) Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sent out about 1,500 soldiers today to pursue communist guerrillas extorting ''revolutionary taxes'' from businesses in three areas outside Manila.

Last week, Arroyo gave her generals an extra 1 billion pesos (18.7 million dollars) to step up the fight against a Maoist-led rebellion that has killed more than 40,000 people and stunted growth in the Southeast Asian country since the late 1960s.

''If they're on the run, their capability to inflict hardships on our people would be lessened,'' Arroyo told troops at the main military camp in the capital.

''We will deploy more battalions in areas where we're getting complaints of rebel taxation from our businessmen.'' Arroyo has ordered the army to pull out troops facing Muslim rebels on the southern island of Mindanao as the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front continue talks to end 40 years of conflict that has killed 120,000 people in the south.

Nearly 5,000 soldiers will be re-deployed to areas where communist rebels of the New People's Army (NPA) are especially active -- from the northeastern part of the country down to the eastern region of the central Philippines.

The NPA, fighting one of the world's oldest communist insurgencies, levies ''revolutionary taxes'' pegged at around two percent of gross profit on companies in rural areas. Those who do not pay are usually attacked.

NPA extortion has been on the rise since the United States and some European countries put the group, formed in 1969, on terrorism blacklists in 2003, choking off overseas funding.

The Philippines, Washington's closest security partner in Southeast Asia, has labelled the NPA as its top security threat.

While Islamic militants are based in the south of the country, the NPA is active in 69 of 79 provinces.

NPA attacks on remote police stations have increased since the start of the year and rebels have been targeting businesses involved in telecommunications, logging and mining to raise money to buy weapons and ammunition and to recruit and train fighters.

Manila estimates the NPA's membership at around 6,500, down from a peak of more than 25,000 in the mid-1980s. But in a recent interview with Reuters, the chief NPA spokesman said it had around 8,000 cadres.

Peace talks with the communists, brokered by Norway, stalled in August 2004 when Manila refused to help persuade the United States and some Western European states to remove the NPA from the terrorism blacklists.

REUTERS PR VV1505