The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration’s two-year amnesty program is an “epic failure,” even as the government said there have been more than 11,000 applications from Communist insurgents rebels since November 2023.
As the National Amnesty Commission (NAC) closed the application period for so-called former CPP, News People’s Army (NPA) and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) members last Friday, March 13, the revolutionary party said government’s mass surrender ceremonies in the past two years were nothing but “hollow public spectacle[s].”
“Marcos’ amnesty program failed to deceive the Party, the masses and their revolutionary forces,” CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said.
Valbuena said NAC’s claim of 11,818 applications over the last 28 months involved ordinary peasants and poor civilians who were “deceived and coerced into surrendering and applying for amnesty.”
The CPP officer said “only a handful of counterrevolutionary traitors” who now serve as collaborators of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP), and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) took part in the “charade.”
“These renegade traitors are utterly despicable for accepting ‘amnesty’ from the fascists at the expense of betraying the national and democratic aspirations of the Filipino people and the memory of their martyrs,” he said.
Marcos signed Proclamation No. 404 in November 2023 for CPP-NPA-NDF members who allegedly committed crimes punishable by government laws in furtherance of their political beliefs.
War continues to rage
Valbuena said the amnesty campaign, combined with an all-out-war approach, has failed to weaken the revolution’s resolve.
“Genuine and lasting peace can only be achieved by addressing the roots of the armed conflict — widespread social injustice and the lack of genuine national sovereignty,” Valbuena said.
“The revolutionary movement remains determined to advance the armed struggle to end imperialist domination, tyranny, corruption, and oppression under the Marcos regime,” he added.
Marcos in his last State of the Nation Address last July said government troops are on the verge of wiping out “NPA remnants” in the country.
Both the military and the NTF-ELCAC said last December that there are only about 800 NPA members left.
In Negros Island however, the NPA said it dealt “severe blows” to AFP units that attacked a unit of its Rachelle Mae Palang Command last February 15 in Barangay Santo Nino, Tanjay City.
It added that no less than five government soldiers were killed in three battles, an event confirmed by the 11th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army who admitted to one dead and one wounded trooper.
This year, armed encounters between the NPA and the AFP had been reported in Bicol, Bukidnon, Negros, Samar and other parts of the country.
Another source of corruption
Valbuena also said implementers of the amnesty program have turned it into another source of corruption.
NAC’s mass surrender activities spent millions in unaudited public funds that eventually lined the pockets of corrupt bureaucrats and military officers, he said.
The NAC had a 2024 cash-based budget of ₱113,901,000, ₱120 million in 2025 and PHP 170.16 million this year.
So-called rebel returnees are typically eligible for ₱15,000 “immediate assistance” and ₱50,000 “livelihood assistance” given primarily through the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program.
Such enticements, along with brutal military operations, cannot kill people’s aspirations and their resistance, however, Valbuena said.
“Every day that military and police forces employ armed might, the more that people are roused to defend their rights and livelihood and driven to take up arms in resistance,” he said.
Marcos’ “sham” amnesty program “ended up as nothing more than a useless piece of paper,” Valbuena added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)