The Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government is being delusional in its plan to declare the Philippines “insurgency-free” at the end of 2025, the Communist Party of the Philippines said.
In response to national security adviser Eduardo Año’s claim that the strategic defeat of the New People’s Army (NPA) is on the horizon, the CPP said the government is “peddling the fantasy” of soon putting an end to armed resistance by the people.
“Marcos and his officials in the NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) and National Security Council are fooling only themselves with their pronouncements in their so-called National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development, that the NPA has no more guerrilla front in any part of the country, except for one “weakened” in Bicol,” CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said.
“These false claims are readily debunked by their own actions, as they continue to deploy scores of combat battalions against units of the NPA nationwide,” Valbuena added in a statement on Tuesday.
The CPP said that while the NPA has suffered losses stemming from internal weaknesses and relentless military operations, “it is far from being defeated.”
It added that the government is absolutely wrong to think that it can crush the NPA with its superior military force and relentless suppression of the people.
‘Steady headway’
In an article entitle “An Insurgency-Free Philippines is on the Horizon” published on the NTF-ELCAC website last May 4, Año wrote that the end of the armed conflict is “within reach.”
“With 89 active guerrilla fronts dismantled since 2018 and only one weakened front in the Bicol region remaining, we are poised to close a violent chapter in our nation’s history,” Año claimed.
Año’s article came two days after the Marcos Jr. government issued Memorandum Circular 83 adopting a “National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development” (NAP-UPD) to address the 56-year civil war in the country.
Rather than a confident declaration of victory, the NAP-UPD is actually “a sign of panic,” the underground revolutionary Left said.
READ: ELCAC in panic over continuing failure to defeat rev forces—NDFP
In his statement, Valbuena said the NPA is actually making “steady headway” in countering their enemy’s all-out war.
It is doing so by “overcoming internal problems, returning to the basic principles of waging protracted people’s war, tirelessly conducting mass work, counter-encircling the enemy, and making it punch in the air.”
Valbuena explained the NPA could not be defeated as it continues to enjoy the deep and wide support of the masses.
“The peasant masses, from among whom came the majority of the NPA’s Red fighters, are undeterred and determined to persevere in taking part in the armed resistance to fight for their rights and interests, especially in the face of Marcos regime’s state terrorist attacks against their communities,” he said.
Valbuena added that the CPP’s ongoing rectification movement inspires and guides the NPA in frustrating the military’s all-out war.
He said that the NPA will continue to wage “widespread and intensive guerrilla warfare” to recover and rebuild the mass base the government had been trying to destroy. “NPA units will continue to carry out tactical offensives to shatter the reign of terror, punish the fascist criminals and inspire the people to fight with all their strength,” Valbuena said. # (Raymund B.