The New People's Army (NPA) is no longer considered a force to reckon with by the national government after it supposedly lost its support from the mass, an official of the National Security Council (NSC) said Monday, Jan. 15.
NSC spokesperson Jonathan Malaya made the remark after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. declared that there are no longer active NPA guerilla fronts in the country.
However, there remains 13 "weakened" guerilla fronts, or those that lost their mass base support, because of focus military operations by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and socio-economic intervention programs by the government.
"Hindi na po ito tinuturing na force to reckon with kasi classified as weakened na ibig sabihin wala ng suporta ang masa (They are no longer considered a force to reckon with because they are classified as weakened which means they lost support from the mass)," Malaya said in a radio interview with dzBB.
"They are no longer a significant threat," he added.
According to data from the AFP, 76 out of the total 89 guerilla fronts have been dismantled by the military as of 2023.
Last year, a total of 1,399 members of communists and local terrorists groups were neutralized while 1,751 firearms were seized by government troops.
Even if the weakened guerilla fronts manage to regroup, Malaya believes that it will be difficult for them to be as powerful as before since they already lost most of their leaders, particularly Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Ma. "Joma" Sison who died in 2022.
"I think the Philippine government is in a better position to demand from them kasi nga may leverage tayo ngayon (because we have a leverage now). Pansin naman ng ating mga kababayan na obviously talagang panalo na tayo (The people obviously know that we are the victors here)," Malaya said.
'NPA will outlast US-Marcos regime'
Meanwhile, the CPP brushed off Marcos' remarks as it claimed that its armed wing, the NPA, will outlast the Marcos regime and the United States' intervention in the country.
"Marcos Jr. is in dreamland when he claims there are no more active NPA guerrilla fronts. In truth, the NPA remains active in 14 regional commands across the country each with a number of guerrilla fronts. Despite having suffered from setbacks over the past years, the NPA is far from defeated," CPP spokesperson Marco Valbuena said in a statement.
If Marcos' remarks were true, Valbuena said that the government should shift the focus of the deployment of the government troops from fending off NPA attacks to defending the country from being dragged into the conflict between the US and China due to regional tension.
"If Marcos’s declarations were true, why is it then that around 60-70,000 military and police combat troops (or around 150 battalions of AFP and PNP counterinsurgency units) remain deployed against the NPA across the country? With his claims, Marcos should answer why is it that the AFP continues to be focused and deployed mainly against the NPA, instead of gearing up to defend the country against US-China armed conflicts?" Valbuena continued.
Doubts on peace talks
The exchange of fiery words between the government and the CPP puts the fate of the peace talks with the communist rebels in peril.
During its 55th founding anniversary in December 2023, the CPP called on its fighters to wage a 3rd Rectification Movement to "stir up and spread the flames of the people's war."
The official said he expected the CPP would echo the contents of the joint Oslo communique signed by the national government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) in November 2023 to end the armed struggle through peaceful means.
"Sa anniversary statement nila, nagmamatigas sila and nagtawag pa sila ng rectification movement. Nakakabahala ito so we sounded the alarm na parang hindi consistent yung position ng CPP-NPA-NDF (In their anniversary statement, the CPP remains defiant and they even called for a rectification movement. This is alarming so we sounded the alarm as the position of the CPP-NPA-NDF is not consistent)," Malaya said.
"If the peace talks or exploratory talks collapse, it will not be the fault of the government. It will be the fault of the CPP-NPA-NDF," he stated.