The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) encouraged the remaining communist fighters in the country on Tuesday, Aug. 13, to surrender so that the government can finally focus on a “bigger” challenge – protecting the West Philippine Sea (WPS) from foreign hostile forces.

AFP spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said that a total of 1,367 communist fighters and supporters were either killed, arrested or have surrendered to authorities this year.

“We are enjoining these surrenderees to join us in this effort for us to really go forth and move on to bigger challenges which is the West Philippine Sea issue,” Padilla said during the Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 8, the AFP said that 1,169 of them laid down their arms and yielded to government forces nationwide while 101 were arrested, and 97 were killed.

The military’s operations resulted to the confiscation of 751 firearms and 237 anti-personnel mines, while 165 enemy encampments were seized.

“No guerilla fronts remain active across the country as of today,” Padilla said, noting that majority of those neutralized have surrendered to the military.

“Gusto nating ipoint out na with the number of surrenderees, makikita natin na mayroon po tayong zeal towards the whole Filipino nation na iisa po ang puso at damdamin natin kapag ang usapin is tungkol sa West Philippine Sea (We want to point out that with the number of surrenderees, we can see that we have a zeal towards the whole Filipino nation and we have one heart and feeling when it comes to the West Philippine Sea issue),” she said.

Padilla said that many communist surrenderees have joined the military and police force to serve the country.

“Maging anuman ang background mo, anuman ang iyong paniniwala, iisa tayo kapag sinabi nating West Philippine Sea, atin ang yaman nito (Whatever your background is, whatever your beliefs are, we are one when it comes to the West Philippine Sea, its resources are ours),” she stressed.

However, there remains seven “weakened” communist guerilla fronts which are the subjects of unrelenting operations of the AFP in known enemy hotspots. This decreased from 11 weakened guerilla fronts at the start of the year.

A weakened front means that its political-military structure has been eliminated due to the neutralization of its leaders, although it has still members capable of carrying isolated attacks.

Aside from that, 176 local terrorists were also neutralized by the government forces: 124 surrendered, six were arrested while 46 were killed.

China is claiming almost the entire South China Sea, including some features that are located within the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of the Philippines.

In 2016, an arbitral ruling on the South China Sea invalidated China’s claims based on its so-called nine dash-line (now 10-dash line) in favor of the Philippines’ protest. China, however, continues to ignore the ruling.