Insurgency: No End in Sight

The AFP says the insurgency is practically over. The CPP-NPA says that is wrong. That bring me to this interview of Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna.

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1814306/no-end-in-sight-armed-conflict-in-ph-seen-to-persist

Decades after the over 20-year regime of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. ended, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected president and is now seeking an end to a communist insurgency that started in the first years of his father’s rule.

Looking back, it was in 1968, 1969 and 1973 when the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) was established as a breakaway group from the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas.

Existing for over 50 years already, the communist insurgency in the Philippines is still far from over despite the declarations of the government, especially by the military, that the end to the world’s longest armed rebellion is already in sight.

Interesting. What is this analysis based on? 

However, activist Teodoro Casiño, who served as representative of Bayan Muna, said “if [Marcos Jr.] is really serious in forging a just and lasting peace, he should be ready to engage with peace advocates and see things from a different perspective.”

Casiño told INQUIRER.net via Viber that “the Marcos [Jr.] administration’s approach to the armed conflict follows the same hardline [and] fascist approach as [Rodrigo] Duterte’s.”

Casiño said the framework, patterned after the US Armed Forces’ counterinsurgency model, “expands the target of […] operations to include civilian communities, groups, and individuals working within the legal, parliamentary arena.”

“It also expands the scope of such operations to include the delivery or denial of government projects and services,” he said, stressing that “in a sense, it reduces governance to a counterinsurgency program.”

“Such an approach shuns peace negotiations as a means of resolving the armed conflict; denies the legitimacy of progressive causes, organizations and movements, most of which end up being vilified and red-tagged,” he said.

Casiño, chairperson of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, pointed out that the framework also leads to systematic and widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Bayan Muna has been tagged as a communist front and far be it from me to support Teddy Casiño but he is saying what I have been saying for a while now. With the NTF-ELCAC program governance has  been reduced "to a counterinsurgency program." Taxpayers deserve government services like roads and electricity and using the NPA as an excuse to deny them is simply no good.

But let's continue. 

The all-out war waged by Duterte to seek an end to the communist insurgency, the government said, has led to the surrender of over 20,000 rebels. Most, however, were eventually questioned as supposedly forced or fake surrenders.

But the military insisted that the NPA is already dwindling, saying that as of July this year, out of 42,046 barangays in the Philippines, the NPA is only present in 200, down from 400.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) also pointed out that the number of existing NPA guerrilla fronts, which should have at least three platoons and 100 armed combatants, already fell to 22, with only one considered “active.”

It said the NPA is now down to 1,800 armed combatants from 2,112 in 2022 and 25,000 in the 1980s. Last April, Jonathan Malaya, assistant director of the National Security Council, told One News that the insurgency will finally end in the next two years.

Despite these declarations, however, the CPP said the NPA currently has 110 guerrilla fronts all over the Philippines, saying that “we must continue to accumulate strength […] to bring the people’s war […] to the next higher level.”

The CPP stressed that “the NPA has adapted to the particular conditions of the country, achieving ‘great successes in carrying out guerrilla warfare, building guerrilla zones and base areas, and establishing Red political power covering vast areas in the countryside’.”

It said they remain completely “determined to carry forward” its protracted people’s war, which involves the gradual encirclement of cities from the countryside, carried out primarily by workers as its leading class and peasants as its main force.

Now it's she-said he-said between the NPA and the AFP. The AFP says there are only 22 active fronts while the NPA says they have 110 active fronts. Who to believe? Well, the NPA says they are accumulating strength "to bring the people's war to the next higher level" but what does that mean? 

How about killing cops?

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1207583

Joint police and military forces are pursuing members of the New People’s Army (NPA) involved in the encounter that killed a police officer and wounded two others in a remote village of Calatrava, Negros Occidental on Wednesday.

Col. Leo Pamittan, provincial director of Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office (NOCPPO), said Thursday the operation is being conducted by personnel of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force and Regional Mobile Force Battalion and soldiers of the Philippine Army.

“Our hot pursuit operation is ongoing. They’re still there,” he added.

The NOCPPO has yet to release photos of the incident as of posting time.

Killed in action was Cpl. Jaime Nuñez while those wounded were deputy station chief, Capt. Jesus Alba, and Cpl. Dennis Nasis, all of the Calatrava Municipal Police Station.

The incident took place at Sitio Icogan, Barangay Minapasuk while the troops were on their way to serve arrest warrants against rebels identified as Darry Dayawan, who is facing a murder case, and Charity Amacan, who is charged with unlawful possession of an explosive.

Pamittan said the troops were passing through a secluded area when they encountered the rebels.

One PNP officer killed and two wounded. Did those cops have the impression that the NPA was weakening and hardly dangerous? 

Recently Sara Duterte has defended the DepEd's Confidential Intelligence Funds because of recruitment in schools. 

https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1813539/education-linked-to-natl-security-vp-says-of-deped-budget

“Education is intertwined with national security,” Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte told reporters on Monday who asked her about the Department of Education’s (DepEd) request for the second year in a row for P150 million in confidential funds under its proposed 2024 budget of P758.59 billion.

“It’s very important that we mold children who are patriotic; children who will love our country and who will defend our country,” Duterte said on the sidelines of Brigada Eskwela’s national kickoff held in Tarlac province.

According to her, “very good surveillance and intelligence” were necessary to come up with solutions and ensure the success of the department’s projects and programs.

More recently, DepEd spokesperson Michael Poa said that confidential funds would be used to collect information on illegal recruitment in schools and stop such activities.

It sure would be nice to have real proof of the NPA recruiting in DepEd schools. If the NPA is weak with no leadership as the AFP claims how can they engage in recruitment? Likewise how can they recruit online?

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1207332

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. on Monday urged military personnel to be more vigilant in cyberspace to protect the youth from any radicalization attempts by communist insurgents.

He said this is in line with Republic Act 11188 or the Special Protection of Children in Situations of Armed Conflict in calling for enhanced capabilities and operations in cyberspace.

“With our focused military operations, we are confident that the continuous eradication of the communist terrorist groups will soon result in total victory and peace in our land. However, the enemies no longer stay in the highlands but are now emerging through cyberspace – radicalizing our youth,” Brawner said in a statement.

The AFP chief also urged pertinent military units to beef up their cyberspace capabilities to defend against this threat.

One such unit is the AFP Cyber Group also known as AFPCyG which celebrated its fifth founding anniversary last June.

The AFPCyG is also responsible for providing situational awareness and actionable intelligence for military and decision-makers aside and cyberspace operations.

“I encourage you to stay vigilant, strengthen our cyberspace capabilities, and further synchronize our operations within cyberspace realms,” Brawner said.

The insurgency is not ending anytime soon which means we could see the AFP fighting a two front war. The NPA on the Homefront and China in the WPS.

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2023/08/12/2288078/water-cannons-philippine-navy-ship-act-war

Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner made this clear yesterday as the military prepares to resume deploying AFP ships to escort vessels carrying provisions for a Marine outpost in Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.

A resupply mission on Aug. 5 was cut short after the CCG hosed down one of the civilian supply ships.

One of the vessels managed to slip past the Chinese blockade to unload provisions for the Filipino troops stationed on the grounded BRP Sierra Madre. Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels were also involved in the aborted resupply mission.

Brawner said the Chinese apparently were careful about triggering open hostilities, hence their use of their coast guard – instead of their navy – in harassing Filipino civilian vessels. The CCG, however, is under China’s Central Military Commission and is not a civilian agency.

“So in fact, during that resupply mission, we had Navy ships behind the Coast Guard ships who were also behind the smaller boats that we used,” Brawner said on CNN Philippines on Wednesday.

He said an attack – even with water cannon – on a navy ship would be tantamount to “aggressive actions against a military ship and that could be interpreted as an act of war already.”

“The reason why we believe they used their Chinese Coast Guard ships is because of that, they want to act short of declaring war,” he explained.

“So all of these actions are considered actions in the gray zone. Meaning they are not really overt acts of war but lower than that,” Brawner said.

It's rather clear that China wants war. It's only a matter of time.