FROM the way things are happening lately, it does appear that the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed department of that unholy triumvirate CPP/NPA/NDF, is having a severe shortage or at best no more bullets.
Almost every day we see on the 6 o’clock news and newspaper headlines hundreds of NPA cadres and armed fighters literally lining up to avail themselves of the government’s amnesty programs to surrender themselves and their weapons.
Yes folks, this 54-year-old insurgency nonsense which started with the ambitious plan to overthrow the government of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. is now gasping for air in its final death throes, ironically under the government of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) recently announced:
From the original 89 guerrilla fronts, they’ve dismantled 67, leaving only 22, with 20 of these severely weakened. This success is attributed to the whole-of-government approach.
Through initiatives and support programs, former rebels are transforming into peaceful, productive citizens. The CPP-NPA-NDF’s extortion activities were significantly curtailed, fostering trust in our government.
The demi-god of the CPP/NPA/NDF, Joma Sison, succumb to COVID-19 while partying in the Netherlands; Luis Jalandoni is a septuagenarian more concerned with adult diapers and maintenance medicines than being a revolutionary; while Concha Araneta Bocala, also a sickly septuagenarian, has gone into hiding more concerned about staying alive. Of course, Marco Valbuena, CPP/NPA/NDF “spokesman”, is just a figment of their imagination.
And the CPP/NPA/NDF’s other foremost leaders, Benito Tiamzon and wife Wilma Austria, were killed at sea when their boat blew up during a chase with the Armed Forces.
Excerpts from a May 3, 2023 article from The Economist on the CPP/NPA/NDF are amusing to say the least as it revealed the ridiculous situation of the insurgency.
“Last month the guerrilla leaders of the New People’s Army (NPA) ordered its units all over the Philippines to give a 21-gun salute to two fallen heroes (Tiamzon couple). Yet this martial display was diminished by an instruction to give the salute silently, either because the army is out of bullets or for fear a fusillade would alert the police.”
I suppose the few hungry, probably sick and exhausted fighters who duly lined up just whispered “bang” or probably farted simultaneously.
That article was practically an obituary for the CPP/NPA/NDF. The main headline was “The Philippines’’ once-proud Maoist insurgents are out of ammo” and the two subheads: “The revolution is over” and “The New People’s Army is a relic of all sorts of political stupidity.”
Moving on, excerpts from a May 26, 2023 article in The Asia Sentinel:
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has the NPA in its sights, four decades after his father’s failed quest to end the insurgency under martial law.
The NPA’s losses have led President Marcos Jr. to declare that “half-a-century’s fight with insurgents is coming to an end.” The National Security Council declared “strategic victory” over the NPA in April, and said it foresees the AFP securing “total victory” against the rebels within two years.
The government credits the degrading of the NPA not only to AFP offensives but also to the creation of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in 2018. This body has engaged NPA commanders at the local level, and encouraged insurgents to lay down their arms in return for livelihood support under the Enhanced-Comprehensive Local Integration Program. It has also directed development funds to rebel-influenced villages to blunt its rural support base.
The NTF-ELCAC was established by former President Duterte after he ended national-level negotiations with the CPP leadership. President Marcos Jr. also rejected resuming talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF and continued Duterte’s strategy.
Indeed, the insurgency is dying and the NPA is out of ammo. This nonsense lives only in the quaint memories of the pseudo-communist professors in UP, the “useful idiots” and, of course, the remnants of the so-called “Makabayan bloc” party-lists in Congress./PN
