CPP vows to outlast Duterte

ILIGAN CITY, Lanao del Norte, Philippines — The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which has been waging a guerrilla war against the government for more than 50 years, vowed to outlast the 75-year-old President Rodrigo Duterte whose term would end in 16 months.

“The NPA (New People’s Army) will grow stronger in Duterte’s remaining days in office,” Marco Valbuena, who claimed to be a CPP information officer, said in a statement on Saturday. “We are confident that even by the end of Duterte’s term or life, the AFP’s plans of crushing the [NPA] will be unrealized.”

“The people’s war will persevere long beyond Duterte until the people’s desire for national freedom and social liberation is satisfied,” Valbuena said, claiming that the president’s policy of “terror and armed oppression … have only succeeded in inciting more and more people to fight back and join the NPA.”

The CPP issued the statement after the President ordered security forces on Friday to disregard human rights and just kill communist rebels as bandits preying on the hapless residents of poor and isolated villages and using their guns to extort money from businesses.