Padilla: AFP vows to eliminate NPA by end of 2024

ELITE TROOPS Members of elite units of the Armed Forces of the Philippines march in Camp Aguinaldo in this 2016 photo.
—FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The Armed Forces of the Philippines vows to defeat the communist New People’s Army by the end of 2024, its spokesperson, Col. Francel Margareth Padilla, said on Monday.

Padilla said this target was announced during AFP’s recent command conference.

“We were given specific deadlines to do such, so within a span of a year, we are looking at eliminating the threat of the internal insurgency situation,” Padilla said in a press briefing when asked about the AFP’s plans on the NPA.

The NPA is now down to about 1,500 members as of Dec. 2023, far from its peak of around 25,000 in 1987, according to former AFP spokesperson Col. Medel Aguilar.

READ: NPA down to around 1,500 fighters–AFP

Established on March 29, 1969, the NPA has been waging the longest-running Maoist insurgency in the world.

CPP’s political wing, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, is now exploring the possibility of resuming peace talks with the government.

READ: CPP admits NPA setbacks, denies defeat

CPP spokesperson Marco Valbuena admitted that NPA suffered “setbacks” but is “far from being defeated.”