Military chopper airdrops leaflets to ask NPA members to surrender

One of Philippine Air Force’s Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk helicopters. DND file photo

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Army dropped leaflets from a military chopper in Aurora and Nueva Vizcaya to convince the remaining New People’s Army (NPA) fighters in these areas to surrender.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla said airborne leaflet operations were conducted last March 28, in Barangay Galintuja in Maria Aurora town, Aurora; and Barangay Lub-lub in Alfonso Castañeda town in Nueva Vizcaya.

Padilla said the Army utilized the Black Hawk chopper of Philippine Air Force to conduct the operations which was done due to the area’s difficult terrain.

“These areas are really difficult to reach and it’s also very difficult for us to get our message across,” Padilla told reporters in a phone interview.

Padilla said around 1,000 leaflets containing the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program were dropped in said areas.

“We are enticing these individuals to go back to the folds of the law; we are very open for them to join the society and once again be with their families,” she said.

Padilla noted that the airborne leaflet operations are part of the AFP’s operational mix on information campaign.

The NPA, which wages the world’s longest Maoist insurgency, was established on March 29, 1969.

As of December 2023, the NPA is now down to about 1,500 fighters, far from its peak of around 25,000 in 1987, according to the  AFP.

Padilla previously said the AFP vows to eliminate the Maoist insurgency by the end of 2024.

READ: AFP vows to dismantle remaining communist guerrilla fronts before year-end

Last year, Communist Party of the Philippines’ political arm National Democratic Front of the Philippines began its negotiation with the government to come up with a framework to restart the peace talks.