INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – The Armed Forces of the Philippines called on the Communist Party of the Philippines and its New People’s Army to give up their armed struggle, calling it a “fruitless insurgency.”
On its anniversary on Thursday, the communist rebels declared they were no longer going to negotiate peace with the administration of President President Benigno Aquino III, saying they also that they planned to increase the number of NPA fighters to 25,000.
“Instead of waging violence to make themselves relevant, the CPP-NPA should just lay down their arms and commit themselves to the peace process without preconditions. After decades of fruitless insurgency the CPP-NPA should stop being part of the problem and start becoming part of the solution,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala, AFP public affairs chief.
The Philippine communist insurgency, now the world’s longest, actually began in 1946 under the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas and its military arm, Hukbong Mapaglaya ng Bayan, which were reorganized in 1968 under the leadership of Jose Maria Sison as the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing the New People’s Army.
Zagala defended the military’s counterinsurgency campaign called the Internal Peace and Security Plan Bayanihan after the communists belittled it.
Zagala claimed the peace plan has “freed 29 provinces from communist influence, further limiting the NPA’s mass base support and restricting their area of operations.”
“With this, basic social services are effectively and efficiently delivered to rural areas formerly affected by the insurgency,” Zagala said.
The military spokesman added that the peace plan was not solely a military effort, but was a “national effort” that involves government and the Filipino community.
“It is a plan that attempts to find peaceful solutions to the social problems that fuel the insurgency. This is also the reason why the CPP is so threatened by this plan because it does not promote violence as a means to an end,” Zagala said.
Zagala said the CPP’s “hardline stance against our government is one that is not shared by all their members.”
“We believe that people join the NPA to find solutions for their problems. It is not their fault if they succumb to the empty promises of the CPP. We hope that they find enlightenment and see the light of peace. We appeal to them to lay down their arms and join the rest of the nation in finding solutions that do not cost lives, limb, and property,” Zagala said.
The CPP said it would no longer negotiate with the Aquino administration, accusing it of unwillingness to find “just peace.”
The communists want the Aquino administration to scrap its conditional cash transfer program and the rehabilitation program of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process called PAMANA before it would negotiate peace.
They claimed these government projects were merely bribing people into giving intelligence information about NPA rebels.
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