Philippine Maoist rebels dismiss Manila’s goal of ending insurgency by 2025, say they are ready to keep fighting

Rebel leaders say the insurgency is growing stronger, contrary to the government’s claims.

The long-running conflict has claimed more than 60,000 lives on both sides since the start of the insurgency in 1969, according to the Philippine Army.

While the military believes the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist NPA peaked during the 1980s, the rebels claim they expanded their fighting capacity in the following years, carrying out offensives throughout the country’s major island groups.

Marcos Jnr reported that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) had neutralised 1,399 targets, eliminating all NPA strongholds. In January, however, AFP Chief Romeo Brawner said 11 supposedly “weakened” insurgent bases were still active.

Despite failing to crush the insurgents multiple times, the government says it remains optimistic it can finally wipe out NPA by the end of 2024.

NPA serves as the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Alongside the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), a CPP-led coalition, NPA has been waging an insurgency to demand land reform and poverty eradication.

Insurgents were still active in 14 out of 17 regions in the country, according to the CPP’s estimates in December 2023, fending off nearly 150 battalions of soldiers, police and paramilitary.

Marco Valbuena, CPP Information Officer, scoffed at Manila’s claims, saying most NPA units have expanded their areas of control and “adjusted to the AFP’s tactics of large military mobilisation”.

The CPP, however, acknowledged it had encountered significant setbacks in recent years and called for renewed efforts from its forces to “recover from losses and rebuild”.

NDFP chairwoman Julie de Lima said that the successful encounters since January were not