THE flurry of successful tactical offensives launched by the New People’s Army all over Mindanao in the past months in the face of all-out-war directives from the president and military leadership convey the increased confidence and strengthened capabilities of the rebel group.
The battalion-sized simultaneous action in Davao City to punish Lapanday Foods Corporation and the daring Valencia City raid of a security agency in Bukidnon deliver the message that the group is capable of staging tactical offensives, if they wish, in semi-urban areas in Davao and Bukidnon even as the military are in forward deployment into known rebel territories in the hinterlands.
These are indications that their mass base is deep and wide in these areas perhaps brought about by their long-term presence in these places. Public support is evidenced by the fact that they can exit guerilla bases and disappear back in with much ease. The access to logistical support and resources is also apparent.
All these provide context to President Duterte’s speech at the Association of Firearms Dealers convention in Davao City last May 19, 2017 where, contrary to real events outlined above, he again boasted that the NPA will never be able to occupy a single barangay even in a hundred years. He expressed his cynicism about the prospects for peace at this time while proudly asserting that he is already the NPA’s best bet for peace in this lifetime.
Of course, the President is once again being coy. He must know that the NPA is waging guerilla warfare as a form of struggle and therefore do not declare territories such as in a conventional war. Instead, they establish shadow governments that operate side-by-side with the formal political structures of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).
The rebels may yearn for peace as evidenced by their continued commitment to the peace process with the GRP but it must be noted that they have long decided to take up arms because they feel that it is their only recourse to seek redress under a system that is skewed in favor of landlords and politicians.
While there is acknowledgement that the rebel group cannot yet defeat what they consider to be a mercenary army militarily, the same can be said of the AFP as well. Any long-term observer of Philippine politics knows that every administration since Marcos has vowed to crush the insurgency to little success. This de facto stalemate, one that has been the case for close to half a century, trap the two sides in an ever bitter war of escalation that will only see more casualties from both sides.
Observers have noted that the extended hostilities between the two sides have buried deep into the institutional memory of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the animosity and hatred against the NPA making it difficult for any peace negotiations to prosper under any administration. This probably explains the recourse of the Philippine military to extralegal measures in their counterinsurgency offensives.
Senator Panfilo Lacson’s interrogation of NDF-recommended DSWD Secretary Judy Taguiwalo at the last Commission on Appointments hearing reveal this mindset when he spoke about a mistah lost in the war, a point answered by the embattled Secretary by citing how, in her youth, they were also mercilessly truncheoned by the Metrocom during rallies.
Some sectors have called this bitter feud between the two warring camps as a form of “rido” akin to the clan wars of Mindanao. But such analysis reduces the conflict being waged as somewhat of a family feud and misses the motive forces that have persisted over the decades to continue the armed insurgency of the left.
The paternal air of Duterte, in admonishing the rebel group, just like the previous administrations regard for negotiations as a carrot and stick affair, emanate from this condescension. It is as if the rebel group needs to be disciplined and cajoled into submission, just like how they are taught in the PMA as underlings.
The longevity of the communist insurgency is often attributed to the unchanging material conditions of peasant landlessness and general national underdevelopment ruled over by a rigodon of elite leadership. This much is true but there is so much more that needs to be understood about the whys behind every Filipino who decides to turn their back against mainstream society to go up the hills, only to be hunted down by a fellow Filipino with such unrestrained anger and the privilege of state-sanctioned violence.
There must be differentiation between the two kinds of violence on display here. One emanates from the baser instincts of fear and retribution and is goaded to run amok by the anointment of official state power. The other is driven by a regretful but necessary defense for a future political horizon that only the brave dare imagine and make happen.
