Explainer | The Philippines’ communist rebellion is Asia’s longest-running insurgency
- Devoted to overthrowing the government, the rebels have never politically controlled any province or even a single city
- However, from bases in the forests and mountains across the country, guerillas have continued fighting for decades
There was nothing new about the exhortation and hopeful promise: it’s been made before by previous national leaders. When she was president, Gloria Arroyo also promised an all-out war and vowed to crush the communists in three years. Instead, Arroyo finished her term in 2010 with the communists uncrushed – and she ended up in jail, accused of plunder.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which will mark the 51st anniversary of its founding in December, has outlasted one dictator and five presidents. Young army officers who fought the insurgency when it started are now grandfathers in their 70s – if they’re still alive. Meanwhile, a new generation of communist rebels is continuing the fight in the CPP’s military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), which was formed in 1969.
Devoted to overthrowing the government, the CPP and NPA have never politically controlled any province or even a single city. The rebels have not recovered their strength of 33 years ago but from bases in the forests and mountains across the country, the NPA’s heavily armed guerillas have waged what CPP calls “protracted war” or “armed struggle”, although critics characterise it as banditry. Rebels ambush government forces, raid towns and outposts and levy “revolutionary taxes” on private corporations.
Working under the National Democratic Front (NDF), an umbrella organisation of militant leftist groups that are “above ground” (legal) or “underground” (banned), the CPP-NPA has long been a player in national affairs.
