General Romeo Brawner is plucking numbers from thin air when he said that the number of New People’s Army (NPA) fighters is on an “all-time low” claiming recruitment is slow due to the state’s “poverty programs” in the countryside.
“Brawner is clearly ignorant of the crisis situation of peasants on the ground,” said Marco Valbuena, chief information officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines. “Either that or, like Marcos, he is acting deaf and dumb to how millions of peasants suffer from landlessness, dispossession, bankruptcies and massive job losses in agriculture.”
“Units of the NPA have been tasked by the Party to conduct widespread and intensive mass work among the peasant masses,” Valbuena said. “Wherever they go, they are being welcomed by the impoverished peasants who want to fight back to defend their rights and livelihood.”
“Millions of farmers suffer from high costs of production, low farm-gate prices, usury and calamities,” Valbuena added. “They decry the state’s neglect of agriculture, prioritizing importation instead of local production, and collusion with the biggest smugglers and criminals in the sector.”
“On top of all that, they contend with the AFP’s brutal military suppression, carried out through RCSP and focused military operations, and the NTF-Elcac’s so-called projects that do not address their urgent economic needs,” added Valbuena. “In the eyes of the peasant masses, the AFP serves as instruments of big mining companies and so-called green projects that drive them away from their land.”
“Military operations against peasant communities have become increasingly brutal,” said Valbuena. From January to June this year alone, the AFP killed 24 peasants and indigenous people in Oriental Mindoro, Masbate, Negros Oriental and Occidental, Capiz, Northern and Eastern Samar, Leyte, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Sur, and Sarangani.
“Brawner and his officers brazenly claim that they are Red fighters killed in ‘armed encounters,’ despite assertions and testimonies to the contrary from family members, fellow barriofolks and local barangay councils,” Valbuena asserted.
The AFP has militarized thousands of barangays on the pretext of “peace and development,” and has subjected farmers and the rural poor to economic and food blockades, forced surrenders, illegal arrests and extrajudicial killings. These conditions have historically pushed peasants into the armed struggle.
“The NPA is not on the brink of collapse. On the contrary, it is on the cusp of reinvigoration, galvanized by the Party’s rectification movement,” Valbuena said. “Every day, Red fighters choose the side of the people, enduring intense conditions and forging new paths in revolutionary struggle.”
