On July 13, Eduardo Ano—national security adviser to Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and co-vice chair of the government’s anti-insurgency task force—vowed to “completely crush” the New People’s Army, or NPA, by the end of the current presidential term in 2028. The Philippine military has been even more brazen, saying it aims to dismantle the 1,500-strong communist insurgency, which has operated in the Philippine countryside since the late 1960s, by the end of this year.
This language stands in stark contrast to the conciliatory tone the Philippine government adopted just eight months ago, in November 2023, when the two sides signed a joint statement in Oslo agreeing to work toward a “principled and peaceful” resolution to end the long-running armed conflict. The government framed the Oslo meeting as a “new start,” rather than as a revival of past negotiations, setting aside the sticking points that led previous talks to collapse.
But while past peace initiatives, which have taken place under six consecutive Philippine presidents in the post-1986 democratic era, ultimately collapsed, they at least began. This time, it appears that the promised talks failed to even get off the ground. Since November, there has been little reported contact between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, or NDFP—the formal negotiating arm of the NPA—and its political parent body, the Communist Party of the Philippines, or CPP.
What explains the false start? Several factors, some old and some recent, combined to prevent talks from moving beyond the initial stage, leaving a decades-long internal conflict festering at a time when the Philippines is looking to reorient its security posture firmly toward external defense.
The trouble appears to have started almost immediately, with a mismatch between the line taken by the government and the NDFP. Just weeks after the joint statement was signed, Carlito Galvez, the presidential adviser on the peace process, warned the CPP-NPA not to set preconditions that might derail the process. But in February, Julie de Lima, the interim chair of the NDFP negotiating panel, told Al Jazeera in an interview that talks would “be very difficult” without the release of jailed NDFP negotiators. That issue had been a stumbling block under Marcos’ predecessor, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, as had concerns about the status of regular NPA prisoners, which are thought to number over 800. The Marcos administration issued an amnesty in November 2023 for ex-rebels for politically motivated crimes, but it does not cover all of those convicted for their role in the insurgency.
Two other contentious issues have made the new process a nonstarter for the CPP-NPA. First, the government continues to list the rebel group as a “terrorist” organization, a label first imposed by Duterte under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and recently renewed by the Marcos government. The NDFP has criticized the tag, calling for it to be lifted ahead of future talks.
Second, Marcos has continued to utilize the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, or NTF-ELCAC, which was created in 2018 by Duterte. The agency is tasked with overseeing rural development projects and engaging in local talks with NPA units, encouraging the surrender of rebels in return for livelihood support. However, it has also often been accused of “red-tagging”—labeling leftist groups as CPP-NPA fronts and inciting political violence against them—prompting human rights groups to call for its abolition
With dialogue stuck at the starting line amid escalatory rhetoric on both sides, the Philippine military and NPA appear ready to continue their fight, prolonging a decades-long internal war.
It is clear that the CPP-NPA do not want a dual-track process by which the government engages in peace talks with the NDFP at the national level, while the NTF-ELCAC and the Philippine military continue to degrade the insurgency on the ground, as that would inevitably weaken the rebels’ negotiating position. But Gen. Romeo Brawner, chief of staff of the Philippine armed forces, has made clear from the outset that his soldiers would “continue operations” alongside any peace process. Meanwhile, the government has criticized the CPP for instructing the NPA to escalate attacks. In March, for instance, the CPP ordered an “all-out effort” from the NPA to launch renewed tactical offensives, calling on rebels to target isolated military outposts where Philippine soldiers are most vulnerable.
The gap between rhetoric and action on both sides reflects mutual mistrust that goes back decades, and many in the Philippine political-military establishment had spoken out from the beginning of the most recent peace initiative against Marcos’ decision to reboot talks. Vice President Sara Duterte—the daughter of Rodrigo who allied with Marcos ahead of the 2022 election but has since fallen out with him—was among the most high-profile dissenting voices, going so far as to resign from her position as co-vice chair of the NTF-ELCAC last month. Brawner, the chief of staff, said that Philippine soldiers shared “similar sentiments” to the vice president, arguing the CPP had used past talks as a smokescreen to strengthen the NPA.
As a result, any new process stood little chance without a joint truce. Indeed, the last time any real progress was made at the negotiating table was when mutual cease-fires were in place at the outset of the Duterte presidency.
The lack of political direction within the CPP has not helped. The founder and elder statesman of the movement, Jose Maria Sison, died in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands in December 2022. The CPP’s current leadership is unclear, though Sison’s widow, Julie de Lima, leads the NDFP negotiating panel, along with fellow party grandee Luis Jalandoni. Yet with both exiled in Europe, they have little control over operations in the Philippines. And on the ground, with a succession of senior NPA field commanders killed by the AFP in recent years, the rebel leadership has itself become more diffuse. Even if there were to be a cease-fire directive from the NDFP, it is not clear whether NPA units locked in strategic local battles with the military would comply.
In the meantime, in the absence of any talks, the NPA fights on, though its ranks are dwindling. In the 1980s, the group consisted of at least 25,000 fighters and forced entire rural communities to comply with illegal tax collection through threats of violence, while urban hit-squads assassinated local opponents in towns and cities. Its manpower and capabilities are now only a fraction of its past strength. At the beginning of the year, the NPA consisted of only 1,500 fighters across 11 “weakened” guerilla fronts, according to the Philippine military, down from 89 “active” fronts as recently as 2018. And over the past six months, the number of fronts has reportedly been reduced to seven, leaving the group unable to launch major offensives.
This steady decline is borne out in reported incidents, too. Whereas the NPA was once present in more than 70 of the Philippines’ 80 provinces, there is only evidence of clashes involving the NPA in around 35 to 40 provinces since the middle of 2023, and at a noticeably reduced level of intensity. The group is still holding on in its central and eastern Mindanao strongholds, though its presence is more limited, with violence shifting to islands further north, in the Visayas region. Negros Island has seen persistent clashes, while in Samar and Masbate the NPA has remained proactive to an extent, perpetrating a series of roadside bombings targeting Philippine troops, police officers and local opponents, including village chairmen and workers on rural infrastructure projects.
But the NPA retains offensive capabilities in few provinces, with staged ambushes now more an exception than the rule and less deadly than in the past. Across most of the Philippine archipelago, NPA fighters are on the defensive and continue to surrender to government forces, while the regular seizure of war materials buried in arms caches in remote areas—including guns and IED components—has dented the group’s capacity to rebound should it be able to replenish its ranks.
For the NPA, the future of its insurgency is uncertain, especially since the death of the CPP’s founder. A prolonged smaller-scale insurgency appears likely, which may lessen over time until it is more manageable, requiring law enforcement rather than a military response in most areas. In some villages cleared of rebel influence, Crisis Group has reported that the Philippine military has already handed over a degree of responsibility to local peacekeeping teams as well as to paramilitaries known as Citizen Armed Forces Geographical Units, to guard against the return of the NPA and monitor its influence on communities.
Elsewhere, in remaining insurgent hotspots where armed conflict is ongoing, the Philippine military is looking to raise the tempo of its counterinsurgency campaign to dismantle rebel fronts. In the short-term, this may increase the frequency of encounters. But if successful, the move would allow the army to shift its posture to be more in line with Marcos’ desire to focus on external defense, with the perceived threat from China rising in light of recent incidents between the two sides in the South China Sea.
For now though, with dialogue stuck at the starting line amid escalatory rhetoric on both sides, the Philippine military and NPA appear ready to continue their fight, prolonging a decades-long internal war.
Michael Hart is a writer and researcher covering conflict and postwar issues in Southeast Asia. He has researched for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), and has contributed to publications including World Politics Review, The Diplomat, and Asia Sentinel. He is Editorial and Social Media Coordinator at The Pacific Review journal, based at the University of Warwick.