Ballots over bullets

May 16, 2025

With almost all of the election returns now transmitted, the 2025 mid-term polls have recorded an historic voter-turnout of 81.65 percent—the highest ever for a Philippine mid-term election. The numbers speak clearly that the Filipino electorate recognizes the ballot as the only legitimate instrument for change.

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict salutes the country’s public-school teachers. The Commission on Elections deputized more than 660,000 teaching and non-teaching Department of Education personnel to oversee precincts, troubleshoot machines and canvass results from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi. Their quiet endurance ensured that every vote was received, counted and protected.

The task force likewise commends the COMELEC, local governments, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Police for keeping the polls generally peaceful and free of major security disruptions.

Pre-canvass figures covering more than 95 percent of precincts show that votes for CPP-NPA-NDF-affiliated partylists fell by 26% compared with 2022 election results. It is clear that Filipino voters rejected the duplicity of these individuals and partylist organizations with regard to their links to the CPP-NPA-NDF. For years, they refused to condemn the violent armed insurgency of the CPP-NPA-NDF and the electorate has now responded by shrinking their congressional footprint.

It is not surprising that these partylists are now using the specter of “red-tagging” as a scapegoat for their dismal showing in the polls. Blaming defeat on critical scrutiny belittles the Filipino voters' capacity to weigh facts. Citizens made an informed choice and punished duplicity, not genuine activism.

The residual support for these partylists underscores the need to keep exposing their duplicity, even as we deliver effective governance that drains the grievances on which CPP-NPA-NDF-linked organizations thrive.

The people's warning is unambiguous: persist in refusing to denounce, and in fact, romanticizing “people’s war” and your electoral relevance will continue to erode, perhaps to extinction by 2028. But if you break decisively with armed communist violence and engage in genuine democratic discourse, then you may yet resume constructive participation in national life.

We extend our deep gratitude to the tens of millions who queued patiently on May 12 for proving again that our future is written with ballots, not bullets. The NTF-ELCAC will guard that mandate and accelerate programs that bring peace dividends faster to every barrio and every town once deceived by communist terrorists.

We stand ready to work with all winners and even with the defeated, provided they renounce armed violence, respect the Constitution and serve the common good. The message from the electorate is crystal clear, and every elected individual and organization should match the people's democratic faith with unrelenting service.

Undersecretary Ernesto C. Torres Jr.

Executive Director, National Secretariat

National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict