Progress is not a disguise

May 6, 2025

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) would have the public believe that refining the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) into the National Task Force for Unity, Peace, and Development is an elaborate attempt to bury wrongdoing. The task force is as baffled as anyone by the CPP’s assertion that NTF-ELCAC is being dismantled and rebadged as a “National Task Force for Unity, Peace, and Development.” This supposed announcement that they claimed with such bravado in their latest tirade of a statement, exists only in their imagination.

In truth, the task force's fine-tuning as embodied in the National Action Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development simply carries our whole-of-nation approach to its logical next phase: sustaining the peace gains already won and pushing development work even deeper into communities once held hostage by communist armed violence.

Across the archipelago, formerly inaccessible barangays (which were claimed by the CPP-NPA-NDF as their "bases) are now linked by farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, classrooms, and health stations that were identified by the residents themselves and subjected to the scrutiny of both the Department of Budget and Management and the Commission on Audit. These are not “cash cows”; they are the concrete proof that good governance outperforms empty ideology.

By insisting that roads are "useless" to farmers and indigenous people or dismissing vital infrastructure as “unsustainable,” the CPP exposes just how far removed it is from reality that it insults the hard-won progress that the communities labored to secure for themselves.

The CPP drones on and on of “blood on our [NTF-ELCAC's] hands,” yet the United Nations has documented that 41 percent of grave child-rights violations in the Philippines were committed by the NPA, including the recruitment of minors into combat. No amount of ranting or rhetoric can wash away that stain.

When we highlight facts, especially the recruitment and grooming of the communist terrorist groups, the CPP's legal democratic organizations automatically cry “red-tagging.” But when they hoodwink or coerce farmers, indigenous peoples, or students to serve the NPA, it calls the practice “revolutionary duty.” That double standard is precisely why the movement is hemorrhaging members.

Tens of thousands of Filipinos, some once hard-core fighters, have chosen the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program and, more recently, the amnesty offered under Proclamation 404. They did not exchange fire for a sack of rice; they exchanged despair for the chance to raise families in peace, supported by livelihood packages, legal assistance, and sustainable support for their interests and welfare. Dismissing their decision as “forced surrender” is an affront to their courage and peaceful aspiration.

To those who remain in the armed insurgency: pro-people principles are not surrendered when you lay down your rifle. They are fulfilled when you protect the very communities that have shouldered the burden of conflict for decades. Government reintegration windows remain wide open. Do not sacrifice yourselves so that urban ideologues can posture online while you face hunger, arrest, or death.

Ultimately, progress born of peace needs no mask. It needs roads that bring produce to market, classrooms that shelter young minds, and other social services that help address the roots of armed conflict. The CPP’s narrative of “fascist rampage” collapses in the face of these realities. If its leaders truly care for the masses, let them prove it by abandoning recruitment of children, ceasing extortion in the guise of revolutionary taxation, and engaging constructively in nation-building. Until then, we will stay the course—steadfast, transparent, and unafraid.

Undersecretary Ernesto C. Torres Jr.

Executive Director, National Secretariat

National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict