The Filipino people will always choose progress over propaganda

May 29, 2025

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) once again waves the tired flag of “repression” to paint the National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) as a mere rehash of a "failed counterinsurgency strategy". It seems too engrossed in attacking the Plan that it walks past people who now have roads, clinics and classrooms in barangays once choked by the CPP-NPA-NDF. The policy they call a dead horse is already delivering concrete, life-saving gains.

We cannot help but notice how NUPL cherry-picks its sources. When the United Nations cited verified reports of NPA attacks and child recruitment, NUPL was one of those who angrily claimed that the UN relied “solely” on the data provided by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and dismissed everything as lies. Yet in the next breath they quote selected lines from two Special Rapporteurs to demand the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC. It's cheap sleight of hand: discard facts that weaken their script, grab any line that props it up.

It speaks volumes that NUPL should attack calls for more transparency with regard to foreign funding of non-government groups. As counsel to organizations under investigation for financial irregularities and laundering money to benefit the armed communist insurgency, it stands to gain when authorities eschew due diligence. No wonder National Security Adviser Secretary Eduardo Año’s call to “Turn off the Red Taps” hit a nerve. Accountability in foreign aid is not repression, it is common sense, lalo na kung marami ang ebidensiya na ang perang pampaaral ay napupunta sa pagpapasabog.

NUPL likewise refuses to acknowledge the objective conditions on the ground. With highways finally reaching sitios that were once a day’s trek away, peasant and Indigenous Peoples’ communities—formerly under the NPA’s grip—can now pursue livelier livelihoods. Social services are able to enter geographically-isolated and disadvantaged areas without looking down the barrel of an NPA gun, and development projects and investors are beginning to energize local economies. These wins, logged through the Barangay Development Program and other government programs, are the very foundation on which the NAP-UPD was built around.

Contrary to the disinformation that NAP-UPD “forecloses negotiation,” the Plan formalizes Localized Peace Engagements where governors, mayors and sectoral leaders talk directly to the remaining armed units while the national government provides security guarantees and reintegration packages. Peace talks are happening where the armed conflict occurs, within sitios, barangays, and towns, led by the very people directly involved. These efforts effectively complement the implementation of the government’s National Amnesty Program.

The accusation that NAP-UPD dodges “structural issues” also collapses under scrutiny. The plan invests in land titling, farm-to-market logistics, scholarship vouchers, dispute mediation, and many other initiatives all rolled out through a cluster system led by civilian agencies. It tackles poverty with budgets, not with a rifle-brandishing fantasy of “people’s war.” The naysayers refuse to acknowledge that the reforms are there, budgeted and implemented. Meanwhile, the legal democratic organizations, emboldened by their lawyers, continue nitpicking, all while the NPA keeps firing at peace builders.

Detached from reality, armed only with decades-old clichés and zero alternative roadmap, NUPL and its ilk end up echoing the same battle cry that has bled our countryside dry. We urge its lawyers to meet with the barangay and town leaders across the country who have worked tirelessly for the very programs the NUPL ridicules so arrogantly. Until then, the NAP-UPD will stay the course, together with communities that have had enough of slogans and sedition, and choose progress over propaganda.

Undersecretary Ernesto C. Torres Jr.

Executive Director, National Secretariat

National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict