The communist insurgency in the Philippines has continued so long it has ceased to receive the attention it deserves. The international community and many in the Philippine government have been much more concerned about armed rebellion in the Muslim south because of the higher level of violence, the potential threat to the country’s territorial integrity and the occasional links to international terrorism.¹ But some in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) continue to see the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its New People’s Army (NPA) as the bigger threat, and the 42-year-old conflict provides a justification for...

The trajectory of the CPP-NPA is one of steady growth until the end of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986; rapid decline during the early to mid-1990s; and resurgence until the early 2000s. In the past ten years, it has organised political parties that won seats in congress, pursued peace negotiations intermittently and hit back against an intensified counter-insurgency campaign during the final years of the Arroyo administration. Today, it faces challenges that include declining support from the middle class and difficulties in recruiting highly educated cadres.

The CPP was founded in December 1968 by Jose Maria Sison.¹⁷ From a well-off...

In many areas where the NPA is strong, the insurgents have been operating for decades. Local communities and politicians work around the conflict, often making pragmatic decisions to collaborate with one side or the other or both. This inhibits efforts to quash the insurgency by military and police, whose relations with local government units are fraught. Also caught in the middle is the Catholic Church, which wields considerable authority. Even for civil society groups running programs in affected barangays (villages), the CPP-NPA use of front organisations obscures who is affiliated with whom.

NPA tactics and military counter-insurgency strategy are broadly...

Talks between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which negotiates on behalf of the CPP-NPA, have been intermittent and inconclusive since they began under the Cory Aquino government in 1986. Twelve agreements and 25 years later, they have scarcely touched on substantive issues.²⁶⁶ The Aquino government appears serious about ending the conflict with a political settlement that it aims to reach within three years.²⁶⁷ An important step was taken in December 2010, when the president announced he had requested the justice department to drop charges against the “Morong 43”, a group of health workers...

The CPP-NPA is now in its fifth decade of waging war against the Philippine government. It has outlasted martial law and four democratically elected governments. Despite what many consider its anachronistic ideology, the insurgency has endured, because many of its criticisms of income inequality, human rights abuses and broader social injustice still resonate with some Filipinos.²⁹⁹ It remains a countrywide threat to the Philippine military and police and a hindrance to government efforts to establish control over and develop large parts of the country. For Filipinos who live in areas where armed clashes occur and various forms of pressure are...