NTF-ELCAC “Victory” Claim Negated By Its Demands For More Extensive Repression

Eight days before the Mid-Term Elections, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) claimed that an “insurgency-free Philippines” was in sight, and at the same time warned against any complacency allowing a “resurgence of insurgency in electoral disguise”. It called for greater repression of civil society and young people in particular and endless war.

“NTF-ELCAC can’t have it both ways, claiming victory and calling for greater repression,” said Peter Murphy, Chairperson of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP).

“This organisation of military and police generals are shameless war mongers, demanding a bigger budget and more powers, plus less oversight. ICHRP fully supports the calls from United Nations Special Rapporteurs for NTF-ELCAC to be abolished, and we ourselves have called for this since it was established in December 2018,” said Murphy.

The NTF-ELCAC called for:

• thorough vetting of foreign financial grants to Filipino development agencies, alleging that these fund the New People’s Army rebellion.
• more intensive red-tagging of “legal democratic forces” whom it accuses of “ideological insurgency”.
• multi-year funding without oversight of its Barangay Development Program, used to pay local government units which declare themselves ‘insurgency-free’. Since 2018 this fund has paid out P36 billion (US$720 million).
• forcing university administrations to crack down on student activism to channel “critical thought and youthful idealism” to support government strategies.
• Government support for a national federation of rebel surrenderees (former rebels).
• More intensive local community control through permanent local peace councils, barangay task forces and grassroots monitoring systems to repress any critical discussions and organizing.

In the Mid-Term Elections, the progressive party-lists and the Makabayan Senate candidates won 5 percent or more of the votes, despite the intense denunciation as “communist terrorists” which they endured from NTF-ELCAC. The 3.5 to 4.5 million Filipinos who voted for these candidates are the target of the NTF-ELCAC under the criterion of “legal democratic forces”. Looked at this way, the NTF-ELCAC is the greatest threat to democratic rights in the Philippines.

Its claim that former rebels are its greatest asset in the fight against insurgency is undermined by extensive data that unarmed peasant farmers and indigenous people are routinely ordered to “surrender”, then paid a small compensation, and then continually pressed to denounce other members of their communities.

Of course, the Barangay Development Program and funds for surrenderees are a great slush fund for military and police commanders. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of the NTF-ELCAC empowers the AFP to further cause terror in rural communities, including employing tactics of hameletting – surrounding communities with military presence – and aerial strafing and bombing. Development workers who server rural communities face ongoing attacks under false pretenses of “financing terrorism.”

The grand boast that the communist insurgency is almost over, and that 89 guerilla fronts have been dismantled since 2018, is not borne out on the ground.1 Fighting is reported in many provinces, and the social conditions that give rise to the armed conflict – especially poverty and landlessness – remain unchanged.

“ICHRP amplifies the long-standing demands of Filipino people for genuine land reform, an end to stultifying poverty and genuine respect for democratic rights. If there is to be peace, then NTF-ELCAC should be abolished and the government of the Philippines return to the peace talks agenda still outstanding with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines,” said Murphy. “Top of the agenda right now is a draft Comprehensive Agreement on Economic and Social Reforms, which already includes free distribution of land to the landless.”

1 https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/philippines/following-red-star-tracking-communist-rebellion-philippines

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