Communism a lost cause, says Malacañang

Malacañang dismissed yesterday the 32-year-old communist insurgency in the country as a lost cause and predicted that it would eventually be wiped out by the improving economy and political stability.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye pointed out that communism is considered a "lost ideology" worldwide and the government was winning the battle for the hearts and minds of the people.

"The continuing surge of social, economic and political reforms — combined with strong action to uplift communities and provide jobs — will eventually wipe out the mass base of the insurgency and degrade its strength and relevance," Bunye said.

"The remnants of the revolutionary left may be capable of staging isolated attacks on our far-flung units, but the Philippine government is already winning the battle for the people and it is only a matter of time (before) the whole theater of conflict will come to an end," he said.

The statement followed Defense Secretary Avelino Cruz’s assertion before his counterparts in the region that the Philippine government could wipe out the communist rebellion in a decade if it spends more on national security and social infrastructure.

Cruz also said success in permanently defeating the group depended on sustaining economic growth and increasing spending on social services and security as experience has shown that "insurgents and terrorists often take advantage of people in impoverished communities in conflict areas to recruit adherents, gain support or secure safe havens.

"These provide insurgents and terrorists opportunities that they are quick to exploit," Cruz said in a meeting of defense chiefs in Singapore. "This is the vicious cycle we aim to stop once and for all."

He pointed out that the Philippine economy grew by a strong 5.5 percent last year, allowing improvements to the internal security forces and equipment purchases to enhance their mobility, firepower and communications.

Bunye said Cruz’s assessment was "very realistic" and that the "consistent" efforts of the government had contributed to the weakening of the communist rebellion in the past years.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) are officially tagged as foreign terrorist organizations by the United States and the European Union.

The NPA reached its peak strength in the late 1980s with 28,000 guerrillas and declined to some 7,000 in the mid-1990s. The regional economic slump in 1997 contributed to its resurgence, up to more than 10,000 armed members in 2001.

However, Cruz said NPA strength has dropped by 13 percent a year since 2001.

Peace negotiations with the CPP-NPA, through its umbrella organization, the National Democratic Front, began in 1986 but little progress has been made. Talks were suspended last year after the NDF withdrew from the negotiations to protest the CPP-NPA’s inclusion among the list of foreign terrorist organizations of the US and the EU.

Meanwhile, NDF Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Ma. Sison said yesterday that Secretary Cruz was merely "pipe dreaming" in saying that the Philippine government could defuse the communist insurgency in 10 years.

In a phone patch interview with reporters at the office of the NDFP-Joint Secretariat office of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC), Sison asserted that the armed revolutionary movement was going strong despite a perceived crackdown on members of the so-called progressive organizations linked by the government with underground communists.

"He (Cruz) is pipe dreaming... the government is daydreaming that they can wipe out the insurgency in 10 years," Sison said.

"The revolution is getting stronger because of the rotten system of the Arroyo government. We are getting stronger because they continue to oppress us with the continued extra-judicial killings," he added.

Sison branded as a "lie" the government’s claim that the killings of activists was part of an ongoing purge within the revolutionary movement. He accused Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and members of the government’s Cabinet Oversight Committee for Internal Security (COC-IS) of masterminding the spate of assassinations and abductions of militant leaders and members.

"President Arroyo is already the puppet of the generals in her Cabinet. She has no choice but to follow their lead because Ermita knows the wrongdoing committed by Gloria in the elections. Ermita is now approving the killings so you see those in the government are just fooling themselves on who is in charge," Sison said. "All the victims’ families I have talked to point to the military… they all talk of two assassins on a motorcycle. This just proves that Ermita and the COC-IS are the ones behind the extra-judicial killings and abductions," he added.

NDFP chairman Luis Jalandoni previously claimed the COC-IS was planning and directing the killings of suspected members or supporters of the revolutionary movement.

The COC-IS is composed of Ermita, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Defense Secretary Cruz, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Gen. Generoso Senga and Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Arturo Lomibao.