The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today dismissed claims made yesterday by National Task Force-Elcac spokesperson Lorraine Badoy of 24,000 “NPA surrenderees” since 2016, which is supposedly a 6,000 “increase” since June last year.

“Ms. Badoy is delusional in announcing these fantastic and bloated numbers of the NTF-Elcac,” remarked CPP Chief Information Officer Marco Valbuena. “The NTF-Elcac is inflating its self-importance through self-praise and giving itself a pat in the back in a desperate attempt to make them look important amid mounting calls for its immediate abolition.”

“Making up these inflated numbers of surrenderees is a desperate attempt of the NTF-Elcac to make themselves look significant.”

“The truth is that these numbers being reported by the NTF-ELCAC and the AFP are all a farce,” said Valbuena, pointing out that these are several times the number of NPA fighters.

“A great majority of those presented as surrenderers are, in fact, civilians, whose democratic rights were violated by the arbitrary, baseless and unlawful red-tagging by the AFP,” said Valbuena. “They are unarmed peasants who have been subjected by the military to relentless harassment and suppression.” he said.

“In barangays under the AFP’s ‘civil-military’ operations, people are forced to ‘cooperate’ under pain of being arrested and detained without charges or killed,” said Valbuena. “This has been the terrible norm in the conduct of the AFP’s dirty war.”

“Since the pandemic, there are also numerous cases were people were enticed or compelled to attend assemblies and sign papers in exchange for receiving ‘ayuda’ or a few kilos of rice and grocery bags, only to find out the following day that they have become as ‘surrenderees,'” Valbuena added.

Valbuena also pointed out that the NTF-Elcac’s surrender drive is a big scam of military officers. “The bigger the number of ‘surrenderees’, the more that they get to pocket,” said Valbuena. “With a budget of ₱65,000 for every ‘surrenderee’, as much as ₱1.5 billion would have been distributed by the NTF-Elcac and AFP, which I am quite sure they have not made proper documentation and accounting before the COA.”

“It is not surprising that there are persistent reports of ‘repeat surrenderees’ where the military made some people join their “surrender rites” twice or thrice in the space of a few months,” added Valbuena.

Valbuena questioned the NTF-Elcac for claiming that a big number of the “surrenderees” are “NPA supporters.” He pointed out that “under the rules of war, ‘surrendering’ is an innate act of combatants, not of the civilian population. In fact, it is prohibited to force a civilian population to go against their beliefs and allegiance.”

“Neither were these civilians charged of any crime under the GRP’s laws, so how can they be made to ‘surrender’,” added Valbuena. “This goes to show that the NTF-Elcac and AFP’s surrender drive is unlawful and a giant farce.”

“Far from being crushed, the NPA and the revolutionary movement continues to steadily advance across the country,” said Valbuena. “Of course, in the course of waging war, some fighters surrender or abscond. But their numbers are far, far below from that being claimed by the AFP.”

Despite the brutal war of suppression being waged by the AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP), the NPA and all revolutionary forces led by the CPP remain determined to resist and surmount the fascist onslaught of the Duterte terror regime. (CPP Information Bureau)