Ever the purveyor of fake news and disinformation, the 10th Infantry Division has recently ramped up its campaign of lies and intrigue in the remaining days of the tyrannical US-Duterte regime.

In the face of its failure to decimate the NPA in Southern Mindanao, the AFP made claims that a ranking NPA commander and CPP leader had deserted and carted away millions of pesos, but not before killing with his own bare hands a fellow Red fighter in New Bataan, Davao de Oro. To shore up the tall tale, the fascists exhumed the body of the Red fighter to use as proof of the supposed crime.

It has become the despicable standard operating procedure of the AFP to exhume the remains of individuals they claim to be NPA fighters to use as props in order to lend its failed counterinsurgency some relevance and credibility. To court sympathy, the AFP pepper the state and mainstream media with fantastical stories of summary killings committed by comrades.

In the era of Duterte’s tyranny, the AFP and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) have become the eminent authority in churning out ridiculous gossip of desertions, financial opportunism or violence against women in the ranks of people’s army. None of these stories bear a modicum of truth.

In reality, the AFP finds it necessary to hype up its counterinsurgency campaign with ludicrous tales of “murder and corruption” to downplay its earlier pronouncement of being able to clear the region of NPA influence by the end of Duterte’s term. Likewise, the peddlers of fake news sow such intrigues in the vain hope of eroding the morale of the revolutionary forces and discredit the CPP leadership in Southern Mindanao. The 10th ID and the Eastern Mindanao Command failed spectacularly in both.

The NPA leadership and units in the region, while undergoing adjustments in the face of temporary setbacks and continued focused military operations by AFP troops, are singularly united in waging agrarian revolution, guerilla warfare and expanding bases. They are steadfastly guided by the leadership of the Communist Party, which remains to be optimistic of overturning these setbacks in the coming months and years. Unlike the AFP, both the CPP and NPA in the region find no need to resort to lies and intrigues to secure the support of the masses.

By all indications, the incoming Marcos II regime will surely be another six years of Duterte-style state terror and tyranny. It is bound to reach a tipping point where the masses will gain enough traction in all forms of resistance and able to face the enemy head on. This guarantees that the people’s protracted war will not only persist but eventually flourish to advance the national democratic revolution further.