DEEP DIVE | The Quiet Erosion of Choice in the CPP-NPA-NDFP’s International Solidarity Work

The Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDF) presents its International Solidarity Work (ISW) as an exercise in choice. Overseas Filipinos, it says, are not recruited but awakened, not directed but inspired, and not compelled but voluntarily “integrating” into the struggle.

It is a powerful narrative. It appeals to national identity and true patriotism, to justice, to the deeply personal pull of returning home. But what happens when that sense of agency meets a completely different set of realities on the ground?

That is where the story becomes more complicated. And for far more unsettling.

Promise of choice

In its April 11 statement, Compatriots-NDFP, a supposed underground organization of overseas Filipinos and their families and follows the national democratic line of armed struggle, framed the case of Filipino-American Cristina Pasion as an example of “conscious political awakening.” According to the group, she chose to return to the Philippines, chose to immerse herself among rural communities, and chose to take part in what it calls the “people’s struggle.”

This framing is consistent with how ISW has long been presented: as an exposure, solidarity, and voluntary integration.

Yet even within this framing, there is a quiet but critical shift. The call is not simply to support from abroad, but to come home, to enter communities where the movement operates, and to experience conditions firsthand. In the CPP’s own lexicon, this is not passive engagement. It is a process and an integration. And integration, by definition, changes the terms of participation.

Agency meets structure

Former rebels describe ISW not as a single act of solidarity but as a pathway. It usually begins in conferences or forums, and this diaspora organizing abroad gradually moves toward immersion programs in the Philippines. These “immersions” are marketed among compatriots as educational experiences, even humanitarian, but these are also designed to align participants more deeply with the movement’s ideology and structures.

And one does not “accidentally” enter NPA units. If it were that easy, the CPP-NPA would have already been overrun by enemy agents posing as new ISW recruits. The process by which Filipino Americans (and in some cases, even other foreign nationals) are able to enter NPA units is highly hierarchical, secretive, and endorsement-based. As a Fil-Am, one cannot enter unless one is already a member of the CPP’s underground network or a CPP member oneself.

Norma Capuyan, a former rebel who was involved in international work when she was still in the movement, recalled that overseas engagements were not merely about raising awareness. They were also about building networks and encouraging deeper involvement, including eventual participation in the armed struggle. 

Capuyan recounted that she was repeatedly sent abroad before, particularly to the United States, to attend activities and forums, including engagements linked to international platforms such as the United Nations and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). These trips, she said, were not merely diplomatic or educational. 

“We were also organizing Filipinos abroad, building networks, and encouraging them to support and eventually join the movement,” she revealed.

The psychology of constrained choice

One component of the ISW is the so-called “revolutionary integration,” where underground recruits from abroad are invited to integrate with NPA across the country. 

Capuyan disclosed that after attending activities abroad, she returned to the Philippines accompanied by foreign and Fil-Am recruits. These individuals, many of them young, were brought to rural guerrilla zones for immersion with NPA units. She said that the process typically involved one to three months of integration in remote areas, exposure to armed units and revolutionary structures, and sustained political education sessions.

At the end of the program (and the progression of one as a national democratic activist), participants are supposedly encouraged a choice: to stay as full-time NPA fighters, do full-time work as CPP organizers in the “white areas” (urban centers in the country) or return abroad and do full-time CPP organizing work there.

At the center of this progression is the idea of choice. Recruits and those who integrate with the NPA are told they may return home or remain. They are told they are free to decide. 

But choice in this context? For Capuyan, this supposed choice does not exist in a vacuum because it is within an environment that imposes its own constraints.

Some studies agree. Psychological research has long shown that decision-making changes dramatically under conditions of isolation, stress, and dependency. Studies on coercive environments, including work on “bounded choice” and “trauma bonding,” suggest that individuals may perceive themselves as acting freely even when their options have been significantly narrowed by circumstance. Social psychologist Dr. Janja Lalich describes this as a system where autonomy is not removed outright, but gradually redefined until the individual’s range of acceptable choices aligns with the structure around them.

In conflict settings, this dynamic becomes even more pronounced. Exposure to uncertainty, fear, and group pressure can produce what psychologists call “cognitive constriction,” where individuals focus on immediate survival and group cohesion over long-term personal preference. Under such conditions, the ability to leave is not only a physical question but a psychological one. 

This is where the concept of voluntary integration begins to blur.

Expectation versus reality.

Cristina Pasion and the Limits of Agency

The case of Cristina Pasion sits precisely at this intersection.

Authorities report that she was last seen with NPA elements in Occidental Mindoro. Handwritten notes attributed to her, which have circulated in security reports, describe emotional distress, confusion, and an urgent desire to leave. Lines such as “I feel like everyone is playing mind games” and “Please… kill me right now” have been cited as evidence of severe psychological strain. 

The NDFP has dismissed these claims as fabrication and insists that no one is being held by the NPA. Curiously, it did not categorically state that Pasion is not with the NPA or that the diary entries were not hers. Yet in quoting the NPA’s claim that it has no one to “release,” there is reason to question what, exactly, is being denied and defended. 

But even setting aside the dispute over whether Pasion is in fact with the NPA, the language attributed to Pasion is difficult to ignore. It does not read like the voice of someone exercising clear, unencumbered choice. It reads like someone who is overwhelmed, disoriented, and clearly searching for a way out.

Capuyan says she has seen these incidents unfold many times. 

“When there are military operations, they [Fil-Ams or foreign nationals on revolutionary integration] are told it’s not safe to leave. Even if they want to go home, they are made to stay, mainly for the safety of the unit.”

This creates a situation where mobility is restricted, and participants may feel trapped in an environment they did not fully anticipate. Reading through the diary entries, it is not a stretch to say that the individual appears to be in distress.

That tension between the narrative of “voluntary participation” and the clear expression of distress is what makes the case so haunting because it raises a question that extends beyond any single individual: what happens when a participant’s personal limits collide with the operational realities of an armed movement?

Security Over Self

Capuyan describes a recurring situation in which the priorities of the unit take precedence over the preferences of the individual. During military operations, movement is restricted. Leaving is discouraged or delayed, and is often framed as a matter of safety. 

From an organizational and military standpoint, this is logical. The NPA operates under conditions where mobility can endanger both the individual and the unit. Security protocols are non-negotiable.

But from the perspective of someone like Pasion, the experience can feel very different. The environment is unfamiliar, communication is limited, and the ability to disengage is no longer entirely within one’s control.

This is where the illusion of agency begins to dissolve. But it is not through overt force, but through the gradual alignment of circumstance against individual will.

A pattern seen in conflict zones

Of course, this dynamic is not unique to the Philippine insurgency. Research on civil wars consistently shows that young people and women are particularly vulnerable in environments where armed groups control movement and information. According to data from the United Nations and conflict monitoring organizations, civilians, many of them youth, account for the majority of casualties in internal armed conflicts, and women frequently face compounded risks, including psychological trauma and restricted autonomy.

Studies in post-conflict settings documented high rates of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress among individuals after experiencing prolonged exposure to armed groups, even when their initial involvement was voluntary. The transition from civilian life to conflict environment introduces pressures that reshape identity, relationships, and decision-making capacity.

In such contexts, the line between participation and entrapment is rarely clear, but it shifts over time, and often invisibly, until it becomes too late.

The CPP-NPA-NDFP frames ISW as a journey of awareness, which transforms individuals into active participants in the class struggle for social change. Former rebels, including Capuyan, however, describe a system where that journey is carefully structured, and the ability to step back increasingly becomes complicated once certain thresholds are crossed.

The difference between these perspectives is not simply ideological but experiential. The CPP-NPA-NDFP can justify in lofty ideological rhetoric how it is a matter of choosing to “selflessly serve the people,” but it also boils down to how participants actually experience this supposed selfless service on the ground.  And it brings the discussion back to a more fundamental question, one that no amount of rhetoric can easily resolve.

What does it mean to choose?

If a person enters freely but finds leaving difficult, was the choice ever fully theirs? If participation is voluntary at the beginning but constrained in practice, where does actual agency begin and where does it end?

These are not abstract questions. They are actual experiences of individuals who move between worlds—between diaspora and homeland, between legal activism and armed struggle, and between good intentions and fatal consequences.

Cristina Pasion’s case, whatever its final resolution, forces that tension into the open. It challenges the simplicity of the narrative and exposes the complexity beneath it.

In the end though, Norma Capuyan thinks that the issue is not whether people can choose to join. It is whether they can still choose to leave. And in that question lies the true measure of freedom.