The CPP’s Propaganda Cannot Hide Its Defeat

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has once again attempted to trumpet its so-called “victories” in the field, claiming that the New People’s Army (NPA) inflicted fatalities on government troops this past month. This is a familiar pattern—-every minor skirmish is magnified into a grand success, while their own mounting losses are swept under the rug. It is a tired propaganda formula that no longer convinces anyone beyond their dwindling circles of loyalists.

At the heart of their narrative is the claim that sporadic ambushes and firefights prove that the NPA remains a formidable force. But the truth is the opposite. Far from demonstrating strength, these incidents expose the weakness of a fragmented movement reduced to small-scale harassment. What the CPP hails as “victories” are in fact mere defensive actions - ambushes and hit-and-run encounters carried out to evade government offensives. These are not tactical offensives born of strength and initiative, but desperate maneuvers of a force trying to survive encirclement. Gone are the days when the NPA could mount coordinated, battalion-sized offensives. What remains are scattered bands operating in survival mode, clinging to relevance by staging encounters that are more symbolic than strategic.

Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), together with local government units and civilian agencies, has been making real progress on the ground. Countless barangays once trapped under NPA influence have been cleared, opening opportunities for development programs that directly improve people’s lives. Roads and livelihood support are now reaching far-flung villages once cut off by decades of insurgent intimidation. Every returnee who surrenders a rifle in exchange for a new life in mainstream society is a testament to the fact that people want peace, not perpetual war.

The CPP’s rhetoric about “oppressed and exploited people taking up arms” rings increasingly hollow in today’s Philippines. If anything, ordinary citizens have grown weary of their armed struggle. Farmers, fisherfolk, and indigenous peoples - sectors the NPA long claimed to represent - are now choosing community-based projects, cooperatives, and government aid over recruitment into a rebellion that offers nothing but danger and uncertainty. The exodus of rebels returning to civilian life demonstrates a reality the CPP refuses to accept: the masses have moved on.

It is also worth calling out their repeated accusations of “fascism” and “US-backed terror.” These slogans are relics of the Cold War, recycled endlessly but stripped of substance. What truly terrorizes communities is not aerial support or military patrols, but the NPA’s own tactics: extortion from small businesses, forced collection of “revolutionary taxes,” and the recruitment of minors into their armed ranks. These practices reveal not a liberation movement but a group sustained by coercion.

What we are seeing today is not a revolutionary army in the making, but a movement in its twilight years, surviving on nostalgia and propaganda. The CPP’s statements may still find their way into the headlines, but they no longer inspire nor mobilize as they once did. Instead, they read like the laments of a leadership desperate to keep an aging ideology alive in a society that has already outgrown it.

Peace and progress are the aspirations of the Filipino people, not armed revolution. The CPP may continue to boast about sporadic firefights, but these will not change the trajectory of history. The future lies in development, education, and unity—-not in a revolution that has long overstayed its time.