AFP: no active NPA fronts now, but ‘vertical units’ remain a threat
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Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. on Monday said all the military ground commanders have been ordered to exert all efforts to annihilate the remaining guerilla fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army.
Despite the country’s positive accomplishments against the local communist insurgency, Brawner noted that the existing vertical units of the weakened communist guerilla fronts remain a threat to national security.
“We have given our commanders on the ground targets for them to dismantle the remaining guerilla fronts, to go after the vertical units of the New People Army, ibig sabihin po ng vertical units—ito yung mga armed groups na nagtipon-tipon (vertical units means—these are the armed groups that have regrouped),” he said.
While the AFP is working on the total annihilation of the NPA in the country, Brawner said, “we are also already performing our territorial defense operations, especially in the West Philippine Sea.”
“Now if we defeat finally the local terrorists and the communist terrorists, we’re saying that we could shift entirely our focus on territorial defense,” he added.
Brawner noted that the remaining 11 guerilla fronts have already weakened.
“We were very happy to note that we have done a lot of, we have had a lot of accomplishments in terms of defeating the communist terrorist group and the local terrorist groups,” he said.
He added that there are no active guerilla fronts left in the country as they have lost support from the masses.
However, Brawner pointed out that even if the NPA guerilla fronts have already decreased the number, “there are still NPA formations that are out there.”
“What they are trying to do now is trying to, they are trying to recover the areas that they have lost,” he said.
Brawner added that “some of them remnants of the weakened guerilla fronts are slowly gathering together” and might be planning to continue their atrocities.
“So they are still there, they are still a force to reckon with, that is why we gave our commanders the targets to eliminate them totally,” he noted.
