President Marcos on Saturday said there are no more active guerilla fronts of the National People’s Army.
“Now we can report that there are no more active NPA guerilla fronts as of December 2023,” the President said in a short video message.
“These accomplishments underscore our steadfast commitment to peace and stability,” he added.
Mr. Marcos noted that in 2023, around 1,398 members of communist and local terrorist groups were neutralized and some 1,751 firearms were seized.
President Marcos previously issued a series of proclamations granting amnesty to rebels as part of the government’s push to secure long-term peace.
In November, the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front also agreed to resume peace talks to end a decades-old insurgency, six years after negotiations were terminated by the Duterte administration.
“The parties agree to a principled and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict,” read a joint statement issued by both sides, signed in Oslo, Norway on Nov. 23.
The ongoing armed struggle, launched in 1969, grew out of the global communist movement, finding fertile soil in the country’s stark rich-poor divide.
At its peak in the 1980s, the group boasted about 26,000 fighters, a number the military says has now dwindled to a few thousand.