No holiday ceasefire between military, reds

December 18, 2024 | 12:25pm

MANILA, Philippines —Both the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) have confirmed that there will be no ceasefire for the 2024 holiday season.

In a statement released through Malacañang, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gilbert Teodoro outright dismissed any possibility of a ceasefire with the communist rebels.

“Any ceasefire with the CPP-NPA-NDF is a ceasefire against terrorists and criminals. It is a last-ditch measure of a Jurassic group to find relevance in the national political ecosystem,” Teodoro said. 

In a statement released by the Communist Party of the Philippines, the group also declared that there will be no holiday ceasefire from their side.

“The Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army cannot declare a holiday ceasefire in the face of the Marcos regime’s relentless war of suppression, offensive military operations and imposition of martial law in the countryside,” CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said in a statement on their website. 

In 2023, the CPP declared a two-day ceasefire for the holidays — a first in four years. 

This was after the government announced that peace talks with the rebels would resume after being terminated by former president Rodrigo Duterte in 2017. 

However, the government did not declare a similar ceasefire in 2023. 

Authorities have continuously declared that the CPP has weakened, with fewer and fewer rebel fronts. 

In January, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that there were no more active guerilla fronts. 

The CPP denied this in their latest statement, saying that there was a “virtual martial law” in many parts of the country, characterized by military occupations in the provinces.

The government’s battle with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), is one of the longest-running insurgencies in the world, dating back to the 1960s. Despite numerous presidential administrations pledging to end the rebellion, the issue of holiday ceasefires—whether declared or withheld—has continued to be a point of contention, persisting even into the administration of Marcos Jr.