AFP: Red fronts cut to 4; amnesty offer boosted
The Armed Forces of the Philippines has reduced the strength of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) from seven active guerrilla fronts to just four, military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said on Friday.
“About three months ago, we reported that there were seven remaining weakened guerrilla fronts. Now, there are only four. And we are expecting that by the end of the year, we will have finished all the guerrilla fronts. We will have reduced them to zero,” Brawner said.
He said the four remaining guerilla fronts have less than 2,000 fighters operating in the Northern Luzon, Southern Luzon and Visayas.
Brawner said at a Palace briefing that NPA fighters now number just 1,111 from the 2,200 last year and the military aims to eliminate the four weakened fronts by the end of this year.
“So that is a big reduction in their manpower. And in terms of firearms, there is a similar reduction: about 1,000 firearms have been reduced,” he said.
The statement of Brawner came days after authorities arrested Wigberto “Baylon” Villarico, the acting chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines and two other top officials of the organization.
On Friday, Leah Tanodra-Armamento of the National Amnesty Commission (NAC) said they would issue a “safe conduct pass” to amnesty applicants with arrest warrants.
“The President approved our request that the NAC be given the authority to issue safe conduct pass because our applicants, most of them have warrants of arrest and they cannot go to our offices to file their applications,” Tanodra-Armamento said.
“So our game plan is to go to them, but sometimes we cannot access them because they are in the mountains, they are in hiding,” she added.
Presidential peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. said that 831 former rebels have have filed their applications for amnesty as of September.
Commissioner Jamar Kulayan said in September that communist rebels have until March 14, 2026, to submit their applications under the government’s amnesty program.
