By IPS Correspondents
MANILA, Aug 23 2002 (IPS)

It survived the collapse of communism in the late eighties, the worst split within its ranks in 1992, and the counter-insurgency operations of five Philippine governments, including that of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, since the sixties.

The question being asked these days is: Will the 33-year-old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), be able to live through its latest crisis — that of being classified a terrorist group by the United States?

U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell recently announced the inclusion of the CPP-NPA in the U.S. list of “foreign terrorist organisations” after an “exhaustive review of the group’s violent activities”.

Since then, the United States has been urging the Dutch government to freeze bank accounts of the CPP-NPA in the Netherlands, where its Marxist founder, Jose Maria Sison, has been in exile as a political refugee since the 1980s.

Arroyo and her advisers welcome the U.S. action and say pushing the group behind Asia’s longest-running insurgency against the wall could force its leaders to sue for peace.

Talks between communist leaders and government negotiators have been stalled after the killing of two legislators by communist hit squads last year. Sison has also ruled out any peace talks while Arroyo is in power.

It is the Muslim-based insurgencies that have actually had a higher profile in recent years, as communist guerrilla activity had eased from the peak in the eighties. But it still is not going to be that easy to wipe out the CPP-NPA — despite Manila’s use of the U.S. ‘war against terrorism’ — politicians and analysts here say.

Many are questioning the legality and applicability of the terrorist label on the leftist rebels. “The CPP-NPA are rebels, not terrorists,” says Senator Rodolfo Biazon, a former armed forces chief who once fought communist rebels in the battlefields.

The Philippines has no law defining terrorism as a crime, though an anti-terrorism bill is pending in Congress authored by Imee Marcos, daughter of the former dictator Marcos.

Biazon says that while freezing rebel funds abroad could “put a squeeze on the leadership in Utrecht (where Sison is based),” quelling the insurgency militarily is another matter. “Declaring the CPP-NPA terrorist is one thing, attacking it like one is another,” he says.

He explains that the United States cannot simply replicate its recently concluded six-month training exercise held in Basilan, outhern Philippines, to help eliminate the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group that Washington has linked to al-Qaeda.

“You can’t duplicate what happened in Basilan (in the rest of the country). The magnitude could result in unforeseen circumstances,” Biazon, explains, referring to the nationwide presence of the CPP-NPA. “Besides, the United States already had a hard time justifying its presence in the south, how much more running after communists?”

Despite the high-profile military action against the Abu Sayyaf, the National Security Council and military consider the CPP-NPA the “number one threat to national security”.

That is because after declaring the Marxist insurgency dead in the 1990s – when guerrilla activity had weakened considerably — military leaders have grudgingly acknowledged that it has bounced back with a vengeance.

From a low of 2,000 armed guerrillas in the mid-1990s, it has grown to 12,000, says the National Security Council. It was present in 445 ‘barangay’ or villages in 1995, but this grew to 1,671 ‘barangay’ in 2000.

Its steady growth has been fueled, analysts say, by poverty and landlessness in the rural areas as well as the “rectification” campaign initiated by party leaders, which sought to correct past abuses such as forced revolutionary taxes on peasants.

“They (CPP-NPA) believe they have recovered, that they are stronger politically and militarily,” says Ronald Llamas of the party list Akbayan. Llamas sees both “local and U.S. dynamics” at play in the inclusion of the CPP-NPA in the terrorism list.

“The United States needs two kinds of enemies to sustain its arms build-up – one, to achieve quick and small victories like in Afghanistan or with the Abu Sayyaf and the other, on a grander scale that includes Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. The CPP falls under this category,” he says.

Helping the government fight the communist insurgency also provides the United States enough excuse to remain in the Philippines, Llamas adds. “They need the Philippines as a forward base, as a second front in the war against terrorism.”

The United States has been pushing for a Mutual Logistics Support Agreement with the Philippines, which would allow the construction of supply depots and other more permanent structures.

Arroyo needs to demolish the underground CPP-NPA and militant groups like Bayan Muna (Nation First), which the military tags as a communist front, because she sees this group as hurting her chances for the presidential elections in 2004, says Llamas.

Bayan Muna congressman Satur Ocampo, a former communist rebel leader, blames “militarists” in Arroyo’s Cabinet for her hardening stance against not just the communists but the organised but above-ground Left, in general.

“There’s a debate within her Cabinet. She is walking a thin line,” says Ocampo. “If the militarists win, it might be a very bloody war against the NPA.”

Llamas says Arroyo sees political gain in going after the communists, citing the growing popularity of some anti-communist groups. “She sees anti-communists and pro-American groups as a social base for 2004 (presidential polls),” he says.

Ocampo concurs. “Arroyo is greatly influenced by the mood of the moment. She is exploiting popularity over correctness, which is dangerous.”

Llamas, whose group Arroyo first labeled as “good communists” and later “only Leftist”, says these are dangerous times not just for the CPP-NPA but for progressive groups that are seeing the political space provided by the Philippines’ democracy since 1986, shrink.

Adds Llamas: “She is trying to isolate them (CPP-NPA) but she’s also warning others that if they become a nuisance, they can be the next.”

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