MANILA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) ordered its guerrillas on Saturday to "heighten" its armed resistance against the government forces, stepping the need to "frustrate" the all-out war launched by the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.
The rebels ended their unilateral ceasefire midnight Friday, 10 days after announcing their plan to scrap the truce following Duterte's failure to free some 400 political prisoners.
The rebels' move prompted Duterte to cancel the ongoing peace talks and ordered a military offensive.
"Starting today, the unilateral declaration of interim ceasefire is now completely terminated. All New Party's Army commands and territorial units, as well as people's militia and self defense units, can now take the full initiative to defend the people and advance their interests, especially in the face of the declaration of all-out war of the Duterte regime," said the statement sent to the media, issued by the spokesman of the CPP's armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA).
Since Feb. 1, the rebels said they eagerly awaited the government's positive response to free the detainees but to no avail.
"Contrary to the hopes of the people, however, Duterte displayed intransigence and arbitrarily cancelled all peace negotiations, playing to the Armed Forces of the Philippines line of an all-out war against the CPP and NPA," said the statement.
As a result, the statement said, the NPA guerrillas carried out almost 30 military actions against government forces since Feb. 1 "in its active defense posture," said the statement.
"NPA operations were launched exclusively against paramilitary groups and uniformed personnel conducting combat, intelligence and psywar (psychological warfare) operations within the territories of the revolutionary government. A case in point is the Feb. 1 encounter between the NPA and troops (who occupied two villages) in Malaybalay City," the statement said.
The statement added that the NPA remains open to peace talks while fighting rages in the countryside. At the same time,
The rebels have been trying to overthrow the government since 1969. The conflict peaked in the 1980s, under the government of Ferdinand Marcos. However, military operation coupled with an internal split crippled the underground organization. The number of guerrillas dwindled from 26,000 in the mid-1980s to less than 4,000 this year, according to the military.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said last week that the rebel forces remain a threat to national security. He added that an "all-out war" is necessary to deal a fatal blow to the rebels who refused peace with the Duterte administration.
