Philippines Communist Insurgency Report – December 2020

PSA’s Forward-Looking Assessment: Over the short term, PSA anticipates that the high level of uncertainty will affect the intensity of communist insurgency activity. NPA incidents will continue to fluctuate in frequency month to month. However, NPA operational capacity does appear diminished in comparison to 2017 and 2018, largely as a result of government operations. The NPA’s capability in 2020 appears to be largely comparable to the diminished capability they displayed in 2019.

Over the next few years, it is likely that isolated assassination attempts targeting military and police forces, as well as certain politicians, will take place in urban areas. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) announced on December 31 that the New People’s Army (NPA) will be reviving its Special Partisan Units (SPARU) or Sparrow units, or assassination squads, in urban areas.

 The SPARU have not been active since the 1980s / early 1990s, where the units assassinated several members from the military and police forces, government employees, and informants in urban areas/cities. PSA notes that although it is unlikely for the NPA to conduct large-scale attacks in urban areas since there is a relatively overwhelming police and military force in the urban areas, if the Communist group succeeds in conducting violent attacks in the urban areas, the targets will most likely be police officers and politicians. A high risk of unintended casualties is expected in armed NPA encounters with the rebel group in urban areas, although these incidents are likely to remain isolated. While any impacts to the general public are likely to be limited, the development will require organizations to monitor for the potential communist violence in urban areas.

Over the long term, the situation is also characterized by uncertainty depending on several factors – including the success of the government’s humanitarian relief and economic development policies. The CPP/NPA retains a level of popular support, particularly in rural areas, as well as the capacity to recruit and fund raise through so called “legal fronts.” These two factors, support amongst the rural poor and the relatively extensive nature of the “legal fronts” help provide the NPA with resilience even as the security forces degrade their armed capabilities.

The communist insurgency is still characterized by the following tactics, techniques, and characteristics:

Targeting Security Forces

• Assassinations
• Harassment (limited engagements with small arms fire)
• Small arms and IED ambushes (the NPA has displayed a continued capability in a limited number of instances to conduct complex small arms and IED ambushes. Our sense is that the security forces disrupt far more of these attempted attacks than the NPA successfully executes).

Targeting Corporations with Distributed Operations in Rural Areas:

• Extortion
• Arson
• Raids that involve the seizure of firearms and other supplies

Other Violence Affecting Civilians:

• Targeted assassinations of former rebels, suspected informants, local government leaders, and tribal leaders
• Unintentional civilian casualties resulting from NPA ambushes against the security forces and other targets

The majority of violent incidents will still be armed encounters resulting from government operations targeting Communist insurgents. The NPA historically has an infrequent capability to conduct large-scale and coordinated attacks against multiple targets. Nationwide, no successful operations of that level of sophistication have occurred in 2019 or 2020. The high point of NPA capability from 2019 until now was the successful ambush of government forces on November 11, 2019 in Borongan City, Eastern Samar. However, this capability is still less than what the NPA demonstrated in 2017 or 2018.