The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on Tuesday strongly criticized the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), accusing the group of exploiting the deaths of alleged rebel members for propaganda and recruitment purposes.
The task force issued the statement following the deaths of five individuals in Cauayan, Negros Occidental, including former student leader Vince Francis Dingding.
According to the NTF-ELCAC, the CPP’s statements surrounding the incident reflected what it described as a disturbing pattern of romanticizing death and portraying fallen members as revolutionary symbols instead of acknowledging the human cost of armed conflict.
The government anti-insurgency body said the five individuals should not be reduced to “poetic slogans” or ideological imagery, insisting that they were victims of what it called the long-running deception and radicalization efforts of the CPP-NPA-NDF.
“For decades, the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) has recruited students, workers, peasants, and activists by selling the illusion of heroism and revolution,” the task force said. “But many eventually end up as casualties in an armed struggle that has already cost countless Filipino lives.”
NTF-ELCAC claimed that recruits are often drawn into underground movements through narratives of sacrifice and nationalism, only to later become “expendable assets” in a violent insurgency.
The task force particularly criticized the CPP’s statement regarding the Cauayan incident, where the communist group reportedly described the deaths as “heavier than Mt. Kanlaon” and declared that “death is not a universal equalizer.”
For NTF-ELCAC, such language demonstrated what it called the movement’s “moral bankruptcy” and detachment from the grief experienced by families who lose loved ones to armed conflict.
“There is nothing noble in leading young people into armed struggle and then celebrating their deaths afterward,” the task force said.
The agency also argued that behind every so-called revolutionary martyr is a grieving family left to deal with the loss of a son or daughter.
NTF-ELCAC maintained that the public is becoming more aware of what it described as the “false promises” of armed rebellion and insisted that peace and development, not violence, remain the path forward for communities affected by insurgency.
The CPP has yet to issue a response to the latest statement from the task force.