Doomed from the start: Why the communist insurgency is an unwinnable war

By Jose "Pete" T. Arce Jr. / The Manila Times

THE armed Philippine communist insurgency bred martyrs to its cause, posers after ego and gain and enormous collateral damage in its wake. For more than half a century, it raged from the cities to the countryside. But it is not going anywhere. Its unraveling began long before it even seized power. Its appeal had since lost its luster, although it was still able to lure uninitiated youths whose lives had been ruined. Erroneous analysis, practical constraints and bad karma sealed the fate of this war right from the get-go. It is not bound to prosper.

The revolution had its moments especially during the martial law period and the immediate years of the restoration of democracy. At that time, the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army (CPP-NPA) reached its zenith in terms of strength and influence and came closest to seizing power or at least taking part in a coalition government.

But more than the self-inflicted purges which killed thousands of innocent and capable comrades and demoralized the movement, several factors already spelled the inevitability of the insurgency's defeat. For one, since its founding, the CPP-NPA has been led and dominated by an ideologue who never had a field experience - Jose Maria Sison.

Sison's analysis of the country's conditions then, which was largely copied from that of Indonesia, failed to keep up with the times and became a dogma that CPP-NPA cadres will parrot and adhere to without questioning. Desiring to be for the Philippines what Mao Zedong was for China, he had little tolerance for dissent and had rising potential challengers summarily purged. A revolution led from the outside - thousand of miles away in the comfort of The Netherlands - detached from harsh and poor conditions on the ground will never win.