The New People’s Army (NPA) has its genesis in the Hukbalahap rebellion, fought by tenant farmers after World War II. By the late 1960s, the social conditions which had led the Huks to rebel remained unresolved and led to the formation of the New People’s Army by José María Sison and Bernabe Buscayno. The NPA was not the only insurgency fighting the Filipino Goverment – the Bangasamoro people of Mindanao were in the early years of the Moro Independence struggle, which peaked during the mid 70s, before a peace agreement was brokered by Muammar Ghaddafi in 1976.

While the Moro conflict simmered, discontent grew among left leaning politicians and citizens. Peaking in the early 1970s with the “First Quarter Storm”, social unrest spread and President Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972. The Marcos administration contended that leftist activists had been infiltrated by communists and blamed a series of terrorist attacks on communists, radicalized students, and the fledgling NPA. Ironically, the declaration of Martial Law, the repression of opposition parties, and the rumors that Marcos was behind the violence, drove many students, workers, and farmers into the open arms of the NPA.

The NPA continued to fight from mountain strongholds and remote villages throughout the 70s, and by the end of Martial Law the NPA had begun operating in over 60 fronts across the Philippines. However, suspicion of infiltration and political maneuvering within the NPA’s ranks led to a loss of momentum. Between 1985 and 1986, the “Garlic Campaign” led to the purge of many NPA Cadres, and the boycott of the 1986 snap election sealed the defeat of the NPA with the election of Corazon Aquino.

The NPA faction in People Power has been the hardest to get right. Originally, the faction was a hybrid of the New People’s Army and Moro separatists. While the Moro struggle did continue after the 1976 Tripoli Agreement, it was not a major part of the violent struggle against Marcos, so we had to remove the Moro faction from the game (perhaps a game set in 1972-1976  Mindanao would be a worthy addition to the COIN series in the future). We used this opportunity to expand on the NPA’s story, and show the different factors that led to the rise of the NPA.

In many respects, the NPA are a typical COIN insurgent faction: they depend on establishing strongholds in order to Rally their Guerillas and Bases away from the Government, and are more vulnerable in Cities than in the Countryside. They depend on Terror to generate Resistance to the Government (the major component of their victory condition). Like other insurgent factions, they have a weak attack which is best used along with the Ambush Special Activity to limit the damage of a Government counterattack. Unlike some insurgent factions which rarely attack, the NPA can attack on the move and can use Ambush to chip away at the Government and force them to use valuable Operations replenishing their forces.

But by removing the Moro faction, we have been able to show the struggle of the political arm of the NPA (the Communist Party of the Philippines), which was quite active during the 80s. With the end of Martial Law, the CPP was able to operate in cities and found favor in student and worker organizations. Strikes represent these worker movements and their ability to sway the populace towards socialist ideas and against the Marcos regime. The NPA can only Strike in a City, and only in Cities without Terror. Strikes have one key advantage over Terror: a Terror marker makes a space vulnerable to the Reformer’s Canvass Special Activity which sets that space to Opposition, undoing whatever gains the NPA have there. A Strike marker can be flipped to a Protest marker, but an additional action is required to shift the space once the marker is flipped, making Resistance in a Strike space a bit safer.

The NPA must balance the use of political means such as Strikes against their bread-and-butter strategy of Terror. Strikes cannot be used in Cities with Terror markers, so the NPA must choose carefully when to Terror. This gives the NPA a distinct flavor among COIN insurgent factions; while many adopt the traditional tactics of ringing the cities and agitating in the countryside, the NPA is well suited to operate in Cities, especially if the Government is distracted with Reformer Protests.

For more on the NPA, I recommend Inside the Philippine Revolution by William Chapman.

Next time we will talk about the tactics that the Government uses to fight violent and nonviolent rebellion.

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Previous Articles:

Laban! Chapter 1: Corruption and Patronage in People Power

Laban! Chapter 2: Support, Opposition, and Resistance in People Power

Laban! Chapter 3: Violence and Nonviolence in People Power

Laban! Chapter 4: The Reformers in People Power