In a slap on the face of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who has publicly declared her aim to crush the insurgency by 2010, the Communist Party of the Philippines today said it is vying to reach the stage of “strategic stalemate” with government forces within the next five years.

The CPP marks its 41st anniversary on Saturday with ceremonies in guerilla fronts nationwide and would soon count the Arroyo government as the latest in a string of presidents who failed to either defeat it on the battlefield or to coopt on the negotiating table.

What makes Saturday’s celebrations historic is the declaration made by the CPP central committee that its New People’s Army can achieve “strategic stalemate” with Manila’s armed forces within the next five years.

In its traditional anniversary statement, the CPP leadership said it now aims to expand its scope of influence from 120 guerilla fronts to 180 “order to cover the rural congressional districts and gain the ability to deploy armed city partisan units in the urban congressional districts”.

Advanced copies of the statement was emailed to the media on Thursday.

Backed by the United States, Arroyo has made it a priority to crush the CPP-led insurgency, unleashing a brutal war that has victimized more civilians and targeted legal, aboveground and unarmed activists.

Human rights watchdogs including the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings have assailed Arroyo’s anti-Red plans for being behind the wanton violations of human rights.

Arroyo also tapped local dynasties, warlords and their private armies – like the Ampatuans of Maguindanao – in the counter-insurgency operations against the CPP-NPA and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao.

The CPP said that the party is strongest now compared to 1968 when it was founded by a few scores of activists and former fighters of the old communist party it replaced.

“After more than 40 years of successful people’s war, we consider it of highest importance today to declare our determination to strive within the next five years to make the great advance from the stage of the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate, fulfilling all the requirements and without skipping any necessary phase,” the CPP central committee said.

The CPP cited three factors that make it optimistic of reaching the state of strategic stalemate within the first half of the next decade: The global economic crisis rocking capitalist powers, the worsening and unresolved problems in the Philippines, and the growth of the party even amid campaigns of suppression by the government.

The party also called on the NPA to launch “out extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare” against government forces, citing the incapacity of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to cover all areas said to be controlled by communist rebels.

“As well exposed in the implementation of Oplan Bantay Laya [Operation Plan Protect Freedom, Arroyo’s counter-insurgency program] and previous national operational plans of the enemy, the number of enemy forces available for campaigns of suppression against the NPA in the countryside is limited relative to the population and the entire country. It cannot cover more than 10% of the terrain at every given time. Conversely, the NPA can move freely in more than 90% of Philippine territory,” said the CPP.

It added that “the number of enemy combat effectives can be further limited by the growing militancy of the urban mass movement and by the internecine fighting among the reactionaries in the form of coup and counter-coup threats against each other.”

Founded on December 26, 1968, the CPP was founded by Jose Maria Sison, a University of the Philippines professor who hails from a prominent landed family in the Ilocos region. The party subsequently led a vast underground movement against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. Scores of its leaders and members were arrested, detained, tortured and killed under the dictatorship.

Central to the CPP program of government are land reform and national industrialization which the party believes would lift the majority from poverty. 

The CPP has attempted to talk peace with Manila through its political arm, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. The talks have resulted in eleven (11) bilateral agreements, including a Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. But moves by governments of the Philippines, the European Union and the United States to tag Sison, the NPA and the CPP as terrorists have scuttled the talks.

An European court recently struck down an EU declaration tagging Sison a terrorist, giving hope to the resumption of peace negotiations between the Reds and Manila.