New People's Army- the History section is sorely lacking, so this will mainly be fleshing out the intricate history that gave rise to this party army turned terrorist group

1.             History

The New People's Army originated due to a division within the Philippine Communist Party (PKP) in the latter half of the 1960's. The split revolved around ideological and generational differences with the younger, more educated, and less orthodox members at odds with the entrenched, established, and old-school founders.^[1] These dissenters were drawn to the revolutions that were happening in Cuba and China. Attempts at reconciliation between the two factions within the communist government failed, and the tensions were exacerbated by the foreign conflict between the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Communist Party.^[2] Thus, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was established. The international communist conflict between China and Russia continued to play a part in the party break up with China siding with the Communist Party of the Philippines. This in turn made the Philippine Communist Party gravitate towards the Soviet Communist Party. The CPP's relationship with China continued for around seven years with ideas, rhetoric, visits, and aid flowing back and forth.^[3]

In the beginning of the CPP and NPA, they were supported heavily by the Chinese government, but their relations worsened when the Philippines and China established formal diplomatic relations.^[4] The Chinese could no longer supply the rebels without extreme diplomatic backlash. After the communist regime in China withdrew its support, the NPA were hard pressed to obtain materials, goods, arms, and funds. To obtain weapons, the NPA initiated armed conflicts in order to obtain weapons and ammunition from government forces.^[5] They became entirely self-sustained through a variety of methods, the main being the levying of "revolutionary taxes" on regions throughout the Philippines.^[6] This involved "requesting" populations and industries support the revolution with gifts of goods and funds. Conflict between the NPA and the populace became common, and the population sometimes turned to cultist fanatics to guard against the NPA seizing their goods.^[7]

Immediately after splitting from PKP, the CPP began to marshal its own forces. Leaders of the CPP contacted Bernabe Buscayno, popularly known as Commander Dante, and his band of Huk guerrilla fighters.^[8] Commander Dante became enamored with the ideology and goals of the CPP, so he accepted the party's take over and use of his unit for their political purposes. The combining of the Huk guerrillas and the CPP led to the rise of the New People's Army on March 29, 1969. This organization began conducting missions and operations on the Island of Luzon, and, in the early 1970's, the NPA's ranks burgeoned from a few hundred to thousands of militants.^[9] With their increased numbers, the NPA began engaging government forces more and more, but the government forces inflicted heavy losses on the NPA. After forcing the NPA back, government leaders in Manilla decided to turn their attention to the Moro rebellion which allowed the NPA to recover from its near annihilation.

After this, the leaders of the CPP sought to change their strategy. Up until that point, they had tried to use Mao's tactic of consolidating their control in a region that was easily defended- the mountains in the center of Luzon.^[10] Their new strategy split the NPA and sent different contingents to other islands. This way they organization became a many headed beast that could continue to harass the government over a wide area even while sustaining losses in one area.^[11] Following this new paradigm, confrontations with the government increased in the late 1970's.

The NPA was heavily involved in the rebellion against the dictatorship led by Ferdinand Marcos from 1972-1986.^[12] Seen as one of the main opponents to the Marcos regime, they were held in high regards by the middle and lower class Filipinos.^[13] When the Marcos regime collapsed in 1986, the United States began to play a more central role in containing the radical left, including the NPA and the National Democratic Front (NDF).^[14] Since Corazon Aquino was seen as a democratic champion supported by both the United States and the elite, the United States felt it to be extremely strategic to ensure her victory over not only Marcos and his dictatorship but also over the Communist insurgency that they assumed would try to swoop in and seize power.^[15] As Aquino was the choice of the elite, the NPA viewed her as a merely a different kind of repressive power in the Philippines.

Reports from the United States intelligence services highlight that the NPA and CPP were two of the most concerning security risks to the stability of the Philippines political systems with some reports going even so far to say that the NPA might be able to mount an offensive capable of taking over power by the early 1990's. In an effort to capitalize on the changing political clime, the CPP and NPA began a strategy of extraordinary expansion and recruitment in the last months of the rule of Marcos. The leaders of the CPP and NPA predicted they would need at least 60,000 troops to mount a "strategic offensive", and this number would be a considerable threat to the government forces if guerrilla tactics were utilized.

• New Sources:
  • 1. Holden, William. 2013. The Never-Ending War in the Wounded Land: The New People’s Army on Samar. Journal of Geography and Geology, 5 (4): 29-49. Obtained from http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/jgg/article/view/29563
  • 2. Kowalewski, David. 1991. Cultism, insurgency, and vigilantism in the Philippines. Sociological Analysis, 52(3), 241-253. Obtained from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3711360.pdf
  • 3. Mediansky, F.A. 1986. The New People's Army: A Nation-wide Insurgency in the Philippines. Contemporary Southeast Asia, 8 (1): 1-17. Obtained from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/25797879.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Ae133e69fc8935be5bcaaaf226770f141
  • 4. "Rectification Process in the Philippine Communist Movement" in Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia, edited by Lim Joo-Jock and Vani S. (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1984), pp. 72-80.
• Road Map 3 New Sources:
  • 5. Aquino, Belinda. 1984. Political Violence in the Philippines: Aftermath of Aquino Assassination. Southeast Asians Affair, pp: 266-276. Obtained from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27908506.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Af8e593c6de3dbb4b0185b316fa2c36ff
  • 6. Holden, W. N. (2011). Neoliberalism and State Terrorism in the Philippines: the Fingerprints of Phoenix. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 4(3), 331-350. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2011.623401
  • 7. Bello, Walden and John Gershman. 1990. Democratization and Stabilization in the Philippines. Critical Sociology, 17(1): 35-56. Obtained from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/089692059001700102

...............................................................Roadmap IV: Peer Review, by SirKnightHawk

The sections below are those criteria for reviewing “Roadmap III”. The reviewed Roadmap III is written by a student in Wikipedia called “GTDExpert”. The peer review includes spelling, grammar, readability, content, and practicability. The title of the Wikipedia page that author edited was “New People’s Armey”.

Spelling:

It seems that there are no spelling mistakes; The author didn’t make any spelling mistakes.

Grammar:

There were few grammatical mistakes that could be fixed in order to help make the paper easier to understand. There were two grammatical mistakes. In the fourth paragraph of the “History” section, the author wrote, “…. headed beast that could…”. The word “beast” should be “beasts” because the sentence is talking about the plural.

Readability:

The cohesion and coherence between the paragraphs are great. Another thing that is good, is defining the abbreviations when they are first mentioned before using them in other paragraphs.

Content:

The content added to the “History” section is great. It is also detailed. However, I think that the author could have added more content to the other sections of the original article.

Practicability:

First, a phrase that could be changed with a word. In the third paragraph of the “History” Section, the author wrote, “….CPP made contact with Bernabe…”. The phrase “made contact with” could be changed to “contacted”. This will make the sentence easier to read. The second point is in the fifth paragraph of the same sections, the author wrote: “….by the middle and lower class Philippians….”. I think that this could be more clear if the sentence was like this “middle-class and lower-class”.

Overall, I think the newly added information is good with great writing, and the research behind is remarkable.

This is a user sandbox of GTDExpert. You can use it for testing or practicing edits. This is not the place where you work on your assigned article for a dashboard.wikiedu.org course. Visit your Dashboard course page and follow the links for your assigned article in the My Articles section. Get Help