Military to continue calling NPAs communist terrorists

April 5, 2017

The military will continue to call New People’s Army (NPA) as communist terrorist group if they continue their activities, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Wednesday. “That is how we called them even before, during 1970’s, 1980’s, 1994, they are communist terrorist. In fact, even other countries have tapped them as communist terrorist, so while they are doing terroristic acts like burning, kidnapping, extortion, which are actually the work of terrorist,” Lorenzana said. “If they stop that (terrorist act), then we will change that maybe we will just call them as insurgents or NPA but by doing all those things we will not stop calling them terrorists,” he added. In their previous statements, the military and defense department officials called the NPAs as communist terrorist despite ongoing peace negotiation between the National Democratic Front and Philippine government. (Robina Asido/DMS)