The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on Thursday strongly defended the National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD), rejecting criticism from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) and warning that the group’s rhetoric only serves to protect a failed insurgency.
“The Filipino people will always choose progress over propaganda,” declared NTF-ELCAC Executive Director Usec. Ernesto C. Torres Jr., taking direct aim at what he called NUPL’s “tired flag of repression” and its campaign to paint the NAP-UPD as a rehashed and ineffective strategy.
“The policy they call a dead horse is already delivering concrete, life-saving gains,” Torres emphasized, citing completed roads, clinics, classrooms, and livelihood support in barangays once held hostage by the CPP-NPA-NDF.
Torres blasted NUPL for hypocrisy and “cherry-picking” facts to fit a pre-determined script. “When the United Nations cited verified reports of NPA attacks and child recruitment, NUPL dismissed them as military propaganda. Yet they quote selectively from UN Special Rapporteurs to call for our abolition. That’s not advocacy—it’s sleight of hand.”
He also pointed to NUPL’s opposition to government efforts to track foreign funding for NGOs. “As counsel to groups under investigation for laundering money to benefit the armed communist insurgency, NUPL stands to gain when authorities look the other way,” Torres said. “No wonder Secretary Eduardo Año’s call to ‘Turn off the Red Taps’ hit a nerve. Accountability in foreign aid is not repression—it is common sense. Lalo na kung marami ang ebidensiya na ang perang pampaaral ay napupunta sa pagpapasabog.”
According to Torres, the gains of the NAP-UPD are evident in communities once dominated by fear. “With highways finally reaching sitios that were once a day’s trek away, and social services flowing without the threat of NPA ambushes, communities are healing and economies are growing.”
He countered claims that the Plan stifles peace talks: “Contrary to the disinformation, NAP-UPD empowers Localized Peace Engagements. Governors, mayors, and sectoral leaders are talking directly to remaining armed units while the national government provides reintegration support. Peace is happening in the sitios and barangays where conflict used to reign.”
Torres also dismissed accusations that NAP-UPD fails to address structural issues. “The Plan invests in land titling, farm-to-market roads, scholarships, and dispute mediation. It fights poverty with real resources—not with a rifle-brandishing fantasy of people’s war.”
Calling NUPL’s arguments “decades-old clichés,” Torres urged the group to engage directly with barangay leaders implementing the very reforms they mock. “Until then, the NAP-UPD will stay the course—together with communities that have had enough of slogans and sedition, and choose progress over propaganda,” he concluded.
