How China supported to overthrow Philippine Government.

Philippines: Rebels smuggling high-powered weapons in ships transporting ore

The communist insurgent New Peoples Army (NPA) have received large quantities of AK-47 type assault rifles

By Gilbert P. Felongco, Correspondent / Gulf News
Published: 13:34 July 19, 2013

Manila: Ships used in transporting mineral ore are being used to smuggle into the country weapons used by communist rebels a report said.

According to a report published by the Philippines-based Security Matters Magazine, the communist insurgent New Peoples Army (NPA) have received large quantities of AK-47 type assault rifles from abroad.
“Reports indicate that NPA fighters in Northern and Southern Mindanao are now armed with AK-47 rifles,” the publication said in its latest issue.

Originally manufactured in Russia and former Soviet bloc countries, variants of the weapons were produced in Asia by China, Vietnam and Cambodia. In comparison, Philippine armed forces standard issue long firearms are largely US made or manufactured locally under licence from foreign principals.

According to the Security Matters report, the AK-47s, or its copies, have clandestinely been offloaded by foreign ships loading ore from the mines in southern Philippines’ Surigao del Norte and Surigao del Sur. Some of the firearms have ended up in the hands of rebels in Davao Region and Bukidnon province.
For years, the NPA had made do with sourcing its firearms locally.

Concerns about the large numbers of smuggled AK-47s entering the country resulted from military reports said a number of these type of weapons have been seized from rebels following recent encounters in Mindanao.

Previously, the rebels have been able to obtain weapons by raiding government armouries or through the local weapons black market.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Rainier Cruz III said that an investigation is being carried out as to how these weapons ended up in the hands of the NPAs.

Some of the AK-47s are reportedly “new” and have defaced serial numbers leaving authorities with very little clues as to its country of origin.

Although there are a number of AK-47s in the country, particularly in Mindanao, most of them are in the hands of combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Most of these rebel weapons, which date back to the 1970s during the Moro conflict, are already unserviceable.

According to the military, the communist rebels are limiting the use of the AK-47 due to lack of ammunition. Unlike its American or Western-manufactured counterparts, the AK-47 round is difficult to come by in the Philippines.

Some of the more modern versions of the AK-47s have also ended up in the hands of certain government officials. The bodyguard of Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs Ronald Llamas was caught possessing one following a traffic incident in 2011.

Llamas, who was out of the country when the incident took place in October 7, 2011, reasoned that the weapon was licenced and that he needed it for protection.

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Delegates from China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) stand in line as they arrive at the Great Hall of the People to attend a session of National People's Congress in Beijing, March 4, 2016.

TAIPEI - A beleaguered group of Mao Zedong-inspired rebels in the Philippines is tapping funds from overseas and recruits from among ideological sympathizers at home to help battle the government for the next 50 years as former benefactor communist China backs away.

The Communist Party of the Philippines-National People’s Army (CPC-NPA) is recruiting ideologically aligned members at Philippine universities and in poor parts of the archipelago, analysts believe.

The European Union has been accused of sending money through nonprofits to the National People’s Army. Some Catholic priests are helping, too, scholars say. This support gives the group more resources to resist the government, which stepped up its fight in 2017.

China once helped arm the rebels but had stopped by 2011.
“This is not just the weapons from China, there’s not really much relevance at this stage,” said Enrico Cau, Southeast Asia-specialized associate researcher at the Taiwan Strategy Research Association.

“What’s relevant is that they find it much easier to recruit people because they have a platform that allows them to support a lot of causes, LGBT and all these things,” he said. “It is spread all over the country. Whenever there is poverty, there is a rural environment, they go there and recruit.”
Survival sources

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s government has stepped up its fight against the National People’s Army – the armed side of the rebel organization – since he declared an end to negotiations in 2017. His spokesman said the rebels used violence during earlier talks, while the rebel group’s founder criticized Duterte’s use of martial law in the restive Philippine southland.

Fighting such as ambushes on soldiers has killed a total of some 30,000 people.
Before the negotiations began, the National People’s Army, founded in 1968, had dwindled to about 4,000 combatants, down from a peak of some 17,000, according to domestic media reports. The affiliated communist party claims about 70,000 members.
Now the group is getting somewhere in its newest push for money and people.
The insurgency traditionally draws support in rural areas where their ideology appeals to poor people facing a perceived “social inequality” such as a lack of land reform, said Carl Baker, director of programs with the think tank Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu. About one-fifth of Filipinos live in poverty.

Today the group continues to get support, such as safe operations bases, from poor populations. It’s also recruiting ideologues at Philippine universities, Cau said. In 2005 the group widened left-liberal appeal by recognizing same-sex relationships.
Drawing on the country’s Catholic majority, the rebels have also won “field support” as well as help in “armed struggle” over the decades from priests and nuns, author Jeffrey Riedinger says in his 1995 book Agrarian Reform in the Philippines.

Some group funding, officials believe, comes from overseas. Last month a government delegation asked the EU and Belgium to stop financing groups that it said were funding National People’s Army violence. The EU said March 30 following an audit that it had found no linkage.

The Philippine government and the rebels both say they’re ready to fight 50 more years. But the government is also trying to calm the communist front through peace talks at local levels, said Herman Kraft, political science professor at the University of the Philippines.
China grows cold

The rebels say former Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong inspired their movement. In the 1970s, China had met rebel requests for arms including about 1,200 M-14 rifles, bazookas, mortars and communication equipment, Philippine news website ABS-CBN reports.

But the Chinese government cut aid to the rebel group in 1970s under a deal with the government of Philippine ex-president Ferdinand Marcos. China’s Communist Party severed its own ties in 2011.

“I don’t think they’re actually receiving any assistance from China right now,” Kraft said. “China is still betting on the idea of maintaining good relations with the Philippines. Unless relations really take a nosedive, then I don’t think that China would actually risk (those ties) if they were to actually provide assistance to the CPC-NPA.”
In late 2016, Duterte reached out to China after four years of tension over maritime sovereignty.

China reached back with aid including 3,000 Chinese-made assault and sniper rifles that could be used in battles against rebel groups.“By selling those small arms to the Philippine military, it’s not directed at the NPA but of course the Philippine military could use those Chinese arms in fighting the NPA” among other rebel groups, said Eduardo Araral, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s public policy school.

My dad mentioned this to me but I never understood the details. So yeah thank you for this source. I actually love your journalism.

My dad as a Lawyer then had clients from both sides of the conflict, from the Military and the New People's Army. Some NPA are ideologically driven and is sick of corruption in the Philippine government, while the army is of course trying to stop rebellion and killing.

Interesting