TODAY marks the 54th anniversary of the signing of Presidential Proclamation No. 1081 by the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., placing the entire Philippines under Martial Law.
Fifty-four years later, his son and namesake, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is the country’s president. Fortunately for us, he has not declared Martial Law, although some say it sometimes feels as though we are already living under a de facto version of it.
Of course, that is another story, one we can discuss in another column. For now, let us focus on one of the reasons cited for the declaration of Martial Law — a problem that would take the government five decades to seriously address at its roots.
Among the reasons cited by President Marcos Sr. for declaring Martial Law, aside from his own political ambitions, was the threat of a growing communist insurgency led by the late Jose Maria “Joma” Sison and his Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), together with its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).
Today, we know the movement through what has become the familiar triumvirate of the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’s Army and National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).
One of the CPP-NPA-NDF’s long-standing arguments against the government has been that, for decades, communities in the hinterlands were neglected while politicians in the cities grew richer and people in the countryside became poorer.
For decades, the government confronted a CPP-NPA-NDF insurgency that drew support from some of these neglected communities. That began to change when then-President Rodrigo Duterte issued Executive Order No. 70, creating the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and adopting a “whole-of-nation” approach to addressing the communist insurgency.
And it worked.
Through this “whole-of-nation” approach, the government says all 89 guerrilla fronts have been neutralized and dismantled — save, perhaps, for one supposedly entrenched in the House of Representatives, i.e., the Makabayan bloc and friends, which has been making plenty of noise calling for the defunding of NTF-ELCAC and its vital poverty-reduction engine.
The Barangay Development Program (BDP), the flagship peace and development initiative of NTF-ELCAC, has become a vital component of the government’s poverty-reduction efforts — and, rather than being weakened, it should be strengthened and expanded to reach more communities.
According to National Anti-Poverty Commission Lead Convenor Secretary Lope Santos, “the BDP should be expanded — not reduced. In my view, we should add more areas to the BDP, not cut it. We must connect more barangays to main roads, telecommunications, and electricity. We must bring development to lowland, upland, and coastal communities alike.”
Based on Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data cited in the report, poverty incidence has steadily declined in former conflict-affected areas. An analysis overlaying BDP coverage with the PSA’s Small Area Poverty Estimates reportedly showed that poverty incidence has also notably declined even in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDAs).
The logic is straightforward: armed conflict can block or disrupt government services, and communities deprived of those services remain trapped in poverty. Where peace is restored, farm-to-market roads, health facilities, schools and livelihood programs can finally reach communities. As basic needs are addressed and economic opportunities emerge, poverty has a better chance of receding.
The BDP serves as a convergence framework, bringing together local government development plans, national government programs and community participation. With an allocation of ₱44 billion over five years, it coordinates infrastructure, social services and livelihood support in cleared barangays — many of them GIDAs populated by Indigenous Peoples, farmers and fisherfolk, sectors that remain among the country’s poorest.
The Barangay Development Program, therefore, should be provided with more funding and expanded, as many communities across the country are still waiting for roads, water systems, schools, health facilities, electricity and livelihood opportunities.
Where isolation retreats, opportunity advances.
Where development takes root, insurgency loses ground.
And where the roads begin, the path toward lasting peace begins with them.
“Insurgency ends where the road begins.”
There you have it, folks.
Now you know why the usual suspects — pseudo-communists, the Makabayan bloc and friends — are so keen on defunding and abolishing NTF-ELCAC’s Barangay Development Program.
Because it gets them where it hurts the most./PN
