In the first 56 days of the year alone, the communist movement has tortured and executed 32 card-carrying members to weed out government "deep penetration agents" or DPAs, according to Army spokesman Lt. Col. Jose Mabanta.
Citing information obtained from surrendered communist rebels, Mabanta said the 32 recent killings brought to 232 the total of card-carrying communists killed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) since it launched the ongoing purge, called "Oplan Missing Link 2," five years ago.
Mabanta admitted that 15 of those killed were really government spies but the others were not.
He said most of the killings involved members of the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), but does not include possible executions within other organizations under the National Democratic Front (NDF) umbrella.
The military estimates the current strength of the NPA at 11,673 with 7,015 firearms.
"The purge is still continuing. These (figures) are only for actual party members and do not include supporters, sympathizers and other members of the communist movement," Mabanta said.
"If the (extremist) Abu Sayyaf can kill outside their organization, the CPP-NPA do it within their group. That alone shows how inhuman, how brutal, how animalistic their tendencies are," Mabanta said.
"They are worse than the Abu Sayyaf because not only do they take hostages and kill other people, they also kill their comrades within their own organization," he added.
No less than CPP founder and NDF chairman Jose Ma. Sison, during the CPP founding anniversary last December, confirmed that "rectifications" within the CPP-NPA were warranted because of "gross errors" in the minds of its members.
"Rectification" is the term used for the bloody purges committed by communist leaders Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Sison had said the rectification was due to debates over the strategy the communist movement should pursue. He said the "correct principles" of the so-called people’s protracted war should be espoused by the movement.
Aside from doctrinal issues, Mabanta said communist surrenderees revealed that the CPP-NPA is also wracked by infighting due to "sexual opportunism" and malversation of rebel funds.
The surrenderees also disclosed the CPP-NPA has stepped up its extortion activities in the countryside and has even resorted to criminal activities, including kidnapping.
Last Friday, 11 workers of an electric cooperative were abducted in Catanduanes and were released only after the cooperative paid P50,000 in ransom.
"We dare say they are no different from the Abu Sayyaf," Mabanta said.
Mabanta said the ongoing purge appears to be the second phase of an operation, conducted from 1998 to 2000, that resulted in the death of 184 CPP-NPA members nationwide.
But aside from Oplan Missing Link 1 and 2, there was also a purge, called "Kampanya Ahos," from 1985 to 1986 which resulted in the execution of 600 rebels in Mindanao.
Military intelligence officials said the largest purge, called "Oplan Zombie," occurred in the 1980s when 2,214 armed regulars and 1,793 sympathizers were executed.
Another 1,000 rebels were supposedly executed under "Project Olympia" which was conducted in Luzon from 1989 to 1991.
Last year, the authorities exhumed the skeletal remains of 439 people, believed to be communist rebels, in different sites in Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon and Davao del Sur.
"We have to open our eyes because, in the long run, they will be the more protracted enemy that we will be confronting," Mabanta said.
Asked how the disclosure would affect the ongoing peace talks between the government and the NDF, Mabanta said: "There are statistics that we just have to spill out even if we want the talks to continue. The people should know the truth."