A new generation of Philippine communist rebels to take on Duterte

A kerosene lamp flickers beside a Macbook in a jungle camp as ageing Philippine communist leader Jaime Padilla plots the next step in one of Asia’s oldest insurgencies with a new generation of fighters.

Fuelled by one of the world’s starkest rich-poor divides, a Maoist rebellion that began months before the first human landed on the moon plods on even though the country now boasts one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

“There’s a big pool of young people who will pursue the people’s war even if it takes us a hundred or more years,” 70-year-old Padilla, one of the Philippines’ most-wanted men, said at a rare news conference for a small group of reporters.

Padilla, who joined the New People’s Army a few years after the insurgency began in the late 1960s, insisted the rebels were not concerned by President Rodrigo Duterte’s threats to end peace talks.

A self-proclaimed socialist, Duterte swiftly launched negotiations with the Maoists after winning presidential elections last year and there were high hopes he could end the rebellion, which the military estimates has claimed 30,000 lives.

But last month Duterte angrily declared there would be no more talks because the NPA continued to extort money from businesses and ambush security forces.

Padilla, a slight, bespectacled ex-farmer who goes by the alias “Ka [Comrade] Diego”, heads the Melito Glor Command, one of the most important units of the NPA, the communists’ 3,800-member armed wing, military commanders told AFP.