Timeline Of The Communist Rebellion In The Philippines

The following is the timeline of events of CPP-NPA-NDF rebellion, a conflict between the government of the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People's Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front (NDF).

1970s

1971

* 21 August – Two hand grenades explode during an election campaign rally of the Liberal Party attended by about 4,000 people at Plaza Miranda in the district of Quiapo, Manila, causing nine deaths and injuring 95 others. Among those killed instantly were a 5-year-old child and ''The Manila Times'' photographer Ben Roxas, and many on stage were injured, including incumbent Senator Jovito Salonga, Liberal Party president Gerardo Roxas and Sergio Osmeña Jr., son of former President of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Sergio Osmeña. The government of President Ferdinand Marcos accuses the communists of staging the attack and suspends the writ of habeas corpus.

1972

* 4 July - The MV ''Karagatan'', which was supposed to bring armaments supplied by China to the NPA reaches Digoyo Point in Palanan, Isabela. However the ship is discovered by a military patrol and is abandoned as it runs aground.
* 18 July - A government raid on an NPA hideout in Cordon, Isabela leads to the discovery of the so-called Taringsing Documents, outlining plans by the CPP-NPA to overthrow the government by 1973.
* 21 September - President Ferdinand Marcos signs Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire Philippines under Martial Law, citing the communist rebellion and related incidents. However, its implementation is delayed for 2 days.
*22 September - Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile escapes an alleged ambush blamed on the NPA in San Juan, Metro Manila, providing the Marcos regime with an excuse to implement Martial Law
*23 September - Martial Law is finally announced on television by President Marcos hours after series of mass arrests of against dissidents, including communist supporters. Thousands are detained and several are killed or forcibly disappeared in the ensuing crackdown which lasts for 14 years. Others go into hiding or exile or take up arms by joining the NPA in the provinces
*late September to December - The military launches its first major operation against the NPA's primary stronghold in the Sierra Madre mountains in San Mariano, Isabela, forcing the CPP leadership to disperse nationwide but fails in its objective to eliminate the rebellion in Isabela.

1976

* 27 August – President Ferdinand Marcos announced the capture of top NPA commander Victor Corpus. The announcement followed the previous week's arrest of NPA's second in command Bernabe Buscayno and 23 NPA officers. Marcos described the arrests as the final blow to the insurgency.
* 13 November – NPA rebels attacked a logging truck in Mambusao, Davao Oriental. Six security troops were killed and three were wounded.
* 22 November – NPA rebels staged a raid on 5 barrios situated on the perimeter of Clark Air Base, seizing 43 weapons from the local CHDF militia.

1977

* 27–29 August – Communist guerrillas conducted two ambushes on units of the Philippine Constabulary (PC) in Pampanga and Subic, Zambales. Six PC members were killed and four wounded.
* 10 November - CPP chairman Jose Maria Sison is arrested at a roadside checkpoint in San Fernando, La Union. Effective control of the NPA is passed on to commander Rodolfo Salas.

1980s

1981

* 19 April – Seventeen people were killed in a grenade attack on San Pedro cathedral, Davao City, during mass. Two grenades were thrown into the congregation as the traditional Easter service was concluding. New People's Army rebels were among several groups suspected of blame, and two young Marxists were apprehended for the attack.

1982

* Between 1982 and 1989, CPP conducts purges; starting with the anti-infiltration campaign, Cadena de Amor, in the Quezon–Bicol Zone (QBZ) that year.

1983

* September 29 – About 70–80 NPA rebels ambush an army patrol unit in Godod, Zamboanga del Norte. The truck is carrying at least 57 people; thirty-nine soldiers, including a unit commander from the 4th Infantry Division, and seven civilians are killed in the deadliest attack on the government forces since NPA began major operations a decade prior.

1985

* By that year, an anti-DPA (deep-penetration agent) campaign, "Takip Silim" (Dusk), takes place in southern Quezon. About half of some 60 people arrested were killed, mostly civilians and peasants. The CPP regional committee later orders it stopped.
* In Davao City, the expansion of the NPA is reported, and by year-end, a local radio station placed the number of both summary executions and guerrilla killings at "more than 600".
* April – A project team from an Australian mining consortium, consisting of three Australians and 13 Filipinos, is briefly detained by NPA rebels in Northern Samar.
* May – The CPP Mindanao Commission (Mindacom) starts a major anti-infiltration campaign, "Kampanyang Ahos", in Cagayan de Oro. It is conducted in Northern and Southern Mindanao; as well as far as Metro Manila and Cebu. Despite supposedly stopped in December, Ahos continues up to March 1986 in Misamis Oriental and Bukidnon. Between 400 and 1,100 cadres and civilian supporters are reported killed; many are buried in mass graves. In 1987, the CPP Politburo declares that while DPAs are killed in the campaign, there are abuses however as many have been falsely accused.
* July 22 – NPA attacks a police station in Quinapondan, Eastern Samar, and takes away several firearms. Neither the police chief nor the five officers resist the raid.
* 6 October – At least 14 rebels were killed in an encounter with a military patrol in Polanco, Zamboanga del Norte.
* November 19 – Dave Barrios, an assemblyman's assistant, is abducted by three NPA members in the office of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) in Quezon City, being suspected as a military spy. He is believed to be killed during the purge.

1986

* According to the CPP, by that year, the number of NPA companies to be maintained is reduced from 15 in 1985 to only two; several guerilla fronts and mass bases are lost in Mindanao.
* March – Nine American servicemen are held hostage overnight by NPA guerillas in Kalinga-Apayao after they accidentally enter an NPA territory. They are later released.
* March 1–2 – In separate ambushes in Northern Samar on March 1, and in Leyte on March 2, three policemen are killed. Meanwhile, in Cebu City, a rebel leader is killed in a shootout.
* March 3 – A police vehicle is ambushed by about 60 men, believed to belong to the NPA, near Guinobatan, Albay, killing 14 policemen and a paramilitary sergeant and wounding 13 other policemen and eight passengers of a bus caught in crossfire.
* March 5 – The government under newly installed President Corazon Aquino releases four CPP members, including CPP founder Jose Maria Sison, NPA chief Bernabe Buscayno, and two members of a liquidation squad, as part of its policy of reconciliation with the Communist rebels, despite objections from the military. The four are the last of all political prisoners, held by the administration of her predecessor, Ferdinand Marcos, ordered freed; their number varies, ranging from 484 according to the president, to 517 according to presidential spokesperson Rene Saguisag.
* March 14:
** About 100 NPA rebels raid a warehouse of the National Food Authority in Allacapan, Cagayan, with a five-hour gun battle reportedly leaving seven soldiers and a civilian dead and five injured.
** Ten militiamen are killed by communist guerillas in an attack in Bohol.
* March 15 – Thirty NPA guerillas ambush a government jeep, carrying militiamen and government employees who had met with residents, along a mountain road in Amlan, Negros Oriental, killing 12 including eight employees of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), and seriously wounding four.
* March 19:
** Three hundred rebels attack a military detachment in Sindangan, Zamboanga del Norte, killing eight and wounding three. They then sack the municipal hall.
** Twenty guerillas ambush a jeep in Gonzaga, Cagayan, killing municipal mayor Francisco Baclig and three others on board.
* Mid-March – NPA rebels ambush a battalion of troops outside Claveria, Misamis Oriental, seriously wounding five. They then raid the town, resulting in massive evacuations.
* March 24 – Fifty heavily armed NPA rebels attack a village in Medina, Misamis Oriental, killing two militiamen and three individuals abducted after suspected of being government informers.
* April 13 – More than a hundred guerrillas kidnap all ten patients in a government-owned hospital in Lasam, Cagayan, and set fire to the building.
* April 20 – Farmers opened fire on the soldiers conducting "clearing operations" against the rebels in Cagayan, killing three. The ambush occurs amid strengthening rebel control, particularly in Lasam, Alacapan, and Lal-lo.
* April 24 – About 30 NPA rebels ambush a military convoy which are carrying about 11 soldiers and three journalists and returning to Tuguegarao, Cagayan, killing at least seven including ''Manila Bulletin'' correspondent Pete Mabasa and Reuters photographer Willie Vicoy, which are said the first to be killed while covering the communist insurgency.
* May 7 – The communists ambush and shoot to death all 14 soldiers of a patrol in Allacapan, Cagayan.
* June 3 – An estimated 40 NPA guerrillas ambush eight policemen aboard a jeep in Gonzaga, Cagayan.
* July 1:
** A military convoy is ambushed by about 70 guerrillas near Gumaca, Quezon, killing 11 soldiers.
** Government forces are ambushed by guerillas in Pamplona, Cagayan, with nine people died, including a soldier and a policeman.
* August 22 – Eleven members of an obscure religious sect are killed by gunmen in Surigao del Norte, after being reportedly forced to shout ''"Long love the NPA."''
* August 24 – A patrol is ambushed by NPA guerrillas in Sarrat, Ilocos Norte. A police chief and four of his men are killed; three more are injured.
* 13 September - The CPLA made a "''sipat''" or ceasefire with the Philippine government at the Mt. Data Hotel, in Bauko, Mountain Province. The agreement between the two sides was called the 1986 Mount Data Peace Accord.
* 30 September – Authorities arrest NPA chairman Rodolfo Salas along with his wife and driver outside a Manila hospital amid peace talks between the rebels and the government.
* November – A Japanese businessman is kidnapped for ransom by the NPA, with Japanese Red Army as conspirators.
* 10 December – A 60-day cease fire is enacted between the NPA and the Philippine government.

1987

* By year-end, the NPA have 23,000 members; and is estimated by other source having up to 24,000. The year becomes one of the deadliest in the insurgency with more than 3,600 casualties.
* Late 1987 or early 1988 – The Melito Glor Command, the NPA unit in the Southern Tagalog, starts another major anti-infiltration campaign "Operation Missing Link" (OPML) to arrest suspected spies. However, it is reported that even some members of its task force are implicated, resulting to the execution of four of the six arrested members; same as several committee members.
* 22 January – 13 demonstrating farmers are killed by security forces in Mendiola Street, Manila. This leads to the breakdown of peace talks between the government and the CPP-NPA-NDF and the resumption of military offensives against the rebels.
* March:
** A landmine ambush in Quezon kills 19 soldiers.
** Rebel forces attack a military detachment in Sagay, Negros Occidental. Two of the rebels are killed. They then leave aboard a truck loaded with arms cache, which would be involved in an accident after being chased by a military helicopter.
* April 14 – About a hundred NPA insurgents ambush an army truck in La Castellana, Negros Occidental. Four soldiers are killed after a half-hour gun battle.
* April 19 – Soldiers discover an NPA training camp in a forest within Angat watershed in Bulacan, where illegal logging operations are reportedly done by rebels. This results in a battle between some 300 rebels and combined forces of Army Scout Rangers and provincial Constabulary command. Two days later, at least 20 guerrillas are killed in San Ildefonso, while clashes reach the adjacent town of Doña Remedios Trinidad.
* April 20:
** About 100 NPA rebels aboard three vehicles overrun an army detachment in Sagay, Negros Occidental. The rebels allegedly fire at outnumbered soldiers despite their surrender, even hitting some of visiting family members. Four civilians, 6 soldiers, and 5 rebels are killed.
** An army sergeant is killed when a 6-vehicle military convoy is ambushed by 20 NPA rebels in Hinabangan, Samar, while on their way to a briefing at a Catbalogan headquarters.
* Early July – Fighting in the vicinity of the breeding camp of the Philippine eagle on Mount Talomo in Davao City within weeks kills 40 NPA insurgents and 15 soldiers, and later forces the entire staff of the Philippine Eagle Conservation Program to evacuate along with twelve captive eagles.
* July 27 – NPA guerrillas in Luna, Kalinga-Apayao, explode a land mine in the path of an army convoy, which has been sent to reinforce an army detachment under attack. They then open fire on the soldiers, killing 18 of them and injuring six.
* August – A weeklong guerrilla offensive occurs with an assault on Manapla, Negros Occidental, by 60 NPA members, the first major urban attack by the northern Negros front. That however fails as both rebel assault force, which has seized weapons from a police outpost, and two highway forces are both later retreated while burning down the municipal hall and the mayor's house. The incident triggers months-long pre-dawn curfew throughout the province, then the only such restriction in the country.
* August 27 – NPA rebels raid radio station DXRA in Davao City, with four of the personnel fatally shot inside, along with five civilian guests, in the city's worst attack against the journalists. Another radio announcer is injured in a following stampede.
* Late August – September 1 – Scattered fighting in three provinces leaves 39 NPA insurgents, 9 soldiers, and two civilians dead. The casualties include 28 guerrillas in military offensives in Pangasinan on September 1; as well as two scout rangers when troops attack a rebel camp in Davao City.
* September 2 – Some 200 NPA guerrillas attack a 28-man army patrol in Quezon, killing 21 and wounding five.
* Late September – Early October – The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claims that day-long "clashes" between the military and the NPA in Doña Remedios Trinidad, Bulacan, have killed at least four rebels. However, after Manila-based daily newspapers have picked up accounts on a major offensive, residents and the NPA commander for Bulacan later both deny these claims. The former believe that combat troops have been deployed following the shooting incident on September 26, when a soldier has been killed in what is said a mistaken encounter, which is being denied by the AFP while insisting that reporters who have visited the area have missed the fighting.
* October 28 – The NPA kills three Americans, including a serviceman and a retiree, near Clark Air Base. It is believed that it is the beginning of attacks against American servicemen; as the NPA has decided to target those who based at two United States military bases in the country.
* November 15 – Juanito Rivera, CPP vice chairman and alleged member of the Executive Committee, is arrested.
* November 17 – Napoleon Dojillo, resigned NDF leader in Negros, surrenders to the provincial military commander.
* December – A two-day Christmas cease-fire is declared by President Aquino and by the NPA, however eight from the security forces die in rebel attacks. Another holiday truce is declared by the president from December 31 to January 1.
* December 31:
** A military truck is ambushed by about 40 heavily armed rebels while approaching San Mariano, Isabela, to pick up a sick soldier; the rebels flee following a brief battle with reinforcements. Six soldiers and five civilians—all hitchhikers—are killed; four soldiers and another civilian are reportedly injured.
** A military intelligence agent is fatally shot in Catarman, Northern Samar, causing a battle between law enforcers and three rebels; two of the suspects are killed along with a civilian caught in crossfire.

1988

* NPA has 25,000 members by March.
* "Olympia" is launched in Metro Manila and Rizal to arrest suspected infiltrators. Similar operations were conducted in the northern Luzon and Eastern Visayas.
* February 4:
** The military announces the arrest of 20 suspected high-ranking CPP officers and seizure of data containing a list of their financial contributors, in a series of raids in Metro Manila. Those captured include two Central Committee members, Tomas Dominado Jr. and Nicholas Ruiz, a Roman Catholic priest and member of the executive committee on Leyte Island; two regional finance officers from the Visayas, and another priest.
** Jaime Cardinal Sin, in a meeting with foreign reporters and speaking on the allegations on church workers being leftist sympathizers, discloses that some of them remain "members of the hard core" insurgency; and that the church's main social welfare organization, National Association of Social Action of the Philippines, has been dissolved on January 28 following reports that its fund has been channeled to the communists.
* February 13 and 16 – Suspected communists flag down and set on fire two Pepsi-Cola trucks from the bottling plant in San Fernando, Pampanga, separately in Bacolor and Porac.
* March 9 – A village in Sanchez-Mira, Cagayan, is raided by 200 NPA rebels who burned an Iglesia ni Cristo chapel; two civilians are killed in a crossfire. Pursuit operations by the military in the town and in nearby Aparri end on March 14 with 16 rebels killed. Two hostages are executed.
* March 10–11 – An offensive by some 2,500 army troops against 500 NPA militiamen kills 32 insurgents in Concepcion, Misamis Occidental.
* March 12 – Three NPA guerillas are hacked to death by troops in Bukidnon.
* March 12–13 – Twelve NPA guerillas are killed in an air attack on a rebel training camp in Cotabato.
* Early or mid-March – Nemesio Dimafiles, CPP chief in Negros, is arrested. Dimafiles has been reportedly resigned eight months prior due to a dispute over the party's policies.
* March 17 – Police captures Elizardo Lapuz, head of the NPA provincial operational command in Pampanga, in a raid at his hideout in a village near Clark Air Base in Angeles City.
* March 18 – A CPP faction on Negros island, dissidents calling itself the "Resignees," circulates a clandestine document calling for new peace talks and "critical support" for the Aquino administration, in the aftermath of the arrest of Dimafiles who has been listed as a member. The report says up to 60% of the rebels may be prepared for resignation.
* March 28 – Gunmen reportedly from the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB), NPA's Metro Manila branch, ambush suburb mayor Prospero Oreta, a distant relative of President Aquino. He is injured while seven of his bodyguards are killed.
* March 29:
** Seven communists are captured in separate raids in Metro Manila. Charges of rebellion and sedition would be filed against them.
*** Among those seized in San Juan are four CPP Central Committee members (three others have been captured since 1986); three of them top leaders—Romulo Kintanar, head of the NPA General Command, and his wife Gloria Jopson, also a finance committee member; Rafael Baylosis, CPP Secretary-General; Benjamin de Vera, head of CPP Mindanao commission; and Marco Palo, a member of the national liaison commission.
*** In Quezon City, Napoleon Manuel, chief of staff and logistics officer of the NPA, and Esther Yson are arrested; while CPP chairperson Benito Tiamzon escapes.
** As of that day, communist assassination squads, "Sparrow units", have killed more than 150 law enforcement personnel since the previous year.
* June 1 – NPA's Melito Glor command, led by Gregorio Rosal and Leopoldo Mabilangan, raids a Magnolia Chicken hatchery of the San Miguel Corporation in Tiaong, Quezon, and kidnap a security guard, which will be released later that day. At the same time, it seizes four Army lieutenants and a Constabulary sergeant, aboard a car on their way to Manila, at a roadblock. The five will be held hostage until being freed in Mount Banahaw on August 14 following series of negotiations.
* June 5 – Communist rebels ambush government troops, who are pursuing the former that had stole vehicles from sugar plantations in Tayap village the previous day, on Negros. A four-hour gun battle leaves 14 soldiers dead and two others wounded; a militiaman is believed to be abducted by the rebels.
* June 20 – At least 42 guerrillas are arrested in evening raids in Dagupan and Urdaneta in Pangasinan, and in Baguio, including Francisco Pascual, a member of the ruling central committee of the CPP and one of the rebel negotiators in peace talks, who is captured in Dagupan.
* June 21 – A rebel leader, identified by the CPP newsletter ''Ang Bayan'' (The Nation) in its interview as Comrade Rio, a member of the executive committee in the Central Luzon, warns that Americans involved in the government's anti-insurgency drive would be killed anytime. Rio justifies the 1987 killing of three American servicemen outside Clark by a rebel hit squad. Since then, none of the threats issued by the rebels has been carried out.
* July 3:
** An urban hit squad known as "Sparrows" releases a statement to news agencies, stating that the rebels vow reprisals against alleged military-sponsored death squads whom they accuse being the suspects in increasing violence against prominent leftists, including the wounding of university president Nemesio Prudente and the death of lawyer Emmanuel Mendoza in the previous week. The ambush on the former has been his second in eight months; while the latter is the fifth human rights official to be killed in the past 12 months.
** Fernando Suangco is arrested in the University of Santo Tomas Hospital in Manila. Suangco (''Ka Yenen''), a high-ranking NPA officer in Angeles City, is the suspect in a prior assassination attempt in a birthday party where city mayor Antonio Abad Santos survived. On July 9, murder charges are filed against him, being implicated to the killings of two Americans and three Filipino police officers.
* July 5:
** Four suspected communist rebels fatally shot two policemen aboard a patrol car at a downtown intersection in Manila. A civilian bystander is injured, as well as another policeman conducting traffic, who is shot by the suspects escaping through a commandeered passenger jeep. The incident is described as a "Sparrow" operation.
** Police raids twelve houses in Quezon City being "used as a transit point" by guerrillas, arresting 24 suspected rebels.
** The military reports the deaths of nine people in three incidents in Albay within 48 hours.
* August 30 – Seventy complaints of human rights violations are filed by the military against the CPP–NPA–NDF before the Commission on Human Rights. Among the cases filed are murder, kidnapping, serious illegal detention, robbery and frustrated murder, which have been occurred in parts of Luzon and Northern Mindanao. These are in addition to 117 cases that have been filed in various courts nationwide.
* October 10 – The Philippine Constabulary (PC) exhumes two bodies in Santa Cruz, Laguna, believed to be of Modesto Gammara, president of a local jeepney association, and of his worker Rene Gallente. The two, according to Gammara's father, an NPA member who surrendered to the PC prior to the exhumation, have been captured and executed in February due to complaints of embezzlement. The NPA denies their involvement in their deaths.
* October 15 – A bronze statue of U.S. Gen Douglas MacArthur in Palo, Leyte, is blown up, tearing off its legs. It is speculated that communist guerillas are primary suspects, although no group claims credit for the explosion.
* November 1 – The CPP Executive Committee orders the OPML stopped and all cases reviewed. In December, 55 individuals are released; however at the end, 66 NPA members are killed. "Olympia" and other anti-DPA campaigns are likewise ordered stopped, all due to abuses. Eventually, the leadership gives disciplinary action only to seven officers involved in the OPML.

1989

* NPA has 23,000 members by October.
* January 16 – An Australian gold-processing plant in Bunawan, Agusan del Sur, is attacked by about 40 NPA rebels. The mine is looted and set aflame; five people are dead and dozen are wounded. For the next two weeks, gunfights involving villagers and the military leave six additional deaths.
* February – A Filipino businessman who has been supporting U.S. military bases is shot dead by the NPA.
* April – A planned ambush by an NPA team at Clark Air Base is foiled by a U.S. military security patrol while the former is laying landmines in a road.
* April – Eighteen explosive devices are detonated by NPA rebels at a U.S. military communications facility in Mount Cabuyao near Baguio, destroying and damaging two antennas.
* April 4 – About 300 mountaineers are stopped by some 350 NPA rebels in Santa Cruz, Davao del Sur, as they have been on expedition on Mount Apo. Among them, three foreigners and five Filipinos are captured; while the rest are detained until April 6. All of the hostages are freed on April 8 and 13.
* April 21 – NPA gunmen assassinate a military adviser, U.S. Army Col. James N. Rowe, while on his way to work in Quezon City, and seriously injure his driver. The shooting is part of a protest against U.S. assistance to the AFP. In 1991, the city Regional Trial Court would convict and sentence two NPA members to life imprisonment.
* May – NPA rebels capture six soldiers after a 7-hour firefight on Mount Diwata in Surigao del Sur. The group is led by a priest, Frank Navarro, one of the long-time rebel chieftains in eastern Mindanao who has been searched by the military. The shelling in the area by June reportedly delays the release.
* May – Dozens of skeletal remains are discovered in Mauban, Quezon, and Cavinti, Laguna, after a former NPA guerrilla, who had served as a guard in the OPML, has informed authorities of mass graves.
* June 10 – The municipal hall of Marihatag, Surigao del Sur, is attacked by 300 rebels, reportedly led by Navarro; two soldiers and two children are killed.
* June 25 – About 70 NPA rebels attack a religious service of the UCCP in its chapel in Digos, Davao del Sur, resulting in the deaths of up to 40 worshippers—two of them beheaded, as well as ten injuries. It is claimed that two NPA members are also killed. The congregation has been organized into an anti-communist religious cult ''Ituman'', whose members compose most of the casualties that also include tribe members. Two days later, an NPA command in the Southern Mindanao region accepts responsibility and expresses apologies for the massacre, while claiming that they have retaliated after some of the rebels were attacked by ''Ituman'' members.
* July 23 – The military offers rewards, about $50,000 each, for 35 members of CPP central committee, while issuing new wanted posters.
* July 27:
** Two CPP central committee members, Satur Ocampo, also a leader of the affiliated "fronts," and his wife Carolina Malay, are arrested by the Philippine Constabulary in Makati. The couple, both former journalists, have been chief negotiators for the communists with the Aquino government.
** The capital's security force reports that 15 lower ranking Communists have been arrested in a series of military raids on 23 suspected rebel "safehouses" in Metro Manila since July 26.
* 26 September – Two United States Department of Defense contractors are killed by NPA rebels outside the Clark Air Base.
* September – An officer of the presidential security force is killed; NPA later claims responsibility.
* October 20 – Four communist guerrillas free fellow rebels Romeo Valencia and Fernando Suangco, who has been charged in the 1987 murders of four individuals in Angeles City, in a restaurant. They shoot and injure two policemen who have been escorting the suspects after their court appearance, and the driver of the van they are trying to commandeer.
* December – The U.S. Embassy Seafront Compound in Manila sustains minor damage after two rifle grenades are fired at them.

1990s

1990

* NPA has 19,000 members by mid-1990.
* January – NPA detonates an explosive at the U.S. Cultural Center in Davao City.
* February – The NPA ambushes and kills an American geologist, his Filipino wife, and his father-in-law, in Bohol.
* March – The NPA murders an American at his ranch in Masbate for his refusal to pay "revolutionary taxes".
* May 15 – A night prior to the start of the negotiations between the governments of the Philippines and of the United States on the U.S. bases, the NPA shoots to death two U.S. Air Force personnel in Angeles City near Clark Air Base. The group fails to kill another. The NPA later "declares a war" against the American presence in the country.
* May 18 – One of two rifle grenades fired at the U.S. Information Service Thomas Jefferson Cultural Center in Makati explodes.
* May 24 – ABB announces the start of the "sustained partisan warfare" in Manila in line with their sixth anniversary. This follows the previous day's ambush of Constabulary Col. Reynaldo Dino in Caloocan where Dino and four other individuals are killed.
* May 29 – Fumio Mizuno, a training director of a Japanese private organization helping rural farmers in Negros Occidental, is kidnapped by guerrillas in Bacolod. It is apparently in an effort to discourage Japanese aid. Mizuno is released on August 2.
* June 5 – Retired Col. Laudemar Kahulugan, security chief of Purefoods, Inc. in Quezon City, is shot while on his way to work, in an apparent "sparrow" killing. Kahulugan have been a Constabulary chief in Angeles and Davao cities.
* June 13 – Three NPA guerrillas abduct Timothy Swanson, a Peace Corps volunteer from Wyoming, in his residence in Silay, Negros Occidental. American officials would learn of the incident at the time of the withdrawal of the volunteers. Swanson is likewise released on August 2.
* June 27 – The government of United States decides to suspend the 29-year-old Peace Corps program and to recall 261 volunteers following reported threats from the guerrillas. At that time, ten of its citizens have been killed in NPA attacks since October 1987.
* July – In another attack at the U.S. Cultural Center in Davao City, four NPA members aboard a jeep fire at the building.
* July 8 – About 40 NPA guerrillas raided Castellano village in central Negros, killing a policeman and his cousin in their house, and kidnapping at the checkpoint four others, including a son of the San Carlos city mayor and two businessmen.
* July 17 – Guerrillas kidnap two army soldiers in Negros Occidental. They are later released along with Swanson in Silay.
* September – In the first NPA bombing of the Voice of America (VOA) transmitter site in Tarlac, an antenna base is destroyed.
* October – An American national is apparently kidnapped by the NPA while travelling in Cagayan.
* November – Two rifle grenades are fired at the U.S. Embassy in Manila.
* December – Two labor leaders are shot to death by two suspected NPA gunmen while holding a human rights seminar inside the Ateneo de Manila University campus. Since January, there have been more than eighty NPA assassinations in Metro Manila.

1991

* Government reports the arrest of 80 middle and high-ranking members of the CPP–NPA, among them members of the CPP General Command and its chief, Romulo Kintanar.
* Early that year, a two-day battle occurs in Surigao del Sur, as NPA holds a hilltop military barracks for days.
* January 30–31 – In NPA's second attempt to bomb a VOA facility in Tinang, Tarlac, firefights with the police ensue, first within a half-hour when 50 guerrillas fire at the police barracks; and later overnight as the saboteurs set up bombs at the VOA transmitter site. NPA members withdraw at the early morning of the following day; fifteen explosive devices are subsequently defused by the police.

1992

* The CPP leadership under Jose Maria Sison launches the Second Great Rectification Movement promoting a hardline response to the collapse of communism in eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
* During "The Second Rectification Movement", allegations that the party leaders are supporting insurrection lead to the breakup of the CPP into the reaffirmist and rejectionist factions—the latter a breakaway.
* The CPP Central Committee issues a document condemning Ahos for various violations; and recognizes mistakes in the OPML.
* February 15 – Approximately 200 NPA guerrillas, led by former Catholic priest Francisco "Frank" Navarro and mostly young boys, ambush a military convoy carrying a company of about 100 army troops in Marihatag, Surigao del Sur. The assault, which lasts almost an hour, leaves 47 soldiers dead, 18 injured and two missing; hence the worst government defeat since 1983. More than 3,000 troops are later deployed by the military for a counterattack, which would cause evacuations in the Higaonon community of the province and in Agusan del Sur.
* February 16:
** President Aquino, speaking at graduation ceremonies at the Philippine Military Academy, claims the government has defeated the NPA. Armed Forces chief Gen. Lisandro Abadia reports the decrease in size of the NPA, from 26,000 in 1988 to about 15,000.
** Eleven communist rebels are killed in two separate clashes with the military in Kalinga-Apayao and Isabela.
* April 11 – About 50 NPA guerrillas ambush a routine military patrol, returning to its camp, in Sagada, Mountain Province, leading to a battle that lasts for about six hours. At least 21 rebels and 19 soldiers troops are killed; at least 20 other government troops are wounded.
* 24 September – President Fidel V. Ramos signs into law Republic Act 7636, which repealed the Anti-Subversion Law of 1957 that outlawed membership in the Communist Party as part of his efforts to open peace negotiations with the CPP-NPA.
* November – The CPP Executive Committee says that since 1988, more than a hundred cadres, including several Central Committee members, have been arrested, and the equipment containing sensitive information about the party have been seized.

1993

* The CPP said the methods used in anti-infiltration campaigns are defective.
* March 19 – Ten Pampanga-based NPA guerrillas surrender to the city and police authorities in Angeles City, being headed by Fernando Suangco. Suangco, an NPA brigade commander, is a suspect in the 1987 assassination in Clark Air Base and also involved in the deaths of eight law enforcement personnel, and has been captured but freed by his fellow rebels in 1988.

1995

* May 14 and 21 – Heavily armed NPA rebels attack a village in Makilala, Cotabato, but are repulsed by army and militia troopers from nearby. Exactly a week later, another raid is conducted, killing an army soldier.

1997

* 30 October – The NPA raided the police station of Rodriguez, Rizal, ransacking the armory, killing one police officer, and abducting Rene Francisco, the police chief. He was later released on December 5 in Tanay, Rizal.

1998

* February 15 – Odilon Mallari, lawyer and commentator at Roman Catholic-run DXCP in General Santos, is killed by two NPA liquidation squad members who would later be arrested.
* March – The ''Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law'', setting a framework to address human rights violations related to insurgency, is agreed by the national government and the then-exiled NDF. Amidst the periodic peace talks, the administration of Joseph Estrada (presidential term begins at mid-year) will enter talks on its implementation in late part of that year.
* Early May – The car of Surigao del Sur governor Primo Murillo is reportedly fired by NPA assailants, wounding members of his staff.
* July – A police patrol in Northern Samar is attacked by about 40 NPA members, killing two policemen and an army officer.
* August – A military platoon is ambushed by NPA rebels, cooperating with tribal leaders, in the Bontoc, Mountain Province, wherein two soldiers are killed. The incident took place amid calls for the government's denial of mining company applications in the area.
* September – A group of 25 NPA insurgents is attacked by a military unit in Samar, killing five of them.
* Amado Payot (Kumander Benzar), alleged head of the group responsible in the 1989 massacre of worshippers in Davao del Sur, is captured in Cotabato. He is later detained in Davao City for various charges until being freed on bail in March 1999; but never appears in a trial.

1999

* February 17 – NPA rebels abduct Brig. Gen. Victor Obillo, who would be the highest-ranking military officer to be captured, and Capt. Eduardo Montealto in Davao City. After a massive rescue mission and an intercession, the captives are freed on .
* NPA guerrillas captured a police officer in Sorsogon, Sorsogon, and an army officer in Lianga, Surigao del Sur. The two are likewise freed, earlier than Obillo and Montealto.
* August 2 – A member of the CPP's Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee, an NPA medic, and two civilians who have given them a ride to Compostela, Compostela Valley, are allegedly summarily executed by army soldiers.
* November 2 – Leoncio Pitao (Ka Parago), custodian of Obillo and Montealto, is arrested in his residence in Davao City.

2000s

2000

* From January 15 to February 5, skeletal remains of at least a hundred individuals, mostly NPA rebels, were exhumed by government authorities from various mass graves in Brgy. Taglimao, Cagayan de Oro. They were believed to be victims of a purge by the NPA in the mid-1980s, known as ''Operation Zombie''. Military authorities estimated that more than 4,000 people were killed, in which only 15 were actually "deep penetration agents" (DPAs), the main target. Since 1999, the remains of at least 416 of them had been recovered in the NPA "killing fields" in the said village. Some former NPA guerillas confessed that the mass killings, particularly of at least 60 rebels in 1986, were allegedly carried out on orders of CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison.
* February 5 – Suspected communists assassinated a village chief and two civilians in Naga, then part of Zamboanga del Sur.
* March 2 – About 40 NPA rebels attacked an army detachment in Balilihan, Bohol but immediately withdrew. They later ambushed a truckload of soldiers and militiamen, who had sent to reinforce the detachment, along the way in Catigbian, killing at least 5 soldiers and their officer, as well as 4 militiamen.
* March 11 – The 43rd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army captured a NPA camp in Bontoc, Southern Leyte; 5 rebels were killed in a firefight.
* May 9 – Combined forces of the Army's 1st Infantry Battalion's ''Task Force Banahaw'' and the regional police mobile group encountered a band of about 50 NPA fighters in Paete, Laguna; 8 suspected rebels were killed.
* June 15 – Seven soldiers and a militiaman were killed in an ambush by the NPA in Maslog, Eastern Samar.
* June 28 – NPA insurgents ambushed a military medical mission in Jones, Isabela, killing an Army colonel and 12 of his troops in their worst attack within a decade.
"Mindoro NPA rebels kill 8 cops"
' PHNO. July 6, 2000. Retrieved Feb 26, 2022.
* July – government forces discovered a mass grave in Baybay, Leyte containing the skeletal remains of more than 10 suspected victims of a rebel purge in the early 1980s.
* July 3 – A NPA commander identified as ''Ka Alpha'' was killed, and three policemen and a civilian were wounded, in a clash in Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro.
* July 4 – 60 suspected NPA rebels ambushed a police team tasked to investigate the killing of a barangay chairman a day prior, in a mountain village in Victoria, Oriental Mindoro, killing 8 of them and wounding five others.
* September 30 – A military group returning from a three-day civic action, was ambushed by the NPA in Paquibato District, Davao City; at least 4 from the group were killed, as well as 5 civilians.
* November 18 – About 80 NPA rebels attacked a police station in Caramoan, Camarines Sur, later repelled by the policemen; at least 6 guerrillas, a policeman, and a militiaman, were killed.
* December 3 – A police chief of Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro was assassinated by four unidentified men, believed to be NPA rebels. It was said that it was in retaliation to the death of a certain ''Ka Joel'', leader of a three-man NPA group assigned the town, in an encounter in August.

2001

* November 17 – NPA rebels ambushed 25 soldiers of an Army Special Forces platoon on board a dump truck that had hit a landmine in Cateel, Davao Oriental, killing 18 of them; the remaining soldiers returned fire in the ensuing firefight that killed 10 rebels.

2002

* Early April – A police contingent is waylaid by NPA guerrillas in Kiblawan, Davao del Sur, killing two policemen.
* April 9 – An injured suspected NPA rebel is captured after a clash between some 30 rebels and government troops in Tapaz, Capiz.
* April 13 – About 30 suspected NPA rebels forcibly enter a construction site in Calbayog, Samar, and burn three heavy equipment.
* April 15 – A military offensive on an NPA camp in Davao City kills six rebels and injures a militiaman and two of the seven who are captured.
* April 16 – Suspected NPA guerrillas ambush a police contingent in Maasim, Sarangani, injuring three police officers.
* On 30 June, one soldier and 15 militants were injured after a skirmish in Nueva Era, Ilocos Norte. Documents and pamphlets were seized from rebel bunkers.
* September 27 – About 50 rebels raid a police station in Lopez, Quezon, killing a police chief and an officer, and wounding two others.
* September 30 – A police station in San Rafael, Bulacan, is strafed by NPA rebels who, at the same time, injure three soldiers in a firefight in a nearby town.
* Early October – The National Bureau of Investigation announces the arrest of a suspected NPA fund raiser and two cadres somewhere in Metro Manila "less than week prior. Their base of operations is in Quezon.

2003

* February 5 – The CPP Executive Committee issues a statement saying that among those with the biggest accountability in the purge in the 1980s are officials who have broke away from the party, especially in 1992 during the "Second Rectification Movement," naming only five of them.
* On 19 April, 5 soldiers were killed and 9 wounded in a gun fight with NPA rebels outside Ligao, Albay.
* June 22:
** NPA rebels assassinate municipal mayor Guerrero Zaragoza outside a cockpit in Tayug, Pangasinan. A bystander is also killed.
** In the second NPA raid in Quinapondan, Eastern Samar, involving about 150 rebels, the attack at the police station by 20 of them is repulsed by two of three policemen in the area, one of them is a police chief who is injured.
* June 26 – A patrol base of a company of the 52nd Infantry Battalion in Oras, Eastern Samar, is attacked by 200 communist guerrillas; and is later burned after a 2-hour gun battle. Among the 34 who man the detachment, 11 militiamen and 5 army soldiers are killed along with a civilian, in what will reportedly be the largest NPA raid since the 1989 Digos incident.
* July 14 – NPA rebels ambush a group of soldiers in Bontoc, Mountain Province, killing eight from the latter. On August 5, military operations in two villages begin, where seven rebels are killed, including two in an aerial attack on August 15.
* August 6 – A junior army officer and two of 3 soldiers, acting as his security escorts, are killed in Canlaon, Negros Oriental, while they, on board a service vehicle of the city government, are about to deliver military supplies in Moises Padilla, Negros Occidental. An NPA command claims responsibility in the ambush.

2004

* March 26 – A PNOC geothermal plant in Leyte is raided by an NPA unit which would kill three PNOC employees and two policemen in subsequent ambush.
* March 28 – An army patrol base in Davao City is raided by more than a hundred guerillas, which would retreat later following a four-hour gun battle as another yet outnumbered battalion of soldiers foil the attack. Two members of the Civilian Active Auxiliary are wounded.
* November – Ten soldiers are killed by NPA rebels in San Rafael, Bulacan.

2005

* February – A rebel-planted land mine in Sultan Kudarat injures two soldiers.
* On 13 July, NPA cadres killed nine soldiers and injured three in Ilocos Sur.
* On 29 September, left-wing party Bayan Muna, accused by security forces of being an NPA front, announced that 53 of its members had been killed by alleged government hired gunmen between 2001 and 2005. Leftist labor movement Kilusan Mayo Uno seconded the accusations, claiming that 33 of its activists were killed in 2005. Satur Ocampo described the killings as "political repression masquerading as counter-insurgency and antiterrorism operations". A PNP official said that the killings would be fully investigated, and following an official enquiry, at least two soldiers were charged with murder.
* October 9 – Five soldiers and three civilians are killed in an NPA land mine attack in Misamis Occidental.
* On 28 October, at least 10 militants were wounded in clashes in Surigao del Sur.
* On 10 November, rebels set light to a public bus in Bataan after the owner refused to pay a revolutionary tax

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