The Revolutionary Proletarian Army, also known by the

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

RPA, was the military wing of the Revolutionary Workers' Party (Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawà ng Pilipinas) (RPM-P), a communist party that split from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Background

The ''Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawà ng Pilipinas'' ("Revolutionary Workers' Party of the Philippines") was established after the Negros Regional Party Committee of the

New People's Army The New People's Army (; abbreviated NPA or BHB) is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). It acts as the CPP's principal organization, aiming to consolidate political power from what it sees as the present "bourgeo ...

broke away from the Communist Party of the Philippines as a result of an ideological split in 1996. It organized its military arm two months after the split, calling it the Revolutionary Proletarian Army. The

Metro Manila Metropolitan Manila ( ), commonly shortened to Metro Manila and formally the National Capital Region (NCR; ), is the capital region and largest List of metropolitan areas in the Philippines, metropolitan area of the Philippines. Located ...

-based

Alex Boncayao Brigade The Alex Boncayao Brigade (abbreviated as ABB; also known as the SPARU Unit) was the urban assassination unit of the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Organized in 1984, the unit broke away from the Ne ...

, which also broke away from the New People's Army, allied itself with the RPA the year after, forming the Revolutionary Proletarian Army – Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPA-ABB).

Activities

The Revolutionary Proletarian Army – Alex Boncayao Brigade engaged in peace negotiations brokered by Eduardo Cojuangco Jr. with the government of Joseph Estrada in 1999; a truce was established in December 2000. This development prompted a vehement condemnation from Filemon Lagman, who once controlled the Alex Boncayao Brigade; in a press release he branded Arturo Tabara of the RPA and Nilo dela Cruz, the head of the ABB as "scoundrels masquerading as revolutionaries". By 2003, relations between the RPA-ABB and the Communist Party of the Philippines had deteriorated to the point where the

, the CPP's military wing began launching attacks on the RPA-ABB. Arturo Tabara, RPM-P chairman, was assassinated in 2004 in

Manila Manila, officially the City of Manila, is the Capital of the Philippines, capital and second-most populous city of the Philippines after Quezon City, with a population of 1,846,513 people in 2020. Located on the eastern shore of Manila Bay on ...

. In 2007, an apparent split occurred between two factions within the RPA-ABB. Nilo dela Cruz of the Alex Boncayao Brigade was expelled by the faction headed by Stephen Paduano and Veronica Tabara, Arturo Tabara's wife. Dela Cruz reciprocated the action, expelling Paduano. Both factions of the RPA-ABB carried on using the same name. In April 2013, the RPA-ABB was reported to have changed its name to ''Kapatiran para sa Progresong Panlipunan'' ("Brotherhood for Social Progress") and stated that it had renounced violence as a method of advancing its cause. Paduano resigned as national commander of the RPA-ABB and ran for Congress during the 2013 Philippine general election under the Abang Lingkod party-list. He took his oath of office in May 2014. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines issued a statement condemning his election into the

Congress of the Philippines The Congress of the Philippines () is the legislature of the national government of the Philippines. It is Bicameralism, bicameral, composed of an upper body, the Senate of the Philippines, Senate, and a lower body, the House of Representatives ...

. As of 2016, the peace deal signed by the RPA-ABB with the Estrada administration remains to be fully implemented. Nilo dela Cruz and a group of former RPA-ABB members calling themselves "Democratic Front for Filipinism" issued a statement supporting

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assum ...

's war on drugs, and his "revolution against the oligarchs and the exploiters of the Filipino masses".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Revolutionary Proletarian Army Military wings of communist parties Military units and formations established in 1996 Far-left politics Guerrilla organizations Military history of the Philippines Rebel groups in the Philippines Communist armed conflicts in the Philippines Defunct communist militant groups 1996 establishments in the Philippines Left-wing militant groups in the Philippines