[15]: 119  It acts as the CPP's principal organization, aiming to consolidate political power from what it sees as the present "bourgeois reactionary puppet government" and to aid in the "people's democratic revolution".

The NPA operates and is based primarily in the Philippine countryside,[3] where the CPP alleges it has established itself in 73 out of the country's 81 provinces, across over 110 guerrilla fronts.

[18] Negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP stalled on signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER),[19] and the issue of localized peace talks between individual units of the NPA.

Japan's Public Security Intelligence Agency designated the NPA as a "major international terrorist organization" (主な国際テロ組織).

[13] The New People's Army was established on March 29, 1969, following the split of the old Communist Party (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930) into Lava and Guerrero factions.

In 1966, Jose Maria Sison, under the nom de guerre Amado Guerrero, wrote Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party!, a treatise which criticized the old Lavaite leadership and emphasized the need to follow Mao Zedong Thought to foster re-establishment.

[21] The conflict continued until December 26, 1968, when the Communist Party of the Philippines was formally re-established along Maoist lines, and the entire issue was termed the First Great Rectification Movement.

KM cadres in Tarlac had contacted Guerrero and linked him with Bernabe Buscayno, a former member of the older Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan.

In the Declaration of the New People's Army, Amado Guerrero outlined the following as its main tasks:[1]: 113–117 The NPA quickly spread alongside organizational work of the CPP.

The SCO program led to "regularization" of units, urban partisan actions, peasant uprisings, and an insurrectionist concept of "seizing opportunities".

These ideological and organizational shortcomings, coupled with the Corazon Aquino administration's counter-insurgency program, Oplan Lambat Bitag, managed to severely harm the NPA and the CPP as a whole.

[27][28] By 1991, the CPP central committee had assessed the mistakes of the previous decade and carried out the Second Great Rectification Movement from 1992 until declaring a success in 1998.

The Alex Boncayao Brigade, notorious for its partisan activities, left the CPP with Lagman and formed the Revolutionary Proletarian Army.

Since then, it has re-affirmed that the CPP is in absolute command of the NPA, outlining that its most pressing task is to "defeat and destroy the US-created and US-supported reactionary Armed Forces of the Philippines.

[36][non-primary source needed] During the administration of Benigno Aquino III, OBL2 was replaced by Oplan Bayanihan, which had a more "people-centered" approach compared to OBL's military-heavy tactics.

[3][non-primary source needed] The Central Committee has stated in its 2017 Congress that it has a five-year plan with aims to "carry forward the antifascist, antifeudal and anti-imperialist movement and overthrow the tyrannical US-Duterte regime, and bring the protracted people's war to the advanced phase of the strategic defensive, in order to reach the threshold of the strategic stalemate".

In 2011 in revenge for the murder of anti-mining activist Rabenio Sungit, the NPA attacked three mines in Mindanao, causing 190 million dollars in damages.

The NPA, aside from being a military force, also puts emphasis in carrying out land reform and organizational work to ensure that villages become bases of the people's democratic government.

The document also covered same-gender relationships, and with its implementation, the queer rights of sexual and gender minorities in the army became more recognized.

[51][52] At the time of its inception, Government of the Philippines automatically outlawed the NPA (along with the CPP) through the Anti-Subversion Act of 1957 which had branded the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 (PKP) and the Hukbalahap as an "organized conspiracy".

[56] The Manila Regional Trial Court has junked a proscription case by the Department of Justice seeking to designate the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization on September 22, 2022.