Mangudadatu WRONG on world’s ‘longest-running’ armed group

Maguindanao 2nd district representative and senatorial candidate Zajid “Dong” Mangudadatu is wrong to claim the world’s oldest active armed group is in Mindanao.

STATEMENT

In the head-to-head portion of the Feb. 9 GMA senatorial debate, Mangudadatu, who is running under Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), explained why he voted in favor of the martial law extension in Mindanao:

“Alam po natin the longest-running armed group in the world ay nasa atin (We know that we have the longest-running armed group in the world).”

Source: GMA News, REPLAY: Debate 2019: The GMA Senatorial Face-Off, Feb. 9, 2019, watch from 1:43:54 to 1:43:59

Mangudadatu did not explicitly say which organization he was referring to, but the oldest active armed rebel group in Mindanao is the New People’s Army (NPA), the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) which was established in 1968.

FACT

The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) are two of the world’s longest-running insurgency groups, even older than the CPP-NPA.

Read the full story on VERA Files Fact Check.

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