CPP/CPDF: Advance People’s War for Fundamental Change not Sham Elections

Posted to the CPP Website (May 31): Advance People’s War for Fundamental Change not Sham Elections

Simon Naogsan (Ka Filiw)
Spokesperson
Cordillera People's Democratic Front

The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF) commends the Lejo Cawilan Command (LCC) of the New People’s Army-Kalinga and its Front Operational Commands for heeding the call of the Party to conduct tactical offensives against the mercenary AFP troops. In the three tactial offensives and encounters the LCC conducted from April to May, the military suffered 11 casualties with 9 wounded.

The successful tactical offensives were possible because of the overwhelming support of the masses for the Red fighters, the NPA’s mastery of the terrain and the firm resolve of the revolutionary movement to carry forward the armed struggle to a higher stage until final victory. The oppressed masses cannot be hoodwinked by the illusory pretensions that the recent reactionary political exercises will bring about fundamental change notwithstanding the massive automated electoral frauds commited to insure the victory and domination of the ruling Team Pnoy clique. Likewise, the conduct of a patently marred reactionary electoral exercise cannot be an excuse for the military to have a free rein in conducting intelligence work inside revolutionary base areas, harassing voters not to vote candidates that the AFP arbitrarilly perceives and tags as enemies of the state, instigating vilification campaigns and giving escorts to vote buyers and the like. The broad masses of the people demand no less than their emancipation from the yoke of oppression and economic enlavesment and remain steadfast in advancing the armed struggle.

The desperate move of the 5th Infantry Division to their series of defeats is likewise laughable when it opted to file a complaint before a Tabuk City-based Matagoan Bodong Consultative Council, a military sponsored and created body as part of Oplan Bayanihan impementation is seeking redress for the two slain combatants. If indeed there was any violations commited in the conduct of the tactical offensives as provided for under the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the proper body to lodge the complaint would be the Joint Monitoring Committee created for the purpose.

The militar’s psy-war move clearly aims to create division among the tribes, while at the same time insulting the indigenous socio-political practices and institutions in the Cordillera region. Let the 5th ID be reminded that combatants between the NPA and the AFP and its paramilitary forces including the PNP are excluded in the pagta of the bodong.

The Chevron geothermal power plant, the various hydropower dams and large scale corporate mining interests in Kalinga can no longer wield its underlings in the military with impunity so long as the revolutionary movement sustains its advance to the people’s war to a higher stage of struggle.

 With these successful tactical offensives in Kalinga adding up with the earlier TO’s of the Nona del Rosario Command of the NPA in Ifugao also last April as well as the punitive action against the Goldfield-Lepanto Consolidate Mining Corp. drilling equipment in Mankayan by the Jennifer Carino Command of the NPA-Benguet, the Cordillera people continues to show that the armed struggle slowly but steadily advances.

Increasingly coordinated, simultaneous and daring tatical offensives by the NPA are forthcoming, further highighting the utter failure of the first three-year plan of the US-Aquino regime’s ISO Oplan Bayanaihan to “reduce to inconsequential levels” the NPA. #

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20130531_advance-people-s-war-for-fundamental-change-not-sham-elections