Message of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Philippines to the Red commanders and fighters of the New People’s Army
We, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
Philippines,
salute the Red commanders and fighters of the New People’s Army on the occasion
of its 45th founding anniversary on March 29. We congratulate you for the
victories that you, together with the Party and the people have accumulated for
a long time and for those that you have won in the past year in the people’s
democratic revolution through protracted people’s war against the ruling system
of big compradors and landlords servile to
US imperialism.
You have won victories as the fruit of hard work, sacrifices and struggle.
In this regard, we give our highest respects to our martyrs and heroes and to
all comrades who have rendered long service to the people and the revolution.
The exemplary revolutionary spirit and deeds of our departed and long-serving
comrades inspire an endless flow of young people to join the New People’s Army
and fight for the national and democratic rights and interests of the people.
You have excelled at propagating the general line of revolutionary struggle
and at integrating the armed struggle with the agrarian revolution and building
the mass base. You have successfully carried out the tasks of fighting the
enemy and defending the people, carrying out politico-military training, doing
propaganda and cultural work, helping the masses organize and mobilize
themselves, looking after their needs, producing much of what you need and
giving full play to the local organs of political power and the mass
organizations. The NPA is truly a people’s army. It is deeply rooted among the
peasant masses. It is humble, hardworking and victorious against all odds. It
is a source of pride for the people to have their best sons and daughters serve
as NPA Red fighters.
The broad masses of the people, especially the workers and peasants, cherish
and support you. Thus, you have succeeded in carrying out a protracted people’s
war. You have preserved, expanded and consolidated your strength against
tremendous odds. The reactionaries and their hangers-on boast of their power
and loot and try to taunt the revolutionaries for being still far from the
Malacanang palace after 45 years of struggle. The scoundrels pretend not to be
aware of the steady growth of the people’s democratic government in the countryside
that is determined to eventually seize the cities on a nationwide scale.
The unprecedented worsening crisis of the world capitalist system and
consequently that of the domestic semicolonial and semifeudal system are
inflicting intolerable suffering on the people and are inciting them to wage
revolution against foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and
bureaucrat capitalism. Under these crisis conditions, the ruling classes have
increasing difficulties in ruling the old way. Aware of the people’s desire for
revolutionary change, we do our best to advance from the current stage of
strategic defensive to that of the strategic stalemate and aim for complete
victory in the ultimate stage of the strategic offensive.
Global crisis, depression and turmoil
In the last half of the 1970s,
US
imperialism was clearly in a stage of strategic decline as it was afflicted by
the problem of stagflation; and as it suffered an unprecedented resounding
defeat in its war of aggression against
Vietnam
and the rest of
Indochina. This fact was
offset by the increasing exposure of the grave socio-economic crisis of the
Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc countries, and in quick succession, by the
Dengist counterrevolution in
China.
The full restoration of capitalism in the revisionist-ruled countries conjured
the illusion of continuing strength and invincibility of monopoly capitalism,
especially that of the
US.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the
US imposed the neoliberal economic
policy on the entire world capitalist system. This policy dished out the lie
that the US and global capitalism could overcome the phenomena of stagflation
and inflation by simply manipulating the money supply and interest rates and
providing more capital and profit opportunities to the monopoly bourgeoisie.
This was achieved by pressing down the wage level, providing tax cuts to the
corporations and wealthy, liberalizing investments and trade, privatizing
public assets, deregulating all social and environmental protection and
denationalizing the underdeveloped countries.
After a decade of neoliberalism, mostly under the two terms of Reagan, the
US became the biggest debtor country of the
world and undermined its manufacturing capability in most tradable goods by
focusing on hightech military production and relying on
China and other
East Asian countries for the supply of cheap consumer manufactures. As a matter
of course, structural adjustment programs and austerity measures devastated
most underdeveloped countries. Already an integral part of the world capitalist
system,
China was struck
hard by economic crisis and political turmoil in 1989 and so were the East
European countries and the
Soviet Union, which
collapsed, amidst the frenzy of full blast capitalist restoration in the years
1989-91.
The
US continued to
appear strong and invincible, as sole superpower and supposed winner in the
Cold War, while the former Soviet bloc countries went into rapid social and
economic degradation and
Japan
got locked in a long period of stagnation after the bursting of its huge real
estate bubble in 1990. Bush Sr. estimated in 1991 that he could make a new
world order chiefly with superior military technology and launched the first
war of aggression against
Iraq.
So did
Clinton subsequently estimate that the
US could do as it pleased by undertaking a
campaign of aggression to obliterate
Yugoslavia. He promoted the
commercialization of information technology, the financial bubble related to it
and the financialization of the entire economy.
Under the neoliberal regime, financial bubbles of various proportions were
to arise and burst first in the underdeveloped countries and in the so-called
emergent markets. The biggest among them was the Asian financial crisis of 1997
before the portentous bursting of the hightech bubble in the
US itself in
2000. However, the latter event would lead Bush Jr. to dream up his “ownership
society” and to engage in further monetary easing in 2001. He generated his own
kind of financial bubble: the housing bubble that would eventually lead to the
mortgage meltdown and financial collapse of 2008. He also conceived of military
Keynesianism, as pump priming the economy through rapid increases of military
spending for war production, overseas deployment of US military forces and wars
of aggression.
Bush Jr. used the 9-11 incident to declare a permanent war of terror in
order to create the legal infrastructure for state terrorism within the
US and on a world scale and to wage wars of
aggression, such as those against
Afghanistan
and eventually against
Iraq.
He was guided by the neoconservative scheme of Pax Americana in the 21st
century, using a broad spectrum of capabilities (chief of which is the hightech
military power) to subjugate or destroy any recalcitrant or challenging state
and thus expand
US
hegemony and economic territory.
Bush Jr. had the despicable distinction of deploying a huge number of US
aggressor troops and wasting trillions of dollars in simultaneous prolonged
wars of aggression and trying in vain to solve the worst financial and economic
crisis since the Great Depression by bailing out the giant banks and selected
corporations of the military-industrial complex. The crisis spread like an
epidemic in the entire world capitalist system. To this day, it keeps on
worsening. The measures adopted to solve it have served to prolong, aggravate
and deepen it.
Obama rose to the
US
presidency on the promise of departing from the anti-democratic and aggressive
policies and acts of Bush Jr. But he has been even more anti-democratic and
aggressive than his predecessor despite his vain attempts at dissembling. He
has stuck to the same neoliberal policy and has therefore failed to revive the
real economy. He has resorted to quantitative easing (printing and releasing
money at the rate of US$85 billion every month) in order to buoy up the
financial markets but not the real economy; and to conjure the illusion of
recovery from time to time.
The
US
is the home base of the neoliberal Washington Consensus and is the epicenter of
the worsening crisis of global capitalism. It dictates to its imperialist
allies and to its client states the continuance of the neoliberal economic
policy and the use of public debt to ride out the crisis. Thus, the public debt
crisis afflicts every imperialist state and every client state. Even the World
Economic Forum has warned that fiscal crises triggered by ballooning debt
levels in advanced countries posed the biggest threat to the global economy in
2014. The stubbornness of the
US
and other imperialist powers in sticking to neoliberalism is due to three
reasons. First, it rakes in superprofits for the monopoly bourgeoisie. Second,
the burden of crisis is always passed on to the working people. Third, the
strength of the revolutionary mass movement is not yet sufficient to compel
changes or system change.
Not in any of the imperialist countries is there any significant
revolutionary force of the proletariat and people capable of challenging the
ruling system. So far, there are only incipient and small revolutionary groups.
The ultra-rightists, pretenders at being centrists and the reformists still
dominate the stage under the watchful eyes of the monopoly bourgeoisie and its
finance oligarchy. The economic and financial magnates and their political,
media and academic agents are still succeeding at obfuscating the capitalist
roots of the crisis by playing up chauvinism, racism, religious bias and
warmongering to play down the class struggle of the proletariat and to
scapegoat foreigners, people of color, migrant workers, Muslims and so on.
Even as no revolutionary force of the proletariat is yet waging class
struggle to such an extent as to worry the ruling bourgeoisie in the
imperialist countries, the imperialist powers are ever prepared to unleash
their security forces and fascist gangs to suppress dissent. What is more
worrisome to the imperialist powers is that the room for mutual accommodation
among them has become significantly less after China and Russia joined the
ranks of capitalist powers. The economic and financial crises have recurred
more often; and have become worse and are driving them to struggle more
vigorously for a redivision of the world.
In becoming fully capitalist, China and Russia have copied the neoliberal
propensity of the US and Japan in expanding the money supply and easing credit
and in effect trying to address financial bubbles by making new ones. In the
wake of the 2008 financial meltdown,
China has generated a credit bubble
of unprecedented dimensions in the entire history of capitalism. It has outstripped
the
US
by so many times in the use of credit to buoy up the stock and bond markets and
the seemingly endless real estate speculation. Whereas the
US has increased bank assets by US$2.1 trillion,
China
has increased its bank assets by US$15.4 trillion in the same period. Under the
auspices of bureaucrat capitalism, these have been lent to crony capitalists
and have become bad debts. In ten major industries, corporations have declared
bankruptcies upon failure to pay the total outstanding debt service of US$1
trillion this year. Economic and finance analysts are now expecting a financial
collapse in
China
within this year or next.
The
US and the European
Union have been most eager to take advantage of the vulnerabilities of
Russia and
China. They keep on trying to put
the states on the borders of the
Russian
Federation under the sway of the
US and the NATO
and to spread their influence to the Russian heartland. They covet the energy
and other mineral riches of
Russia.
But they have to move cautiously because
Russia has continued to develop its
modern weaponry. The
US has
been stubbornly pushing the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement in order to
encircle
China
and further pressure it to privatize its state-owned enterprises. It has
carried out the pivot to East Asia to pressure and contain
China by
deploying in the region 50% of US military and air forces and 60% of US naval
forces. It has no intention of provoking a war with
China
but is trying to further influence and support internal Chinese factors for the
benefit of the
US.
China and
Russia have become sharply aware of the drive of
the
US
to gain world hegemony with the help of NATO. Thus, they have formed the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization. They are among the few countries that the
US cannot bully
with its possession of weapons of mass destruction because they have the same,
especially nuclear weapons and delivery system. They have also formed BRICS as
an economic bloc within and outside the Group of 20.
Brazil,
Russia,
India,
China
and
South Africa have among
them a range of industrial capabilities, raw materials and markets wide enough
to be independent of the
US
and other imperialist powers. Together they are the most formidable among
countries disdained as emergent markets.
The peoples and nations in the general run of the underdeveloped countries
are the most oppressed and exploited in the world. Thus, they are waging
various forms of struggle, including mass protests, strikes and armed struggle.
They are the most desirous of revolutionary change. In a significant number of
countries, they have persevered in revolutionary struggles for national and
social liberation, preserved their revolutionary forces and grown in strength
despite the conjuncture of neoliberalism, revisionist betrayal and neocolonialism.
The torch of armed revolution for national liberation and democracy has been
held high by the peoples of
Palestine, the
Philippines,
India,
Turkey,
Kurdistan,
Peru,
Colombia and
elsewhere.
In countries, such as
Afghanistan,
Pakistan,
Iraq,
Libya
and
Syria, where the
US and other
imperialist powers have unleashed wars of aggression, the people have carried
out fierce armed resistance against the aggressor and puppet forces. They
continue to do so even when the imperialist powers make a show of withdrawing
or reducing their aggressor forces after gaining control over the natural
resources and the business contracts for reconstruction. Even where the armed
resistance seem to have subsided, such as the Balkans and the
Caucasus,
the potential for their resurgence is ever present. The former
revisionist-ruled countries are seething with mass discontent as the people
suffer from impoverishment, deprivation and misery while the big bourgeois and
high bureaucrats wallow in corruption and luxury in their capitalist paradise.
The bankruptcy of the neoliberal economic policy and the global depression
have brought forth the most intolerable conditions of oppression and
exploitation. The potential for revolutionary mass movements exists on an
unprecedentedly wide scale, in entire continents. What is needed is a resolute
and active revolutionary party of the proletariat to lead the armed revolution.
The imperialist powers headed by the
US have already exposed their fatal
weaknesses in failing to solve the ever worsening economic and social crisis.
It has become more exploitative and oppressive, unleashing wars of aggression,
spending astronomical amounts for the military and increasingly preoccupied
with struggles to redivide the world and grab economic territory.
Bankrupt and rotten ruling system
In the time of Marcos, before and during the fascist dictatorship, the
US and other
foreign investors made direct investments to draw superprofits from the
exchange of raw material exports and manufactured imports. The World Bank
provided and facilitated the foreign loans for building infrastructure and
facilities for milling the raw materials produced by the
Philippines.
The pattern of foreign direct and indirect investments ensured that the
character of the Philippine economy stayed underdeveloped, pre-industrial and
semicolonial. Foreign monopoly capitalism, the local exploiting classes,
bureaucratic corruption and the military buildup made sure that nothing would
be left for the industrial development of the Philippines.
Under the US-dictated neoliberal economic policy, from Aquino the mother to
Aquino the son, the same pattern of exchange of raw material exports and
manufactured imports has persisted to tie down the economy to an agrarian and
semifeudal status.
But more foreign loans have been made available to further promote and
enlarge import-dependent consumption and generate a boom in private
construction starting during the Ramos regime. Infrastructure building
continued, financed by local and foreign public borrowing. Under the policy of
trade liberalization, import-dependent consumption grew by leaps and bounds and
even the local production of food staples was undermined. The foreign loans and
remittances of overseas contract workers were also used to cover the trade
deficits.
Under all the post-Marcos regimes, the underdevelopment of the Philippines
has been aggravated and deepened despite the gloss provided by office and
residential towers, hotels and shopping malls. No program of national
industrialization has been undertaken even as foreign corporations and big
compradors have put up sweatshops for fringe processing or semi-manufacturing
to serve final assembly platforms abroad. In the wake of the slump in the
processing of semiconductors for export, the latest nonindustrial activity
being hyped are the business call centers, which are also vulnerable to the
vagaries of the export market.
There has been no genuine land reform program. The so-called Comprehensive
Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) is a fraud. The first Aquino regime earlier
stipulated in the 1987 constitution that the sale of land by the landlord must
be voluntary and that there must be just compensation which means that the
current fair market value of the land must be followed. The CARP has been used to
perpetuate large concentrations of lands in the hands of the landlord class.
Landlords have used bureaucrats to overprice the land in token cases of land
distribution and to change the classification of the land in order to exempt
the land from land reform.
In the wake of the global and financial crisis which began in 2008, the
Philippine reactionary government has been confronted with grave problems, such
as the drastic fall in the export of semiconductors, the closure of various
types of reassembly and semi-manufacturing plants, the rise of unemployment,
the stagnation of the economy, tax evasion, smuggling and the undermining of
the tax revenue base. It is trying to grab all kinds of straws in order to save
itself from drowning. It is selling more bonds more frequently, taking more
foreign debt and attracting the inflow of hot money or portfolio investments.
So long as the US is engaged in quantitative easing (printing money), such
hot money is available from the US banks for the stock and bond markets and for
real estate speculation in the Philippines. But the US has already announced
the tapering of quantitative easing and has already induced the hot money to
flow back to the US. If the credit bubble in China will burst soon, as
expected, the Philippine-based Chinese taipans in private construction and
consumerist marketing will be in serious trouble because they take loans from
China directly or indirectly through banks in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The neoliberal economic policy has extremely favored the multinational
firms, the export-import elite and the magnates in private construction,
tourist facilities and shopping malls. The conspicuous wealth of a few in the
Forbes list exceeds the meager possessions of the majority of the people.
Joblessness, homelessness, landlessness, soaring prices of basic commodities,
lack of social services and criminality are rampant. All these spell
intolerable poverty and misery. Thus, social unrest is widespread. The landless
tillers are outraged that they are forced off their home and land by the
landgrabbers with the help of the military and police. And when they come to
live in urban areas, they are brutally subjected to eviction and demolition of
their flimsy shelters.
The economy has been sucked dry by rapid superprofit-taking by the
multinational firms and their big comprador agents, the mounting debt service,
the conspicuous consumption by the exploiting classes, unbridled bureaucratic
corruption and ever-rising military expenditures. The depressed economic
conditions have limited in a big way the base for tax collection. The
privatization of state assets has gone so far that the reactionary government
has become much weakened by the loss of major sources of income. Falling short
of its tax collection targets, the Aquino regime continues to fleece the
working class with additional burdens, while giving exemptions to its cronies
and big foreign companies. The reactionary Aquino regime is currently in a
state of self-debilitation.
To become president of the reactionary government, despite his slothful
record in Congress, Aquino reconciled himself with his uncle, the Marcos crony
Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco, in order to benefit from the latter’s discreet
control of the automated electoral system and from a huge financial campaign
contribution. Aquino’s US handlers hyped him among the biggest campaign
financiers and the media lords as the man who could govern well and defeat the
communists by presenting an image of being clean and able to deliver services.
Thus, in the first three years of his regime, it seemed as if there would be no
end to the myth of his “popularity” drummed up by the mass media and poll
survey firms under the baton of the yellow media. It was even made to appear
that there was no significant opposition to his regime.
But ultimately, the worsening socio-economic crisis has breached the seeming
homogeneity of the ruling classes and their political agents. In the second
half of Aquino’s term, his corruption together with his cronies and relatives
has been exposed in the disposition of pork barrel, cutting into contracts of
foreign and local companies, tax evasion by his campaign financiers and
smuggling as monitored by no less than the IMF Direction of Trade. Being
Aquino’s biggest benefactor, Danding Cojuangco has raked in gargantuan returns.
His conglomerate has taken control of more than 60% of the biggest contracts
under Aquino’s Public-Private Partnership program. Aquino’s political rivals
and even his allies are still intimidated by the way he has wielded the power
of the presidency.
But some of them will soon cease their fear and trembling as the mass
movement of the patriotic and progressive forces gathers momentum in calling
for Aquino’s ouster or resignation. They stand on solid grounds in rallying the
people against the landlord Aquino, his cacique-style of political patronage
and corruption and his betrayal of public trust. The broad masses of the people
themselves must be aroused, organized and mobilized to expose and condemn the
puppetry, corruption, brutality and mendacity of the Aquino regime.
It is in the nature of neoliberal economics and politics that large amounts
of money and credit can always be deployed for overriding the contradictions of
the greedy in government and business. At the moment, the contradictions that
have surfaced over the exposure of pork barrel corruption are being allayed and
overcome by legal and political maneuvers, including the arrangement of a
consensus by the US and by the chambers of commerce for the amendment of the 1987
constitution to allow limitless foreign ownership of businesses and land.
The Aquino regime’s corruption, incompetence and lack of concern for the
people have been exposed nationally and internationally in connection with the
need to provide immediate relief and long-term rehabilitation and
reconstruction for the 15 million people in the Visayas where supertyphoon
Yolanda (Haiyan) killed and injured tens of thousands of people and destroyed
the homes and livelihoods of millions. This was a repeat of the widespread
disasters resulting from Aquino’s monumental failures in confronting the floods
and landslides during typhoon Pablo, Sendong and other storms. It has been
exposed that the highest bureaucrats and military officers have been
misappropriated billions of pesos of public funds annually appropriated as well
as previous foreign assistance for disaster relief and rehabilitation. The
people of the Visayas therefore despise the Aquino regime. In contrast, they
have been highly appreciative of patriotic and progressive forces that have
been helpful despite their meager material resources. The revolutionary forces
as well have exerted all-out efforts at disaster preparedness and response and
in mobilizing the peasant masses for rehabilitation and mass struggles.
The US and Aquino regime have failed to accomplish their avowed objective of
destroying or reducing the armed revolutionary movement to inconsequentiality.
The triad operations of psywar, intelligence gathering and combat operations
have been futile. The scheme to buy off entire communities, relatives and
friends of suspected Party cadres and Red fights with cash dole outs have
utterly failed and has served only to generate corruption among the bureaucrats
and military officers. Even in the most militarized areas, the enemy has failed
to deter the people from organizing and rising up against military abuses and
against destructive mining operations and to demand land and justice.
Notwithstanding the dismal failure of Oplan Bayanihan, the Aquino regime is
hellbent on leaving a legacy of killing the peace negotiations. The
determination of the regime to kill the peace negotiations has long been
exposed by the attacks of its negotiators on The Hague Joint Declaration as a
document of “perpetual division” and the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity
Guarantees as “inoperative.” The Aquino regime made a complete mockery of
outstanding agreements in carrying out the recent arrest of NDFP consultants
Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria. It insists on detaining Austria whose
identity as a consultant has been previously counter-verified by the previous
GPH representative. Under Aquino, the GPH is more busy hunting down and
arresting NDFP peace consultants rather than exerting efforts to uphold
previous agreements and forge new ones to address the outstanding
socio-economic issues which are at the root of the civil war.
The Aquino regime continues to commit gross violations of the Comprehensive
Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL)
in the course of its Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression. There are at least 170
cases of extrajudicial killings against activists and critics since the Aquino
regime. More than 400 political prisoners continue to languish in various jails
and police and military detention centers. Daily, AFP personnel commit
innumerable rights abuses against the civilian population as they carry out
aerial bombings and firing howitzer cannons targeting civilian communities to
terrorize the people. Combat troops of the AFP use schools, day care centers,
baranggay offices and other public structures as temporary barracks endangering
the people and disrupting local production and commerce.
Aquino further violates the CARHRIHL and insults the victims of human rights
violations during the Marcos regime by appointing a retired general of the
Philippine National Police and no one as representative of the victims of human
rights violations to the Human Rights Victims Claims Board, which is supposed
to process, evaluate and approve claims. The obvious intention of Aquino is to
prevent a large number of victims from getting compensation. The Aquino regime
has also continued the practice of Arroyo of arresting and detaining suspected
political offenders on trumped-up charges of common crimes.
Before the Aquino regime ends, there is still time for the GPH and NDFP to
negotiate and finalize the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic
Reforms. But the GPH negotiating panel has condemned national industrialization
and land reform as “ideologically charged concepts.” These are in fact
politico-economic concepts acceptable even to the patriotic bourgeoisie in the
history of national economic development. There is also time to negotiate and
formulate a Joint Agreement on Truce and Cooperation. But there is never enough
time for this if the Aquino regime’s obsession is to trick the NDFP into
pacification and capitulation with the muddled notion of “indefinite, separate
and simultaneous ceasefires.”
We hope that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) succeeds in getting
the best possible comprehensive peace agreement with the GPH without giving up
the Moro people’s right to national self-determination and ancestral domain. We
reiterate our previous advice to our MILF ally to be ever-vigilant against a
cunning enemy who is after the capitulation, pacification and splitting of
revolutionary forces. There is a short period of time left for the Aquino
regime to push the Bangsanmoro Basic Law through Congress and to fulfill all
its other promises. Contrarians are expected to raise constitutional issues in
both chambers of Congress and ultimately before the Supreme Court. In order to
succeed in upholding the interests of the Moro people, the MILF would have to
be extra vigilant and guard against the machinations of the GPH to discredit
the MILF and divide the Moro people.
To continue having a military foothold in the Philippines despite the
termination of the US-Military Bases Agreement, the US has always maintained
the US-RP Mutual Defense Pact as a license for military intervention and
violation of national sovereignty and territorial integrity. It has also kept
the US-RP Military Assistance Agreement as a way of controlling and using the
puppet armed forces. Since the termination of the bases agreement in 1991, the
US and its Filipino puppets have always maneuvered to circumvent it. They have
devised the Mutual Logistics and Support Agreement to allow US military forces
to land in the Philippines and eventually the Visiting Forces Agreement to give
the US military forces wider latitude for the US military forces to base its
troops in the Philippines for indefinite periods of time.
Now, the US imperialists and traitors in the Aquino regime are rushing the
final draft of the Agreement for Enhanced Defense Cooperation in order to have
its signed or presented during the visit of US President Barrack Obama to
Manila on April 29.
The prospective agreement allows the US military forces to establish
military bases by carving out exclusive enclaves within camps of the puppet
armed forces, similar to the headquarters of the US Joint Special Operations
Task Force (JSOTF)-Philippines. But the puppet armed forces are prohibited from
knowing what are the US military equipment and activities in the enclave. The
circumvention and violation of the provision in the 1987 constitution
prohibiting foreign military bases, troops, facilities and weapons of mass
destruction are being done incrementally.
The puppet regime is spending P1 billion to upgrade facilities in Ulugan Bay
and Oyster Bay in Palawan to accommodate the increased traffic of US warships,
planes and combat troops. It is also set to upgrade other AFP camps and
reservations in Palawan and Rizal in order to accommodate US military bases.
The initial reason of the US for deploying its military forces in the
Philippines is to conduct joint military exercises and inter-operability
training with Philippine armed forces. Thus, it began to maintain the
rotational presence of US military forces, in fact, as forward deployed forces.
It increased the number of reasons for the US military forces to operate in the
Philippines, including humanitarian assistance, civic action, medical missions
and disaster response.
Consequent to 9-11, Bush declared the Philippines as the second front in the
so-called global war on terror. Still further, the US justified the rotational
presence of its military troops claiming to keep the China Sea open for
international navigation and commerce. Since then, the US and its Filipino puppets
have stirred up disputes between China and the Philippines over the islets,
reefs and shoals within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of the
Philippines. Finally, the US proclaimed the pivot to East Asia, involving the
deployment of around 50% of its ground and air forces and 60% of its naval
forces in the region.
In relation to what it considers as the growing military power of China, the
US is now wasting its resources in redeploying its forces in East Asia and
posturing that it can intimidate and contain China. The US is merely posturing
against China in order to justify its effort to entrench itself in the
Philippines militarily and maintain a balance of forces to keep going the
US-Sino economic cooperation at the expense of the people in Southeast Asia. At
any rate, elsewhere in the world, political turmoil, civil wars and regional
wars can arise to keep the US from over-concentrating forces in a region like
East Asia where China is avoiding any violent confrontation, especially with
the US.
The US is reprehensible for using such disputes to entrench itself
militarily in the Philippines and violate Philippine sovereignty and
territorial integrity. The US and its puppets should also be stopped from
spreading the notion that the Philippines can be nothing more than a passive
object of interest between the US and China. In all circumstances, the Filipino
people must assert their national sovereignty and Philippine territorial
integrity. They must aim to industrialize the Philippines in order to build a strong
economy, avail of diplomacy for peace and development and produce the
conventional and modern weapons for their own defense. They should not allow
any foreign power to use any excuse for violating their sovereignty and the
integrity of their territory.
NPA status and plan of strategic advance
The correctness of the general line of people’s democratic revolution
through protracted people’s war is well proven by the growth in strength and
advance of the revolutionary forces of the people since 45 years ago. The
revolutionary forces have overcome and scored victories against the most
violent forms of reaction, including 14 years of the Marcos fascist
dictatorship and the most malicious combinations of violence and deception
unleashed by the successive post-Marcos pseudo-democratic regimes. US
imperialism and its puppets have launched all kinds of national campaigns of
military suppression, except a war of aggression by the US, and have failed to
achieve their objectives.
The Filipino people and their revolutionary forces have persevered and
gained strength despite certain unfavorable conditions in the world situation
in the last three decades or so. The major adverse conditions include the
revisionist betrayal of socialism catching up with China, the consequent defeat
of the proletarian cultural revolution and socialism in 1976, the debilitation
of the struggle against neocolonialism in the underdeveloped countries, the
full restoration of capitalism in the biggest revisionist-ruled countries, the
victory of the imperialist alliance headed by the US in the Cold War, the
neoliberal economic offensive and its attendant anti-communist and conservative
ideological offensive and the accelerated wars of aggression instigated by the
US since the beginning of the 1990s supposedly to build a new world order and a
Pax Americana for the 21st century.
However, the highest bureaucrats and military officers of every reactionary
regime in the Philippines unwittingly give the highest accolade to their
revolutionary adversaries by saying that the Communist Party of the Philippines
and the New People’s Army and, by consequence, the entire people in the armed
revolutionary movement, constitute the biggest threat to the reactionary state.
But to comfort themselves, the counterrevolutionaries also give the big lie
that they have reduced the armed strength of the NPA from 25,000 high-powered
rifles in the mid-1980s to a few thousands and they are now out to either
destroy the NPA or reduce it further to the inconsequential or irrelevant.
Elements in the media aligned with or in the payroll of the military psywar
organization never mention the fact that in 1985, the NPA had only 5,600
high-powered rifles as per assessment by the plenum of the CPP Central
Committee.
The best way to appreciate the victories and accumulated strength of the
armed revolution is to know how these have been achieved under the leadership
of the Party through the revolutionary forces and the people’s hard work,
sacrifice and fierce struggle against tremendous odds. The membership of the
Party is now at 150,000 and their units and leading organs cover nearly all
provinces of the country.
The New People’s Army has thousands of Red fighters with high-powered rifles
mostly captured from the enemy. It has surpassed its previous peak in 1985 and
is now about 10,000 HPRs. The prevailing socio-economic conditions and lack of
political rights are ever favorable for the rapid expansion of the NPA. In a
medium-sized region, the NPA was able to enlist no less than 800 new Red
fighters in 2013 as a result of an active campaign of recruitment. In Far South
Mindanao, one of the relatively smaller regions, NPA platoons expanded by 120%.
The NPA currently operates in more than 110 guerrilla fronts, covering
significant portions of 71 provinces. It is augmented by tens of thousands of
people’s militia doing police and internal security work in localities and
hundreds of thousands in the self-defense units of the mass organizations.
There are mass organizations of workers, peasants, women, youth, children and
cultural activists whose members run into millions. These support the local
organs of political power which attend to various functions: administration,
mass organizing, public education, land reform and production, health care,
defense, arbitration, sports and cultural affairs.
There is a clear baseline of strength and experience from which to make
further advances at the national, regional, provincial and lower levels. We are
confident of moving forward in realizing the plan to advance from the stage of
strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate in the people’s war.
The drive to carry out the plan is right on time. The crisis of the ruling
system is worsening. This fact will become conspicuous as the portfolio
investments from abroad will flow back to their sources and export orders will
suffer a further fall as China begins a major correction of credit abuse or
suffer a financial crash. The revolutionary forces must be ever ready to take
advantage of the bursting of the economic bubble that has a high probability of
occurring within the remaining years of the Aquino regime. This will likely be
accompanied by a sharp increase in credit interest rates, a sudden halt in
private construction projects, mass closures of finance-related business
processing outsourcing companies and mass return of migrant workers.
The key political prerequisite is to increase the Party membership to
250,000. The increase of Party cadres and members would allow the Party to
exercise its leadership in the growing number of units of the people’s army,
mass organizations and the local organs of political power and in various types
of revolutionary functions. The Party is responsible for ensuring that the
general line of people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war
is followed, taking up the issues and solving the problems in a timely way,
taking the necessary initiatives to advance the revolution, coordinating the
struggles in the rural and urban areas and determining the direction of the
struggle.
The existing stock of Party cadres and members should be activated and
reinvigorated in connection with the plan of strategic advance. The existing
Party cadres and units must recruit candidate members from the ranks of the Red
fighters and the activists in the mass movement in the urban and rural areas.
It is the responsibility of Party cadres and units to make sure that within the
period of candidature stipulated by the Party Constitution, the candidate
members become full members as a consequence of their performance of basic
duties of Party membership and completion of the basic Party course in a few
sessions, augmented and reinforced by reading assignments and further
discussions.
Under the absolute leadership of the Party, the New People’s Army carries
out the revolutionary armed struggle in coordination with the agrarian
revolution and building the mass base. Leading Party committees must exercise
both strategic and tactical leadership over the NPA and the revolutionary mass
movement in order to ensure that the people’s war advances relatively even at
the national, inter-regional and regional levels by coordinating various
aspects and areas of work, quickly resolving the outstanding issues that impede
advances and ensuring that the stronger parts help the weaker parts.
Operational commands of the NPA must be built and strengthened from the
national to the front levels in order to raise its politico-military
capabilities, including coordination of tactical offensives.
The revolutionary armed struggle is necessary for seizing arms from the
enemy, building the people’s army and destroying the power of the reactionary
state, the local tyrants and other bad elements. The peasant masses are an
inexhaustible wellspring of Red fighters, political and material support but
only if the agrarian revolution is carried out. The mass base must be
continuously expanded and consolidated through the building of mass organizations
of various types and the local organs of political power. The objective of the
people’s war is to enable the people’s democratic government to advance wave
upon wave until it can displace and completely destroy the reactionary state.
The main form of struggle is armed struggle. It answers the central question
of the revolution, which is the seizure of political power. The strategic line
of protracted people’s war, encircling the cities from the countryside and
accumulating strength until conditions are ripe for the nationwide seizure of
political power in the cities, has allowed the people’s army and other
revolutionary forces to grow from small to big and from weak to strong and to
withstand and frustrate all reactionary campaigns of military suppression.
The NPA upholds the strategic line of avoiding or frustrating a war of quick
decision or putting at risk the main or total strength of an entire regional
force of the NPA in a single decisive engagement without certainty of victory.
This has allowed the NPA to build further its strength by launching only those
tactical offensives it is sure of winning and by carrying out those political,
economic, social and cultural tasks as to turn the backward villages into
bastions of the revolution.
The present stage of the people’s war is still the strategic defensive even
as the goal of the strategic plan of advance is to reach the threshold of the
strategic stalemate in a few years. The line for tactical offensives within the
strategic defensive is still extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the
basis of an ever-widening and deepening mass base. By winning tactical
offensives against the soft and weak points of the enemy forces, the NPA can
increase the capability, size, equipment, technique and effectiveness of its
combat units.
We shall be able to deploy more guerrilla units and cover wider ground as we
seize more arms from the enemy. Winning the battles of annihilation in the form
of ambushes, raids and arrest operations is the principal way of building the
armed strength of the NPA. The NPA and the people’s militias manufacture and
make use of command-detonated explosives in combination with ambushes and raids
in accordance with the rules of war. So is the use of any incendiary to destroy
the camps, vehicles, fuel depots and other supply points of the enemy. The
victories in battles of annihilation, leniency towards prisoners of war,
suitable propaganda and political work within the ranks of the enemy troops
(especially among the armed paramilitary conscripted among the peasant masses
as well as foot soldiers) will help to make successful the efforts at
disintegrating the enemy forces.
The NPA will be in a better position to deploy more combat units and wage
battles of annihilation with shorter rest periods if the local Party branches,
mass organizations, organs of political power and people’s militia can take
over the non-combat responsibilities and work load of the NPA, giving more time
for NPA units to engage in politico-military training and tactical offensives.
People’s militia units are increasingly becoming more capable in carrying out
both annihilitative and attritive tactical offensives against the enemy forces.
This gives the NPA commands at various levels can rotate the NPA units in
undertaking politico-military training, mass work, production and combat.
It is well within the capabilities of the NPA to increase its armed strength
to 25,000 soon. The NPA can do so by carrying out more frequent big and small
tactical offensives against military detachments, checkpoints, police stations,
private security agencies, private armies and criminal gangs with a clear aim
and plan to seize more and more weapons. At the same time, friendly allies can
be persuaded to donate arms to the NPA. More than one million firearms are
supposed to be in the hands of private individuals. We find out who they are,
and persuade those willing to donate or sell their weapons and subject to raids
or arrest operations those who are hostile or make use of their weapons against
the people.
Since the start of 2014, the AFP has been rapidly deploying more forces in
Mindanao, especially in the advanced regions and subregions which are blazing a
trail in tactical offensives, agrarian struggle and mass base building. More
than 60% of the combat troops of the AFP are now deployed in Mindanao in line
with the objective of deploying a minimum of one battalion for every front.
The revolutionary forces in Southern Mindanao are being subjected to intense
military operations by the combined forces of the 10th, 6th and 4th Army
divisions. Elite combat forces such as two Scout Ranger battalion have been
deployed in Northeast Mindanao, a Special Forces battalion in Northcentral
Mindanao and forces of the 68th and 4th Special Forces battalion in the
boundary areas of Bukidnon. The vain hope is to overwhelm the local NPA units
and taking away the initiative.
The AFP redirects and redeploys its elite combat troops in mountainous
boundary territories but is compelled to leave the lowland communities, main
centers and much of the towns vacant. Meanwhile, it deploys other troops in the
community centers in areas covered by the operations of so-called special
operation teams.
The enemy still does not have the capacity to occupy and control thoroughly
more than 10% of the total area of the guerrilla fronts for extended periods of
six months to one year, without leaving the overwhelming majority of guerrilla
fronts and many other populated areas unrepressed and free from occupation by
the enemy. Even in the guerrilla fronts which the enemy forces choose to
concentrate on, there are wide gaps between their perimeter vantage points or
sentries and between their special operational teams.
It is therefore possible for the NPA units to maneuver and counter-encircle
enemy units within the guerrilla front. It is also possible for NPA forces in a
nearby guerrilla front or in an adjacent region to engage in
counter-encirclement and decide what exterior line operations they can launch
against the enemy. In farther guerrilla fronts, which are not yet targeted for
concentrated enemy attacks, the NPA can take initiative there to take advantage
of the absence of enemy military forces. On varied scales, we must keep the
enemy befuddled and prone to commit mistakes as we continue to take and hold
the initiative and skillfully use the guerrilla tactics of shifting, dispersal
and concentration to properly combine and strike the correct balance between
work in the guerrilla bases and guerrilla zones and in the mountainous areas and
lowlands.
The revolutionary forces in Mindanao are demonstrating their capability at
confronting the increased deployment of enemy troops by coordinating tactical
offensives at the subregional, regional and inter-regional levels while
avoiding a decisive engagement.
The focus of troop deployment in Mindanao regions can only be carried out
with a concomitant reduction of troops in other regions. The national
operations command and corresponding operations commands of the NPA in the
Luzon and Visayas regions can take advantage of the reduced troop deployment or
inability of the AFP to increase troops in their areas by quickly planning and
launching tactical offensives against the weaker units of the enemy. In doing
so, they not only gain strength for their own units but also help in reducing
the pressure on our forces in Mindanao enabling them to further advance.
The enemy is fond of spreading the propaganda that the NPA is already being
decimated or is already being reduced to inconsequentiality by fake mass surrenders,
military defeats or the capture of high-ranking leaders. Nothing can be farther
from the truth. The best way to discredit such lies of the enemy is for the
Party and the NPA commands concerned to deliver blows to the enemy, especially
those units which are notorious for abuses. As a matter of course, successful
tactical offensives are like powerful manifestos. There are also offensives
that are head blows on the enemy and can expose dramatically the weakness and
vulnerability of the enemy at the most unexpected points. It is possible to
launch an annihilative battle or a series of offensives that will result in a
substantial enlargement of the cache of NPA weapons and war materiel and big
military and political gains such as raiding big military, police or private
armories, wiping out not only a score but hundreds of enemy troops, destroying
a large fuel depot, parked military vehicles or aircrafts or arresting military
officials indicted for crimes against the people.
In the foreseeable future, we can increase the number of guerrilla fronts to
200 and have a guerrilla front in every rural congressional district of the
enemy. The current strength of the NPA need not be divided and spread thinly to
cover 200 guerrilla fronts. The expansion of the NPA forces can proceed from
where they currently are. But the ground can be laid for establishing new
guerrilla fronts by Party cadres and members and mass organizations. The
preparation of the guerrilla front can be done until such time that the seed
units of the NPA can be deployed from a nearby guerrilla front in the same or
adjacent region or province. The NPA is well experienced in this regard. It
also has plenty of experience in deploying competent and experienced Party
cadres and Red fighters in order to augment the strength of a weaker guerrilla
front or help a guerrilla front recover from prolonged enemy concentration or
due to mistakes of our cadres or both.
To prepare the establishment of a new guerrilla front, the Party cadres and
mass organizations concerned must conduct social investigation, chiefly to
learn from the peasants what are their agrarian and related problems and how
the peasant association and other forms of organization can push forward a
genuine land reform program. Subsequently, the NPA can deploy its seed units in
the prospective guerrilla front. For the NPA to become deeply rooted in a
guerrilla front, it must engage in agrarian revolution, be it the minimum
program for a start or the maximum in the long run. Aside from land reform, it
must engage in all kinds of campaigns to bring social benefits to the people,
such as literacy and information, raising production, health care, disaster
preparation, relief and rehabilitation, cultural activities and so on.
Carrying out the minimum land reform program demonstrates immediately how
the revolution benefits the landless tillers substantially. It includes rent
reduction, elimination of usury, fair wages to farm workers, fair farmgate
prices and promotion of agricultural production and sideline occupations though
rudimentary forms of cooperation.
The maximum land reform program includes the confiscation of land from the
landlords and restitution of the land from the land grabbers and free and
equable distribution of land to the tillers, taking into the account the size
and quality of the land. Confiscation and restitution of the land are simply a
matter of stopping to pay rent and other tributes to the landlord and telling
off his running dogs to stop serving him or leave the area. But the revolutionary
forces and people must be ready to defend the program and the cadres and
peasants must be ready to make it succeed through competent administration and
cooperative efforts.
In carrying out the minimum and maximum programs for land reform, rural mass
campaigns and struggles must be carried out time and again in order to raise
the collective determination of the peasant masses, expand and upgrade their
hard-earned victories and ensure that the militant poor peasant class and farm
workers remain at the helm of peasant associations and Party branches in the
localities.
There can be peasant mass campaigns coordinated at the regional,
inter-regional or national levels that seek to unite and mobilize the biggest
number of peasants on the basis of common outstanding issues including the
extremely low farmgate prices of copra and palay, the widespread usurious
practices of so-called microfinancing institutions, lowering irrigation fees,
steep prices of seedlings and farm inputs, the entry of GMOs which destroy the
environment and threaten public health and others.
To make more land available for the land reform program, the NPA must help
the peasant masses secure the idle tillable lands for themselves and keep out
the land grabbers, take over excess lands under pasture lease from the
reactionary state and dismantle export-oriented plantations owned by foreign
corporations and by comprador-landlords and large areas of land designated for
upscale resort and tourism development.
The people and the people’s army must take all measures to dismantle mining
enterprises and logging for export. The peasant masses and the minority peoples
must wage mass struggles to assert control of the land grabbed by the big
plantations, logging and mining companies. The people’s army must continue to
impose sanctions on these for having ravaged and ruined the environment,
damaged agriculture by causing soil erosion and poisoning the rivers and
streams and have taken out the country’s nonrenewable resources, forever
depriving the country of such resources for well-paced and wise utilization for
industrial development in the future.
In the areas of expansion, the units of the NPA must establish the barrio
organizing committee after quick but sufficient social investigation in order
to assure them of immediate support. But such provisional organs of political
power can have a good basis for being organized if progressive mass
organizations have been priorly organized and recently expanded from nearby
areas. Thus, the process of selecting and appointing the officers of the barrio
organizing committee is facilitated. The higher formation of the barrio
revolutionary committee is based on the formation of the mass organizations of
workers, if any, peasants, women, youth, children and cultural activists in the
barrio. The representatives of these mass organizations or the people of the
entire barrio (if security permits) elect the barrio revolutionary committee.
The local Party branch also draws its membership from the mass organizations.
A guerrilla front consists of guerrilla bases and guerrilla zones. The
guerrilla bases are the most consolidated part of the guerrilla front, while
the guerrilla zones are the less consolidated part. The higher level of
consolidation in the guerrilla base is manifested by the existence of the
revolutionary committees at the barrio and inter-barrio (municipal) levels and
the local Party sections and branches, the full development of the mass
organizations, the success of the land reform campaign and other campaigns and
the confidence of the appropriately-sized unit of the people’s army to base
itself in the barrio or in a cluster of barrios.
The lower level of consolidation of the guerrilla zone is manifested by the
existence of the barrio organizing committee, the absence of the local Party
branch, the beginnings of mass organizing and mass campaigns and the relatively
free entry and exit of both the revolutionary and enemy forces. The guerrilla
zone does not remain so forever, it is in the process of becoming a guerrilla
base. As a matter of course, relatively stable base areas can arise from among
two or more adjoining guerrilla fronts that have become so consolidated.
The building of guerrilla base areas is a necessary part of carrying out the
protracted people’s war. Without it, the revolution cannot advance. It is the
responsibility of the leading Party committees and NPA commands at the
regional, subregional and front levels to identify the areas where
revolutionary base areas are best to be built on the basis of physical, social
and political terrain as well as the history of the people’s revolutionary struggle
in the areas. There should be a corresponding deployment of NPA units to
reflect the priorities for building these guerrilla base areas and its
interplay with the guerilla zones.
It is of utmost importance to increase the number of guerrilla fronts and
let the local Party branches, the organs of political power, mass
organizations, the people’s militia and the self-defense units perform tasks
and campaigns for the benefit of the people. Thus, the NPA can assign units to
perform combat duties and wage offensives with short rest periods. Units that
concentrate on combat duties for a certain period may also be rotated into
noncombat tasks, including politico-military training, mass work, production
and cultural work. Thus, they maintain their close links with the people.
In the rural and urban areas, the broad masses of the people must always be
aroused, organized and mobilized. For this purpose, we must understand and
appreciate the united front as a revolutionary weapon complementing the armed
struggle. It is the way to strengthen the basic forces of the revolution above
all and at the same time attract the middle or intermediate forces and even
take advantage of the splits among the reactionaries in order to isolate,
discredit, weaken and destroy the power of the enemy. It is the quickest way to
reach and influence the people in their millions, including those not yet
organized and still influenced by non-revolutionary forces.
The antifeudal united front requires the Party and the working class to rely
mainly on the poor peasants and farm workers, to win over the middle peasants,
neutralize the rich peasants and take advantage of the splits among the
enlightened and evil gentry in order to isolate and destroy the power of the
evil gentry, the big and despotic landlords, who have their own private armed
guards and have easy access to the reactionary armed forces and police whom
they control and use by virtue of political power. The landlord-based political
dynasties are much hated. The broad masses of the people are joyous whenever
they see that the NPA is dismantling the vast estates of these dynasties,
seizing the arms of their private and state-provided guards and ambushing the
tyrants while on the road.
The antifeudal united front is of decisive importance in the revolution
because it serves the agrarian revolution and the satisfaction of the peasant
demand for land, which is the main content of the democratic revolution. But it
is within the framework of the anti-imperialist and antifeudal united front by
which the Party and the working class rely mainly on the basic worker-peasant
alliance, win over the urban petty bourgeoisie, further win over the national
bourgeoisie and take advantage of the splits among the reactionary classes of
big compradors and landlords in order to isolate and destroy the power of the
enemy, be this the most reactionary force or a foreign aggressor. Fighting the
enemy at every given time through the national united front is arousing and
mobilizing the broad masses of the people against the current enemy and taking
the direction of overthrowing the entire ruling system of the big compradors
and landlords.
It is fine that the legal and urban-based patriotic and progressive forces
are determined to arouse, organize and mobilize the broad masses of the people
against the US-directed Aquino regime. It is necessary to employ a broad united
front for the purpose.
It has been proven twice in recent history that the
president of the reactionary government can be overthrown. The strength of the
mass movement may not yet be sufficient to overthrow the entire ruling system
but it has succeeded at overthrowing the Marcos fascist regime and the corrupt
Estrada regime. It almost succeeded at overthrowing the Arroyo regime.
The democratic mass movement must deliberately plan out a comprehensive,
widespread and intensive campaign to oust the Aquino regime over the next two
years before the presidential elections of 2016. They must vigorously expose
and confront the puppetry, brutality, mendacity and corruption of the ruling
regime. There should be an all-out effort to reach out to millions of people by
carrying out widespread propaganda and education work.
There should be a crescendo of mass demonstrations by the broad masses of
workers, students, semiproletariat and rank-and-file employees. Mass
demonstrations at the campus or inter-campus levels, inter-community and
inter-municipal levels and so on must be carried out in order to allow the
people to voice out their protests against the Aquino regime and assert their
demands for wages increases, lower prices, free education, free health service
and other national and democratic demands. The victims of the Aquino regime’s
criminal neglect in the areas devastated by the recent supertyphoons and other
calamities must rise in their numbers. The strength of the widespread
anti-Aquino protests can eventually be mustered to generate larger coordinated
mass demonstrations.
They must militate the people to carry out direct political action as a
legitimate means of regime change as against simply waiting for the next
presidential elections which is bound to be controlled once more by the ruling
Aquino faction. Doing so serves to strengthen the revolutionary mass movement
in the long-term struggle to overthrow the entire ruling system.
US imperialism keeps on escalating its military intervention in the
Philippines under the pretext of waging war on terrorism and containing China.
As the people’s war advances to the stage of the strategic stalemate, the US
will further escalate its military intervention and threaten to unleash a war
of aggression against the Filipino people. However, the US and other
imperialist powers have created so many armed conflicts abroad; and the crisis
of global capitalism is generating armed resistance on a global scale. The
armed revolutions elsewhere in the world will reduce the ability of the US to
win a war of aggression in the Philippines.
Fighting Tasks
Let us state concisely the fighting tasks that must be carried out by the
Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, the mass
organizations, the organs of political power and the broad masses of the
people.
1
Unite the Filipino people along the general line of people’s
democratic revolution against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes!
Under the leadership of the working class and its Party, the Filipino people
must unite along the general line of their new democratic revolution against US
imperialism and local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords. They
must be aroused, organized and mobilized to take up all major immediate and
long-term issues and to wage all forms of revolutionary struggle in order to
achieve complete national liberation and democracy.
2
Strive to oust the US-directed Aquino regime to punish it for its
crimes against the people and strengthen the revolutionary movement!
The democratic mass movement must strive to oust the US-Aquino regime. At
the same time, the NPA must intensify the tactical offensives to show support
to the people and patriotic forces rising up in the noble endeavor to oust the
regime. The people must exert all-out effort to oust the regime within the
relatively short period of two years and prevent it from perpetuating itself in
power through the elections. The mass movement must further strengthen itself
for future struggles against the ruling system. The revolutionary mass movement
gains from the struggle to oust the Aquino by enjoining the most advanced
activists to join the Party and serve in the New People’s Army or carry out
other revolutionary duties.
3
Stay firm on the strategic line of protracted people’s war,
encircling the cities from the countryside!
Armed struggle is the principal form of revolutionary struggle to overthrow
the ruling system of big compradors and landlords who are servile to US
imperialism. We must continue to adhere to the strategic line of protracted
people’s war. It corresponds to the character and chronic crisis of the ruling
system of big compradors and landlords. It has allowed the New People’s Army
and all other revolutionary forces to preserve themselves, grow in stages and
advance against tremendous odds.
4
Realize the current strategic plan to advance from strategic
defensive to the strategic stalemate!
We must stay the course in realizing the strategic plan to advance from the
strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate. We have the Party nationwide
and deeply rooted among the toiling masses and the battle-tested, courageous
and trained Red commanders and fighters to carry out the plan. They enjoy the
support of the mass organizations and organs of political power. The New
People’s Army must continue to strive to seize and hold the initiative against
the enemy armed forces. The Party must ensure that the advanced guerrilla fronts,
subregions and regions help to expand or strengthen the revolutionary forces in
other fronts, subregions or regions.
5
Further develop guerrilla warfare and intensify the tactical
offensives!
We must continue to wage and develop intensive and extensive guerrilla
warfare on the basis of an ever-expanding and ever-deepening mass base. We must
continue to combat conservatism, seize and hold initiative by maintaining an
offensive mode. The NPA and all revolutionary forces must continue to avail all
opportunities to thwart the enemy. We expand and consolidate our strength wave
upon wave. NPA commands and people’s militias must be able to carry out
small-team to company-size tactical offensives that aim to seize the enemy’s
firearms and weapons cache. At the same time, we undertake certain commando
operations that serve as striking manifestations of our growing strength. We
shall be able to deploy larger guerrilla units as we seize more arms from the enemy.
The possibility of regular mobile warfare depends on the success of our
guerrilla warfare.
6
Carry out land reform as the main content of the democratic
revolution!
We must carry out the appropriate and necessary land reform program in
various areas. The ultimate aim is to accomplish the agrarian revolution as
main content of the democratic revolution. We must dismantle the large landed
estates, the landgrabbing plantations and pasture leases to make more land
available for land reform. We must destroy the logging enterprises and
plantation and mining operation for export because they cause soil erosion,
floods and poisoning of the streams. These harm agriculture, fishing and other
forms of livelihood of the people.
7
Expand and consolidate the mass base and increase the guerrilla
fronts!
We must expand and consolidate the mass base. We must increase the guerrilla
fronts wave upon wave or by employing teams to prepare guerrilla zones. We must
build the mass organizations of workers, peasants, women, youth, children and
cultural activists. We must build the local organs of political power from the
barrio level up. We must also build the people’s militia as police of the
barrio and the self-defense units of mass organizations. The barrio and
inter-barrio revolutionary committees must be able to carry out more and more
state functions within the context of waging guerrilla warfare against the
enemy. The units of the people’s army can carry out more tactical offensives if
the local Party branch, the organs of political power and the mass
organizations perform the non-combat tasks. Cognizant of the existence of dual
political power as well as the archipelagic war terrain, the people and
revolutionary forces in the guerrilla base areas must master the art of combining
legal and illegal forms of struggle in order to defend the mass organizations
and the organs of political power, their economic gains as well as victories in
the social, cultural and other fields.
8
Prepare against further US military intervention and aggression.
We must condemn and oppose the escalation of US military intervention. We
must prepare the people and our forces against the possibility of a US war of
aggression as the people’s war advances. We must promote a national united
front against imperialism and intensify our struggle against the puppets and
traitors who are hellbent on selling away the national patrimony, allowing
foreign capitalists to own businesses and land without limits, allowing the US
military to reestablish its foreign military bases supported with AFP funds and
deploying its troops and facilities within the country which violate national
sovereignty and territorial integrity.
9
Seek international support for the Philippine revolution through the
overseas Filipinos!
We must stand in solidarity with, and actively support, our compatriots who
are compelled by the dire situation to leave their country and families in
order to work abroad. We must help them fight for their rights abroad because
they suffer exploitation, discrimination and oppression. They comprise more
than 10% of the Philippine population and are in more than 100 countries. We
must arouse, organize and mobilize them abroad and their families in the
Philippines to participate in the revolutionary mass movement.
10
Contribute to the struggle of the proletariat and people against
imperialism, for democracy and the resurgence of the socialist cause!
The Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines and various mass organizations must
contribute what they can in order to reinvigorate and further strengthen the
anti-imperialist and democratic movement as well as the communist movement in
the world. They must maintain and further develop the relations of solidarity
that they have established. The Party and the Philippine proletariat have the
special duty of upholding and developing proletarian internationalism in
cooperation with the international communist movement.
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20140329_intensify-the-offensives-to-seize-further-initiative-in-advancing-the-people-s-war
