The revolutionary armed movement in Southern Tagalog has significantly recovered its strength in the last two years. It continues to overcome internal organizational problems and weaknesses and address problems attendant to the advance of guerrilla war and the difficulties borne out of relentless enemy attacks.
Outside of Mindanao, Southern Tagalog comes in second in terms of the biggest concentrations of AFP, PNP and CAFGU combat battalions which number about 6,000 troops.
In spite of this, the forces of the people’s army in the guerrilla fronts have grown on the whole since 2012. This was one of the factors in the 37% growth in the number of towns where NPA units operate, which is equivalent to a 42% increase in the number of barrios in the NPA’s areas of operation, and a 59% increase in the number of villages where the NPA is able to operate effectively. In the same period, the number of organized masses rose by 45% and the number of basic people’s organizations in the countryside by 51%.
The most striking victory involves thwarting the enemy’s scheme to destroy a guerrilla front. Not only did Southern Tagalog revolutionaries succeed in preserving the front’s remaining forces, they were also able to enhance the strength of the people’s army severalfold. This is the main factor behind the recovery of areas that had been abandoned and the reexpansion of the guerrilla front’s area of operation.
The revolution is deeply rooted among the peasant masses within the guerrilla fronts—the result of a long tradition by the people’s army of advancing the antifeudal united front and agrarian revolution. For decades, the peasant masses have been benefiting from the victories of agrarian revolution in the form of changes in the sharing of the harvest in coconut lands (tersyong baligtad), higher wages for farm workers in coconut, rice and sugar lands, higher farmgate prices for copra and other agricultural products, resistance to, and elimination of, merchant extortion in the form of tara, taktak and resikada in copra trading, rigging of weighing scales and other usurious practices.
The peasant masses and national minorities have also benefited from successful struggles against pasturelands, dismantling them and organizedly occupying and settling these lands. Thousands of hectares of pastureland, frontier land and abandoned and foreclosed land previously owned by landlords have been tilled and made productive by peasant associations. In these areas, the seeds of people’s democratic power are growing and taking shape step by step.
In more consolidated and advanced areas, cooperative projects and various forms of exchange of labor alongside other mass campaigns to raise production, promote health and sanitation, education and other campaigns to advance the people’s welfare are being advanced.
The people’s army continued to mete blows on operating enemy troops in the guerrilla fronts of Southern Tagalog. NPA tactical offensives hit almost all AFP battalions (the 74th, 76th, 4th, 16th, 80th and 85th IB of the Philippine Army; the 4th Marine Battalion Landing Team; the 730th Combat Group of the Philippine Air Force; and the 23rd Division Reconnaissance Company) aside from PNP and CAFGU units.
The enemy suffered at least 111 casualties (56 killed and 55 wounded) in 71 tactical offensives, the most resounding of which was the successful raid on the Paluan, Occidental Mindoro police station on November 7 which yielded 21 high-powered rifles, two pistols and several pieces of military equipment seized from at least seven slain soldiers and policemen and four other wounded. Meanwhile, the enemy suffered an additional 54 casualties (36 killed and 18 wounded) in 12 defensive actions where Red fighters were able to seize the initiative.
As in previous years and times, the urban democratic mass movement has not relented in fighting, and raising national and social issues in order to expose and oppose the ruling Aquino clique and each and every ruling faction that comes to power. The Southern Tagalog mass movements have a prominent presence and avidly participate in all major struggles in Metro Manila such as mobilizations against CARPER and for genuine agrarian reform, for recovery of the coco levy fund, for the support of farmers in Hacienda Luisita, against mines and megadams, Aquino’s SONA, human rights violations and military abuses and in mass actions against the PDAF/DAP and the pork barrel and in related actions for the people’s initiative and the movement to oust Aquino, as well as continuing struggles against growing US military intervention in the Philippines under the VFA/EDCA/ACSA framework.
[Ang Bayan is the official
news organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/publications/ang_bayan/20150207/significant-advances-in-southern-tagalog
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