RIGOBERTO F. SANCHEZ
SPOKESPERSON
NPA-SOUTHERN MINDANAO (MERARDO ARCE COMMAND)
November 30, 2021
We mark today, November 30, three historic events that are important to the national democratic movement—the Trade Union Day which workers and trade unions around the country, especially under the Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions (RCTU), commemorate; the 57th founding anniversary of Kabataang Makabayan which the youth in and out of the Philippines are celebrating, and the birth of Ka Andres Bonifacio, the proletarian hero of the Katipunan.
On both occasions of TU Day and anniversary of KM, the emancipating strength of organization is prime: for workers, trade unions embody their collective ideological, political and organizational strength, while for the youth, the Kabataang Makabayan represents their legacy of militant struggle. In both these occasions, the revolutionary spirit of Bonifacio serves as a beacon of inspiration.
Andres Bonifacio was a bodeguero, a city worker in the prime of his youth. He knew enough of the French revolution to know that the working class is a formidable force in social change. An avid reader, he was inspired by the agitations of the First Propaganda Movement which sparked the Filipino revolt against Spanish colonialism. At 29, he founded the Katipunan and led the first national armed resistance of mainly Filipino peasants against a dominant foreign power.
In short, Bonifacio was a youthful proletariat who understood the roots of national oppression and the need for an organized peasant revolutionary army to wage a people’s war against a stronger enemy.
The Filipino workers and youth of today confront the tyranny of the US-Duterte regime much in the same way that Bonifacio in his time confronted the evils of Spanish colonialism. It is likewise worth remembering that like Bonifacio in establishing the Katipunan, the workers and the youth continue to express their national and class aspirations by resisting through their organizations.
The US-Duterte’s fascist tyranny of more than five years has been a scourge to the Filipino workers, the youth and their organizations. In the country, workers and their genuine trade unions bear the brunt of the neoliberal adjustments to the “new normal” being railroaded by the big bourgeois compradors and their foreign capitalist bosses.
In Southern Mindanao since the start of the Covid-19 public health crisis, tens of thousands of workers have been terminated, laid off, or put to “flexible working set-ups” for the sole purpose of weakening their unions and their barganing power. Their unions and associations are being attacked with unfair labor practices, union busting schemes and NTF-ELCAC-sponsored vilification campaign. Majority of workers in the region remain contractual, and unable to collectively bargain for their rights. Capitalists, especially in the agri-ventures industry and service industry like food delivery, are inventing new foul ways to obscure employee-employer relationships to prolong contractualization and avoid security of tenure.
Meanwhile, the Filipino youth under Duterte remain the inheritor of a country deep in socio-economic crisis, whatever the class or sector they may come from. They are deprived of their right to education, decent jobs and other democratic rights. They no longer embody being the “hope of the motherland” but the future jobless workers and displaced peasants. They have become collateral damage of Duterte’s war on drugs which have victimized countless urban poor youths. They are the main target of the reactionary ruling clique’s culture of misinformation and fake news that blind the nation from learning the lessons of history and enable the return of the Marcoses and perpetuation of Duterte tyranny.
The Regional Operations Command of the NPA in Southern Mindanao enjoin the workers and youth to struggle more valiantly for their socio-economic and political rights under the banner of the RCTU and KM. Using Marxist-Leninist lens, workers must study and fiercely counter the debilitating effects of neoliberal policies to the trade union movement. In the region, they must continue to organize unions and associations to protect workers’ job security, ensure living wage, and demand better working conditions, especially during this time of the pandemic.
The Filipino youth, meanwhile, must arduously lead the fight against misinformation and the Duterte regime’s every effort to keep the youth ignorant and vulnerably docile by such draconian acts as pulling out “subversive” literature from academic institutions. They must likewise expose and oppose the fascist red-tagging of youth activists and their organizations, especially the insidious campaign to drag the youth’s parents and family into the regime’s witch-hunt. The youth must strive to end the reactionary regime’s neoliberal policies that deprive the youth of their right to education and Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.
Above all, on this occasion, Red commanders and fighters in the region reecho our invitation to all workers and youth to take up arms in the NPA and advance the people’s war.
Despite the so-called “achievements” that they try desperately to peddle, Duterte, his dogs in the AFP, and the NTF-ELCAC fail to learn one important lesson of history: for as long as the unjust status quo stands, the youth, especially those who come from the most oppressed like the working class, will always rebel and strive for a better future. The workers and the youth in the region, therefore, will continue to keep the legacy of Ka Andres Bonifacio alive. They will continue to get organized under the Red banner of their revolutionary organizations, link arms with the peasants and Lumad, and join the revolutionary armed struggle to ensure that the NPA defends the masses and withstands the relentless fascist attacks of the enemy.
https://prwcinfo.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/filipino-workers-and-the-youth-must-imbibe-the-revolutionary-spirit-of-ka-andres-bonifacio-and-get-organized/
November 30, 2021
We mark today, November 30, three historic events that are important to the national democratic movement—the Trade Union Day which workers and trade unions around the country, especially under the Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions (RCTU), commemorate; the 57th founding anniversary of Kabataang Makabayan which the youth in and out of the Philippines are celebrating, and the birth of Ka Andres Bonifacio, the proletarian hero of the Katipunan.
On both occasions of TU Day and anniversary of KM, the emancipating strength of organization is prime: for workers, trade unions embody their collective ideological, political and organizational strength, while for the youth, the Kabataang Makabayan represents their legacy of militant struggle. In both these occasions, the revolutionary spirit of Bonifacio serves as a beacon of inspiration.
Andres Bonifacio was a bodeguero, a city worker in the prime of his youth. He knew enough of the French revolution to know that the working class is a formidable force in social change. An avid reader, he was inspired by the agitations of the First Propaganda Movement which sparked the Filipino revolt against Spanish colonialism. At 29, he founded the Katipunan and led the first national armed resistance of mainly Filipino peasants against a dominant foreign power.
In short, Bonifacio was a youthful proletariat who understood the roots of national oppression and the need for an organized peasant revolutionary army to wage a people’s war against a stronger enemy.
The Filipino workers and youth of today confront the tyranny of the US-Duterte regime much in the same way that Bonifacio in his time confronted the evils of Spanish colonialism. It is likewise worth remembering that like Bonifacio in establishing the Katipunan, the workers and the youth continue to express their national and class aspirations by resisting through their organizations.
The US-Duterte’s fascist tyranny of more than five years has been a scourge to the Filipino workers, the youth and their organizations. In the country, workers and their genuine trade unions bear the brunt of the neoliberal adjustments to the “new normal” being railroaded by the big bourgeois compradors and their foreign capitalist bosses.
In Southern Mindanao since the start of the Covid-19 public health crisis, tens of thousands of workers have been terminated, laid off, or put to “flexible working set-ups” for the sole purpose of weakening their unions and their barganing power. Their unions and associations are being attacked with unfair labor practices, union busting schemes and NTF-ELCAC-sponsored vilification campaign. Majority of workers in the region remain contractual, and unable to collectively bargain for their rights. Capitalists, especially in the agri-ventures industry and service industry like food delivery, are inventing new foul ways to obscure employee-employer relationships to prolong contractualization and avoid security of tenure.
Meanwhile, the Filipino youth under Duterte remain the inheritor of a country deep in socio-economic crisis, whatever the class or sector they may come from. They are deprived of their right to education, decent jobs and other democratic rights. They no longer embody being the “hope of the motherland” but the future jobless workers and displaced peasants. They have become collateral damage of Duterte’s war on drugs which have victimized countless urban poor youths. They are the main target of the reactionary ruling clique’s culture of misinformation and fake news that blind the nation from learning the lessons of history and enable the return of the Marcoses and perpetuation of Duterte tyranny.
The Regional Operations Command of the NPA in Southern Mindanao enjoin the workers and youth to struggle more valiantly for their socio-economic and political rights under the banner of the RCTU and KM. Using Marxist-Leninist lens, workers must study and fiercely counter the debilitating effects of neoliberal policies to the trade union movement. In the region, they must continue to organize unions and associations to protect workers’ job security, ensure living wage, and demand better working conditions, especially during this time of the pandemic.
The Filipino youth, meanwhile, must arduously lead the fight against misinformation and the Duterte regime’s every effort to keep the youth ignorant and vulnerably docile by such draconian acts as pulling out “subversive” literature from academic institutions. They must likewise expose and oppose the fascist red-tagging of youth activists and their organizations, especially the insidious campaign to drag the youth’s parents and family into the regime’s witch-hunt. The youth must strive to end the reactionary regime’s neoliberal policies that deprive the youth of their right to education and Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.
Above all, on this occasion, Red commanders and fighters in the region reecho our invitation to all workers and youth to take up arms in the NPA and advance the people’s war.
Despite the so-called “achievements” that they try desperately to peddle, Duterte, his dogs in the AFP, and the NTF-ELCAC fail to learn one important lesson of history: for as long as the unjust status quo stands, the youth, especially those who come from the most oppressed like the working class, will always rebel and strive for a better future. The workers and the youth in the region, therefore, will continue to keep the legacy of Ka Andres Bonifacio alive. They will continue to get organized under the Red banner of their revolutionary organizations, link arms with the peasants and Lumad, and join the revolutionary armed struggle to ensure that the NPA defends the masses and withstands the relentless fascist attacks of the enemy.
https://prwcinfo.wordpress.com/2021/11/30/filipino-workers-and-the-youth-must-imbibe-the-revolutionary-spirit-of-ka-andres-bonifacio-and-get-organized/
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