CPP/NDF-Sison: Extreme Crisis and Urgent Tasks

Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Jun 30, 2022): Extreme Crisis and Urgent Tasks

Jose Maria Sison

Chief Political Consultant

National Democratic Front of the Philippines

June 29, 2022

30 June 2022

Dear Comrades and Friends,

Through a nontransparent and fraudulent automated election system, the Duterte regime has succeeded in combining the worst political dynasties, the Marcoses and Dutertes, and giving their representatives the highest political positions, with Ferdinand Junior as president and Sara Duterte- Carpio as vice president of the reactionary state, getting the over bloated mostly pre-programmed and mostly faked overkill 31 and 32 million votes, respectively. The attempt to conjure the illusion of a landslide victory for the Marcos-Duterte tandem with an overkill avalanche vote has totally and publicly manifested the colossal electronic fraud and violation of the people’s right to suffrage.
The Social and Economic Crisis

The chronic social and economic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system is unprecedentedly extreme as a result of the outgoing Duterte regime’s grievous bankrupting of the government and the entire economy. In a matter of six years, this regime has more than doubled the Philippine public debt of Php 5.9 trillion (accumulated in more than 120 years as of June 2016) to the level of nearly Php 13 trillion.

The incoming Marcos regime has no plan whatsoever but to preserve and aggravate the social and economic system that favors anti-development foreign investments and that is dependent on the export of cheap raw materials, fruits, some semi-manufactures and cheap labor. The income always falls short of paying for the importation of equipment and manufactured consumer goods and requires a heavier amount of foreign debt to cover the perennial trade deficit. The current balance of payments deficit is now USD 1.6 billion and continues to grow.

At the same time, the budgetary deficit keeps on widening as tax revenues never keeps up with the far faster rise of debt service to foreign banks and superprofit remittances by foreign monopoly firms, the corruption of the bureaucrat capitalists in collaboration with the foreign monopolies and the local big compradors and landlords and the wanton military overspending in the acquisition of local and foreign supplies and raising the salary scale of armed personnel of the state high above that of the personnel in the dwindling social services (education, health, social housing and the like).

Like the Duterte regime, the Marcos regime is expected to oppose genuine land reform and national industrialization. It wishes to preserve the underdeveloped, semifeudal and pre-industrial economy because this provides ample space for bureaucratic corruption. And claims to development can always be made up by undertaking a certain amount of infrastructure projects which are dependent on foreign loans, overpriced, graft-laden and conducive to preserving the traditional exchange of raw material-exports and manufactured imports.

As a result of the extreme social and economic crisis, the political crisis of the ruling system is rapidly worsening. The ruling classes of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists are increasingly unable to rule according to the liberal democratic pretensions of their constitution and laws. They themselves easily fall into violent factional struggles as those oppressors and exploiters with the most power accumulate the most wealth at the expense of their own class colleagues and the broad masses of the people.

The Filipino people, especially the toiling masses of workers and peasants, suffer most the ever worsening crisis of the ruling system in terms of mass unemployment, landlessness, low incomes, the inflated prices of basic commodities and services, mass hunger and widespread poverty. Of the labor force of 48 million in the population of 110 million, more than 20 per cent have left the country to seek jobs abroad and another more than 20 per cent have to stay in the Philippines with no jobs.
The Political Crisis

The Filipino people know that the basic problems of foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism inflict so much misery and suffering on them. They also know the necessity of a new democratic revolution through protracted people’s war in order to achieve their national and social liberation. They are desirous of revolutionary change because they know the causes of their dire situation and the solution to the basic problems from their own experience and from the educational and informative campaigns waged by the legal patriotic and democratic forces as well as by the forces of the armed revolution.

But emulating the evil example of the Marcos fascist dictatorship, the outgoing Duterte regime and the incoming Marcos II regime and their bureaucratic and military minions blame the Filipino people themselves, the most enlightened of the conservative opposition, the legal national democratic forces and the armed revolution of the people for the gross underdevelopment of the country, the chronic crisis of the ruling system, the gross inequality between the propertied few and the working people and the countless injustices that the people suffer,

The Marcos II presidency has been set up by US imperialism (i.e. officials of the US State Department, Pentagon and the CIA) in consultation with the Duterte regime and the alliance of the Marcos, Duterte, Macapagal-Arroyo, Estrada and Enrile dynasties and factions to continue the evil legacy of state terrorism begun by the Marcos fascist dictatorship and revived by the Duterte tyranny in the last six years and to “finish the job” of destroying the legal national democratic movement as well as the armed revolutionary movement.

The Anti-Terror Law is designed to legitimize the state terrorism in the name of anti-terrorism, repress the legal conservative and progressive opposition, enable the monopoly of information and propaganda by the ruling clique and facilitate the escalation of the campaigns of anti-communist propaganda and military suppression. The tyrant Duterte has publicly indicated that it will take only two more years for Marcos Junior to destroy the revolutionary movement in the Philippines. Those in imminent danger of indefinite detention and murder are thereby forewarned to go underground and join the people’s armed resistance.

Some analysts have speculated that if Marcos Junior fails to meet Duterte’s expectations he would be vulnerable to a coup headed by Sara or a general. But Duterte himself has been a big failure in his own attempt to destroy the revolutionary movement. It is not true, as claimed by his sycophant Lorenzana, that the reactionary armed forces have decimated 56 out of 68 guerrilla fronts of the NPA and that more than 27,000 NPA fighters have either been killed, captured or surrendered. These are patent lies by a running dog of Duterte.

Since the 2021 anniversary statement of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the 2022 anniversary statement of the New People’s Army, the CPP Central Committee and and the NPA National Operational Command have declared that the CPP has more than 150,000 cadres and members and Party branches in all provinces of the Philippines and that the NPA has thousands of full-time Red fighters, plus auxiliary forces of tens of thousands as people’s militia members and hundreds of thousands as members of self-defense units of revolutionary mass organizations, in more than 110 guerrilla fronts in 74 out 81 Philippine provinces.

The 140,000 troops of the reactionary and forces of the Philippines and the 220,000 personnel of the Philippine National Police cannot effectively control more than 10 per cent of the Philippine archipelago at any given time. The NPA has complete freedom to move among the people in 90 per cent of the Philippines at every given time. The best that the reactionary armed forces and police can do is to carry out focused joint military operations (with a company or battalion) against an NPA guerrilla front and conjure the false illusion that it has dismantled such guerrilla front.

But the best that the NPA can do in this guerrilla front is to lay mines, deploy sniper teams and retreat to redeploy the guerrilla force (an oversized platoon or company) to a wider scale in the same general area or shift it to another accessible general area and in either case prepare for tactical offensives of counter-encirclement against parts and parts of the invading enemy force. The previous intelligence stock that drives the enemy’s focused military operations becomes useless for the most part as the NPA can launch offensives by teams, squads, platoons and companies not only against the invading enemy force but also against the weaker enemy posts on a wider scale.

What makes the revolutionary movement of the Filipino people invincible is the correct and effective leadership of the revolutionary party of the proletariat, the Communist Party of the Philippines, which is always determined and militant to build itself ideologically, politically and organizationally. This is well proven by more than 53 years of successful revolutionary struggle, growing from small and weak to big and strong and from a few regions to nationwide. This revolutionary struggle is self-reliant and has not been benefited by cross-border advantages of the Chinese, Korean and Indochinese revolutions as a result of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

On the basis of the publications of the CPP and related sources, let me now discuss the ideological, political and organizational tasks of the CPP and other revolutionary forces of the Filipino people. This presentation is informative and is meant to explain the revolutionary role of the CPP and popular forces, what they can do against the escalation of state terrorism to preserve the oppressive and exploitative ruling system.
The Task of Ideological Building

The first and most important task in building the CPP is ideological building through the education of its cadres and members in the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. There is a collection of the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao that teaches us the basic principles of dialectical and historical materialism in philosophy, the political economy of capitalism and the socialism and social science of class struggle and socialist revolution.

There is also a collection of works reflecting the victories of the new democratic and socialist revolutions led and won by the proletariat in various countries against imperialism and reaction and against “Left” opportunism and Right opportunism. These works can be subjected to comparative studies in order order to learn the principles and practice applicable to the Philippine society and revolution. Of course, the CPP thinkers and leaders have produced a rich collection of works that are studied by their Filipino comrades for the advance of the revolutionary struggle in the Philippines.

Ideological building of the CPP is necessary to educate the cadres and members and enable them to be at the leadership and at the core of the entire revolutionary movement at every level and scale of territory. Without a revolutionary theory as guide to practice, there can be no revolutionary movement because the CPP cadres and members would be at a loss as how to lead and advance the struggle to revolutionary victory.

CPP cadres and members, as individuals and collectives, can take the initiative in reading and studying revolutionary literature and engage in study meetings pertinent to the Philippine situation, work and issues. But the Central Committee and its Education Department always makes sure that there is a systematic ideological education and training program for all party cadres and members through three standardized courses: from the basic course on Philippine society and revolution through the intermediate course of comparative studies in revolution on an international scale to the advance course on the study and application of the classical works of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

The necessity and importance of ideological building cannot be underestimated, especially at a time when the imperialists and the local reactionaries are doing everything to slander and discredit the revolutionary theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and using all kinds of intimidation and punitive actions, including mass arrests and mass murder, to discourage the widespread reading and study of revolutionary literature and to isolate and destroy the CPP and all other revolutionary forces of the Filipino people.

Ideological building through timely study meetings related to work and current issues and the fulfillment of the basic, intermediate and advanced levels of education raises the revolutionary knowledge and fighting spirit of the CPP cadres and members and actually increases rapidly the number of the most resolute and militant cadres and members who are willing to dedicate their entire lives to the revolution.

It is beyond the capacity of the counterrevolutionaries to stop the timely work-related study meetings and the basic, intermediate and d advanced courses convened in a wide variety of sizes and places. To expand and intensify the ideological building of the CPP is to propel the current CPP membership to a far a higher number and level than now. To have more Party cadres and members highly educated in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is to have more effective leaders arousing, organizing and mobilizing the people in greater numbers than before.
The Task of Political Building

The CPP has set as the current general line of the Philippine revolution, the new democratic revolution through protracted people’s war in order to end the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system in the Philippines, establish the people’s democratic republic and open the socialist stage of the Philippine revolution. To achieve the total victory of the new democratic revolution, the CPP must lead the Filipino proletariat and people and build itself, the people’s army and the national united front politically.

The CPP must eventually raise its membership to the level of hundreds of thousands and then millions of cadres and members. Thus, it can lead more effectively the Filipino people in their tens of millions. Increasing the number of CPP members can be more easily done when its cadres and members in the New People’s Army, the people’s militia, the revolutionary mass organizations, the organs of political power and the united front can recruit far more mass activists.

The NPA is the main instrument of the CPP and the entire people in waging armed revolutionary struggle, carrying out agrarian revolution as the main content of the democratic revolution and building the mass base and the people’s revolutionary government in the countryside. The CPP relies mainly on the poor peasants and farm workers, wins over the middle peasants, neutralizes the rich peasants and takes advantage of the splits between the enlightened and evil gentry in order to isolate and destroy the power of the despotic landlords.

The peasants, farm workers and fishermen are more than ever determined to participate and support the armed revolution because they are suffering gravely from the escalating campaigns of military suppression in the countryside, import liberalization of rice and fish, low subsidy prices for rice, high fertilizer and fuel prices, Chinese bans on Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea and the landgrabbing being done by the local and foreign agri-corporations and real estate speculators along major highways and roads.

The share of agriculture in the economy has been understated as merely 9 per cent in order to conjure the false illusion that the Philippines is developing with an industry sector whose share in the economy is 23 per cent and which is mainly extractive of raw materials and uses imported machine tools and a service sector whose imputed share of output value is 58 per cent and is over-bloated with the financial accounts of banks and trading companies, the costs of importing machine tools and consumer products and even the imputed output of the unemployed and underemployed in the so-called informal sector.

Since the launching in 2016 of a widescale rectification campaign by the Political Bureau, and the affirmation of this campaign by the Second National Congress, the CPP has combated conservatism and has urged all levels of the CPP, NPA, NDFP, the people’s democratic government, the revolutionary mass organizations and the broad masses of the people to expand and intensify the revolutionary armed struggle. This is the main form of revolutionary struggle, which can make definite advances only through successful tactical offensives and the capture of more arms from the enemy from one strategic stage to a higher stage. It is the line of developing guerrilla warfare towards regular mobile warfare in the archipelago.

When certain guerrilla fronts of the NPA are under focused military operations of the enemy, they are able to redeploy their forces not only to avoid the head-on attack by the enemy but to gain positions for counter-attacking and defeating the enemy. Those guerrilla fronts which are not under enemy attack can launch offensives by way of strengthening themselves and supporting the guerrilla fronts under attack. The line of extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on an ever widening and deepening mass base has been set forth since a long time ago

The CPP is steadfastly and militantly building the national united front by relying mainly on the toiling masses of workers and peasants, winning over the urban petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie and taking advantage of the splits among the reactionary classes in order to isolate and defeat the US and Chinese imperialists and their worst Filipino puppets among the big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists.

The US and Chinese imperialists are now economic competitors and political rivals from being main neoliberal collaborators until the second decade of the current century. The Chinese imperialists have brazenly encroached on the West Philippines Sea, coveted the marine and mineral resources here and militarized the artificial islands that they have built on maritime features, like shoals and reefs.

The incoming Marcos II regime still harbors the illusion that it it can play off the US and Chinese imperialist against each other to conjure the false illusion of “independent foreign policy” and at the same time collaborate with the US imperialists in unleashing an all-out war against the armed revolution and with the Chinese imperialists in robbing the Filipino people of their rich natural resources and letting them operate their own military bases in the West Philippine Sea.

The Marcos II regime is predisposed to continue the Duterte policy of preventing the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, use the Anti-Terror Law to escalate state terrorism and and engage in red-tagging, mass arrests, torture and mass killings in a futile attempt to destroy the people’s democratic revolution. The broad masses of the people and the revolutionary movement therefore demand a tit for tat struggle and the listing for arrest, trial and punishment of war criminals by the people’s court and people’s army in order to avenge the crimes committed by the reactionary state and its agents.

The Task of Organizational Building

The CPP follows the principle of democratic centralism in building itself organizationally as well as other revolutionary forces that it organizes among the broad masses of the people. The principle means centralized ideological and political leadership on the basis of democratic fact-gathering and deliberation from the mass base and through the various levels of leading organs up to the central level where the Central Committee of the CPP makes the final decisions and exercises absolute leadership between Party Congresses.

The same principle of democratic centralism also means centralized ideological and political leadership and decentralized operations in accordance with the course of the people’s war and the archipelagic character of the Philippines. The CPP has a nationwide scale organization that is closely integrated with the people, especially the toiling masses of workers and peasants, through the revolutionary mass organizations, the units of the people’s army and the organs of political power.

The overwhelming majority of CPP cadres and members are recruited from the mass movement. They are therefore in various ways and degrees qualified to be at the core and in the leadership of the mass movement. The CPP also recruits Party cadres and members from various types of well-established institutions, including the reactionary ones, in order to gain knowledge and various competencies needed by the revolution and in order to enable the disintegration of the ruling system as a complement to the annihilation of the most die-hard forces of reaction.

Since the beginning of the current protracted people’s war along the line of the people’s democratic revolution, the CPP has ensured the integration of an increasing number of worker cadres and educated youth to join the New People’s Army and the revolutionary work in the countryside. Especially because of the threats of mass arrests, torture and mass murder in the urban areas, the CPP is required to deploy more worker cadres and educated youth in the people’s army and countryside.

They are needed for expanding and strengthening the people’s army, the mass organizations, the organs of political power and the alliances in the countryside, for coordinating revolutionary movement in the cities and the countryside and ensuring the success of offensives against urban targets of units deployed from the countryside. So far, the most effective actions against urban targets have been prepared in the countryside by cadres and members who have familiarity with and are knowledgeable about said targets and who can safely withdraw to their rural base.

Because more than 40 per cent of the Philippine labor force are unemployed, every year hundreds of thousands of Filipino workers and professionals migrate to other countries to take jobs below their education and training. And because of the escalation of state terrorism, a growing percentage of the Filipino migrants who are previously members of patriotic and progressive mass organizations go abroad to become political refugees and to join the diaspora both to earn income for their families and to evade imminent acts of repression by the terrorist state.

There is an estimated 10 to 12 million Filipinos overseas. This has become a substantial mass base for building patriotic and progressive mass organizations of overseas Filipinos, women, youth and professionals. Their self-organization under the leadership of the CPP is for upholding, defending and promoting their rights and interests, for developing anti-imperialist and democratic solidarity with the host people and organizations and for bringing about moral, political and material support and assistance to the struggle of the Filipino people for national and social liberation in the Philippines.###

https://cpp.ph/statements/extreme-crisis-and-urgent-tasks/