On the 45th anniversary of the reestablishment of the Communist Party of the
Philippines on the
theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we celebrate the accumulated and
recent victories of the Party and the Filipino people in the new democratic
revolution against the ruling system of big compradors and landlords servile to
US
imperialism.
We are resolved to advance the new-democratic revolution on the basis of our
ideological, political and organizational strength, overcome our errors and
shortcomings, set forth our tasks and carry them out in order to bring about
greater victories in the revolutionary struggle.
The crisis of the world capitalist system continues to protract and worsen.
Consequently, the chronic crisis of the domestic ruling system continues to
deepen and aggravate. The crisis conditions inflict intolerable suffering on
the people and drive them to wage all forms of resistance.
In line with
US
design, Oplan Bayanihan aims to destroy the revolutionary movement or reduce it
to inconsequence by combining the escalation of brutal military campaigns of
suppression and the misrepresentation of the Aquino regime as the paragon of
good governance, economic growth and the dispenser of doleouts for the poorest,
especially in the guerrilla fronts.
But at this point, the dismal failure of Oplan Bayanihan is starkly clear.
The people’s war continues to gain ground and grow in strength. The
revolutionary forces and the people are optimistic that with relentless hard
work and struggle, they can advance further from the strategic defensive to the
strategic stalemate.
The Aquino regime is exposed and condemned by the people for serving the
interests of the exploiting classes to which he belongs, for being subservient
to the
US
imperialists, for worsening the underdeveloped character of the economy and for
being corrupt by stealing public funds and taking bribes from big business.
The
US
imperialists and the local exploiting classes previously expected the Aquino
regime to contain the revolutionary movement, harmonize the rival reactionary
forces and stabilize the ruling system. But it has aggravated the
socio-economic and political crisis and is pushing the people to rise up. The
demand for the ouster or resignation of the Aquino regime has become extensive
and sharp.
I. Global crisis protracts and generates war
The imperialist powers headed by the
US are fixated on perpetuating the
neoliberal economic policy. They cling to the dogma that the maximization of
private profit and the accelerated accumulation and concentration of capital in
the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie and its financial oligarchy through the
reduction of the wage level, liberalization of investments, trade and finance,
the privatization of state assets, deregulation of social and environmental
restrictions and the denationalization of the underdeveloped countries are the
way to economic growth, job creation and social satisfaction.
They obscure the fact that the capitalist system of maximizing private
profits by minimizing the wage fund cannot but result in the crisis of
overproduction in the real economy and that the use of credit, derivatives and
financial bubbles to buoy up the economy and deliver still bigger profits to
the monopoly bourgeoisie in cycles of boom and bust has limits. Amid the
economic stagnation, the people in the
US and other imperialist countries
are outraged by the gross inequality of incomes between the upper 5% and the
rest of society and the worsening conditions of poverty due to unemployment,
homelessness and soaring costs of basic goods and services.
Since the financial meltdown of 2008, there has been no letup in the crisis
and the deterioration of the world capitalist system despite the sporadic
bounces in the financial markets. The global depression persists and the most
victimized are the people of the third world. The imperialist powers have found
no solution to the crisis but have aggravated it by bailing out the big
bourgeoisie with public money and buoying up the assets of the big banks and
corporations and further shifting the burden of crisis to the working people
and the underdeveloped countries through austerity measures.
The recurrent and worsening economic and financial crises brought about by
the neoliberal economic policy has profoundly undermined and weakened the
US for decades.
Its manufacturing base has contracted as a result of outsourcing many kinds of
consumer commodities to China and a few other so-called emerging economies
while focusing on the production of big items (such as telecommunications,
aircraft and hightech weaponry), widening the service sector and financializing
the US economy.
The crisis of the
US
and the world capitalist economy has taken the conspicuous form of the public
debt crisis on top of the underlying problems of corporate debt and the
hundreds of trillions of financial derivatives. The tax base of the imperialist
states has been undermined by economic stagnation, the rise of unemployment,
the continuing huge tax cuts for the corporations and the wealthy, bureaucratic
corruption and high military spending.
In a futile attempt at solving the public debt crisis and rising public
deficits, the imperialist states pass the burden of crisis to the people. The
US federal
government engages in so-called quantitative easing or printing money, while
the local states conspicuously adopt austerity measures. The European Union
imposes austerity measures on its member-states, especially those already
openly bankrupt, such as
Greece,
Spain and
Portugal.
Austerity involves the reduction of wages and pensions, social services and
public sector employment.
The
US
leads the imperialist powers in presuming military production to be a stimulant
of the economy, in actually stepping up such production, in deploying military
forces abroad and in launching wars of aggression. The
US and its NATO
allies openly share the position that maintaining military superiority is
necessary for promoting and protecting foreign investments. At the same time,
social services (such as education, health and social housing) are relentlessly
being cut back.
To conceal the reality of economic depression and make it appear as mere
recession albeit repetitive, the imperialist states inject public funds into
the financial sector semestrally in order to create the illusion of recovery.
The monopoly bourgeoisie and its financial elite cover up their responsibility for
the crisis through the dominant political parties, mass media, the schools and
the churches. They let loose such reactionary currents as chauvinism, racism,
religious bigotry, anti-immigrant politics, anti-communism, fascism and
warmongering to disable people from recognizing the capitalist roots of the
crisis and the need for revolutionary class struggle.
Nevertheless, the working class and other people in the imperialist
countries are resisting the rising level of exploitation and oppression,
despite the attempts of the big bourgeoisie to confuse and entrap them in the
electoral struggle between the barefaced reactionaries and the reformists. The
workers are launching strikes and mass protests, together with the youth,
women, senior citizens, migrants and refugees. The more severe the crisis, the
more militant are the mass actions. Conditions are rife for the development of
the revolutionary party of the proletariat and the progressive mass
organizations in various sectors.
The imperialist powers always try to override contradictions among
themselves by uniting against the third world countries and peoples by shifting
the burden of crisis to them through intensified exploitation, privileged
investments, lopsided trade, foreign currency imposition, heavier debt burden
and the accelerated plunder of the natural resources and destruction of the
environment. Modern imperialism has always been global in scale. But under the
neoliberal policy, the main thrust of imperialist globalization is the
denationalization of third world economies in violation of national
sovereignty, national patrimony and the legitimate aspiration for national
industrial development.
The peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and the socially retrogressive
countries of Eastern Europe and republics of
Russia are resisting the escalation
of exploitation and oppression. The social unrest and political turmoil are
sweeping entire continents of the world. The broad masses of the people are
waging mass protests on an unprecedented scale. In a significant number of
countries, revolutionary parties of the proletariat are waging people’s war for
national and social liberation, such as the
Philippines,
India,
Bangladesh,
Turkey,
North Kurdistan, Colombia,
Peru
and elsewhere.
Conditions are rife for the emergence of people’s war in more countries as
the crisis protracts and worsens. The revolutionary parties of the proletariat
and the people can hope to complete the struggle for national liberation and
democracy and then proceed to socialist revolution only if they smash the
military and bureaucratic machinery of the reactionary state. Very instructive
to all revolutionaries is the way peace agreements have been used to frustrate
social revolution in
Nicaragua,
El Salvador,
Nepal and Tamil
Eelam.
Certain third world states like the Democratic People’s
Republic of
Korea,
Cuba,
Venezuela,
Syria
and
Iran have asserted their
national independence and have stood their ground against threats, provocations
and sanctions imposed by the imperialists led by the
US. In varying degrees, they have
learned lessons from the dismal experience of states, which at first resist
imperialist dictates and then compromise with the imperialists and expose their
vulnerabilities for eventual subversion and aggression.
The US and NATO have installed puppet regimes and gained military bases and
economic spoils in countries where they unleashed wars of aggression or engaged
in military intervention. But the people there continue to resist. Armed
conflicts continue in
Iraq,
Afghanistan, parts of
Pakistan
and
Libya.
The Balkans remain a powder keg. The so-called Arab spring in
Tunisia and
Egypt have succeeded in toppling
authoritarians like Zine el Abadine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak and led to the
ascendancy of the Salafi and Muslim Brotherhood. The
US
has had to install again a pro-US military ruling clique in
Egypt in order to please both
Israel and the Egyptian military bourgeoisie
bred by the
US after the
Camp David sell-out by then Egyptian president Anwar
Sadat in 1977.
The
US
and the NATO undertook the bombing campaign that disintegrated the defense
structure of the Qaddafi regime and allowed the anti-Qaddafi militia groups to
overthrow it. Once more with the collaboration of
Israel,
Turkey,
Saudi Arabia and
Qatar,
they instigated and supplied militia groups to fight the Assad regime in
Syria and
schemed to unleash air assaults against it on the false allegation that it is
using chemical weapons. They also calculated that the regime change in
Syria would pave the way for an attack on
Iran.
However, Russia and China used their veto power in the UN Security Council
to block the US-NATO bombing scheme and to give way to diplomacy in working out
an agreement regarding the elimination of Syria’s chemical stocks and US-NATO
desistance from bombing Syria. Further on,
Russia
and
China pushed an
agreement for
Iran
to reduce its uranium enrichment to the level of 5% for the purpose of energy
generation in exchange for the reduction of economic sanctions by the
imperialist powers. As in previous cases, agreements can prevent the
US and NATO
from bombing an enemy state for a while. But subsequently, they can claim
noncompliance with such agreements or use other pretexts to justify aggression
in due time.
The worsening crisis of the world capitalist system fuels contradiction
among the imperialist powers no matter how hard they try to patch up their
differences and unite against the third world countries and the working people.
Since
China and
Russia became
openly capitalist and joined the ranks of major capitalist states, the room for
mutual accommodation among the imperialist powers has strategically contracted.
Having inherited from their socialist background a tradition of assertive
national sovereignty, a significant degree of industrialization, a high level
of science and technology and nuclear weapons,
China
and
Russia
are strong entrants in the circle of imperialist powers. They cannot be made to
follow US dictates without resistance or circumvention. Thus, inter-imperialist
contradictions are growing over a wide range of issues: investments, trade,
finance, security, spying and the environment.
China and
Russia are
major members of the UN Security Council, the IMF, World Bank, the WTO and the
Group of 20. And yet they are the stalwarts of the BRICS (
Brazil,
Russia,
India,
China and
South Africa), an economic bloc
with a comprehensive range of products and is a huge market. They are also
stalwarts of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security
arrangement which has far more population and land than the NATO. The SCO has
arisen as a countervailing force to the US and NATO, especially in Asia, as a
result of the overweening arrogance and aggressiveness of the US after getting
support for its so-called war on terror.
During and after the years of 1989 to 1991, when the revisionist regimes
openly embraced capitalism and proceeded at top speed to legalize bureaucratic
loot and privatize state assets, the imperialists and their camp followers
proclaimed the death of socialism. They could not imagine how
China and
Russia as new capitalist powers
would exacerbate inter-imperialist contradictions, worsen the crisis of global
capitalism and unintentionally bring about the resurgence of the
anti-imperialist and socialist movements in the long run.
Even while still stuck in a number of politico-military quagmires of its own
making in West Asia, Africa, Central Asia and South Asia and still facing
potential armed conflicts elsewhere, the
US
is pivoting to Asia in an ill-disguised scheme to confront and contain
China. It is
rebalancing by deploying 50% of all its military and 60% of its naval forces in
the Asia-Pacific region. It is using the military buildup in combination with
the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (which at present excludes China) to persuade
China to completely privatize its remaining state-owned enterprises and to give
way to the so-called democracy movement, which requires multiparty competition
in elections from the local up to the national level and ending the privileged
role of the pseudo-communist party which is in fact an authoritarian bourgeois
party.
The
US is also taking
advantage of the disputes between
China
and Southeast Asian countries over portions of the South China Sea as well as
that between
China and
Japan over Diaoyu island in the
East China Sea. The Kalayaan or Spratly and other islets,
reefs and shoals owned by the
Philippines
are clearly within the 200-mile exclusive zone stipulated by the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea signed by
China
and the
Philippines.
But in the case of Diaoyu islands, these belong to
China
because it is far closer to
China
than to
Japan and most
importantly because
Japan
officially acknowledged Chinese ownership of them in 1885 and annexed them as
war booty in 1895, following the defeat of
China in the First Sino-Japanese
War of 1894-95. The
US
unjustly takes side with
Japan,
if only to fish in troubled waters, and has combined with
Japan in challenging
China’s extension of its air
defense identification zone over Diaoyu islands.
The
US pivot to
East Asia means the further transgression of Philippine
national sovereignty and territorial integrity. It involves the further
entrenchment of US military forces in the
Philippines
and the ultimate reestablishment of the
US military bases. The
US is already preparing for the return of the
US military
bases by setting up forward stations inside and outside of the military camps
of the Philippine puppet army, rotating ever larger military units, increasing
frequency of comings and goings of aircraft and naval vessels and ever
developing interoperability with the puppet troops and supply mobilization.
We can anticipate the increasing involvement and participation of US
military forces in armed counterrevolution against the revolutionary movement
of the Filipino people. The current level of
US military intervention in
Philippine affairs is a preparation for outright military aggression. This is
concomitant to the strategic scheme of the
US
to have a secure base in the
Philippines
for undertaking military actions and maneuvers against
China and other
countries in the region.
US
strategy regards the
Philippines
as being in the first line of defense against
China
and the DPRK, backed by a deeper second line of US military forces in the
Pacific Islands
and
Oceania.
II. Ruling system reels from crisis and
corruption
The crisis of the world capitalist system has a destructive impact on the
Philippine economy and aggravates its chronic crisis. The export of
semiconductors and other low value-added semi-manufacturing products has
drastically fallen. Many of the plants engaged in fringe processing and
reassembly have shut down. Agricultural production is bedeviled by dumping and
smuggling of rice and corn into the country and lack of support from the state,
which misrepresents the smuggled staples as domestic products.
Like its predecessors, the Aquino regime is opposed to genuine land reform
and national industrialization. The neoliberal economic policy continues to
aggravate and deepen the underdeveloped, agrarian and semifeudal character of
the economy, dominated by the imperialists, big compradors, landlords and
bureaucrat capitalists.
The regime claims to have made the economy as the fastest growing with the
increase of remittances of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), rise of income
from the call centers and the expansion of private and public construction,
mining, plantations, casinos and other tourist facilities.
The continuing increase of OFW remittances comes mainly from the Filipino
nurses and caregivers in
North America.
Elsewhere, the crisis of global capitalism, the anti-migrant bias and social
disorders have started to reduce overseas employment. Private construction is
now afflicted by overcapacity and is a bubble that is bound to burst as soon as
the imperialist banks raise interest rates to counter inflation and the
portfolio investments (hot money) fly back to their countries of origin.
Belated appropriations for public construction have been to a large extent pork
barrel scams, with the public money privately pocketed, invested in upscale
real estate or stashed away in foreign banks by the bureaucrat capitalists.
Foreign and domestic corporations are frenziedly engaged in mining all over
the country. They practice open pit mining with heavy use of poisonous
chemicals to accelerate mineral extraction to the detriment of agriculture,
fishing and the environment. Mineral ores and precious metals are brought out
of the country. Only token taxes are paid to the government. The plantations
for the production and export of pineapple, banana, rubber and palm oil are
reducing the land for staple food production and for land reform. The casinos
and other tourist facilities do not spell any real economic development.
In the absence of any industrial development or rise of manufacturing, the
Aquino regime boasts of having achieved an economic miracle by having the
highest economic growth rate in the whole world. In fact, the so-called
economic miracle is a mere bubble. The claimed growth rate of more than 7% on a
GDP of US$250 billion is generated mainly by hot money in the carry trade and
by wanton government borrowing and spending for nonproductive purposes. The hot
money from abroad flows mainly into the stock and money markets; and at best
finances the overcapacity and the bubble in private construction.
The budgetary deficit has widened because the revenue base of the
reactionary government has been eroded by the actual economic depression, the
privatization of earning assets, the tax cuts for the foreign investors, tax
evasion by businesses and the wealthy and smuggling of goods in and out of the
country; and because the tax revenues have been used to feed bureaucratic
corruption, service the mounting foreign and local debt and raise
appropriations for the military and other counterproductive purposes. The trade
deficit has also widened because of high expenditures for the importation of
luxury goods and necessities produced by other countries; and because export
income has drastically declined. The reactionary government keeps on increasing
the local and public debt and applying austerity measures without announcing
these as such.
Whenever the Aquino regime boasts of economic growth, the broad masses of
the people are outraged by the lie and by the fact that a huge part of the GDP
includes the superprofit-taking operations of the multinational corporations
and what the big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists grab from the
social wealth that the toiling masses of workers and peasants create. They point
to the rising mass unemployment, the decline of incomes, the soaring prices of
fuel, food and other basic commodities, the increased charges for public
utilities and social services and the visible spread of poverty, hunger and
misery. Social unrest is widespread and deepening. Thus, the people are rising
in mass protest. And an increasing number of people are joining the armed
revolutionary movement in the countryside.
The ruling political system is the instrument of the
US and the
local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords that are represented
by the bureaucrat capitalists. The bureaucrat capitalists are themselves
members of the exploiting classes, like the current president B.S. Aquino who
is a big comprador-landlord from the Cojuangco-Aquino dynasty. Other bureaucrat
capitalists are recruited by the ruling classes from the urban petty bourgeois
intelligentsia and, like their economic and political superiors, generally
aspire to rise in economic and social standing and amass wealth in capital and
land.
The bureaucrat capitalists amass private wealth by using their government
offices for the purpose. They adopt policies and rules designed to favor their
electoral campaign financiers, relatives and friends with economic privileges,
and they take bribes in business contracts and use government appropriations
for their private benefit.
Contrary to hypocritical claims that his regime is
clean and honest, Aquino has become exposed as the Pork Barrel King, using
hundreds of billions of pesos of lump sum appropriations at his sole discretion
to disburse for his personal gain and political patronage. One of his siblings
has also been denounced by a Czech company for demanding bribes.
The Filipino people have been further outraged by the corruption of the
Aquino regime with the exposure of the disappearance of calamity funds for the
victims of natural disasters and with its criminal failure to make pre-disaster
preparations to ensure the safety of the people and to provide timely and
adequate rescue and relief to the millions of people assaulted by the monster
winds of the super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and storm surges. Thousands were
killed, homes, means of livelihood and social infrastructure were destroyed and
millions of people suffered from hunger, thirst, cold in the open air, lack of
medicine, illness and death. Thus, the people are increasingly demanding the
resignation or ouster of Aquino and his entire corrupt ruling clique.
The exposure of the plundering character and corrupt practices of the Aquino
regime has unraveled the scheme of the US and most sections of the local
exploiting classes to drum him up as the icon of good governance for
stabilizing the ruling system and for rallying against the armed revolutionary
movement of the people led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. Even the
reactionary mass media which touted Aquino as a clean and well-meaning leader
for more than three years have started to publish statements and articles
exposing the corrupt character of his regime.
In the last elections of 2012, the Aquino regime appeared to reign supreme,
riding high with the support of the media and poll survey firms and without any
serious opposition from any rival bourgeois party. The ruling Liberal Party was
able to coalesce with the Nacionalista Party, the Nationalist People’s
Coalition, the LDP and sections of the PDP-Laban and Laban-NUCD. Even the
opposition party, PDP-Laban, was seen as a fake opposition because Vice
President Jejomar Binay had long been known as an Aquino protege, directly
handled by an uncle of B.S. Aquino. Previous to the 2012 elections, Aquino
rounded up all major reactionary parties with pork to convict Supreme Court
Justice Corona.
Notwithstanding his
損opularity?conjured by the reactionary media and the
poll surveys, Aquino and his gang pre-determined the results of the 2012
senatorial elections by programming the 60-30-10 pattern in favor of his
candidates and feeding into the automated electoral system operated by the
foreign company Smartmatic and its Philippine partner Total Information
Management (TIM). The electoral cheating has been proven conclusively by the
highly respected computer scientists in AES Watch. It indicates how Aquino was
elected not only with the financial help of big buinessmen like Eduardo
Cojuangco, Lucio Tan, Manny Pangilinan and Jaime Zobel de Ayala but also with
the manipulation of automated electoral system.
The automation of the electoral system has made the elections even more
fraudulent and even more controlled by foreign and big comprador interests in
violation of the people’s sovereignty. Automated or not, the reactionary
elections are undemocratic as they include the political agents of the
exploiting classes but exclude the patriotic and progressive representatives of
the workers and peasants by such predetermining factors as the repressive and
slanderous actions of the military and police agencies against the latter, the
prohibitive costs of campaigning and the bias generated by the mass media,
churches and schools. Even the party-list system that allowed the election of a
handful of progressive members of Congress representing the exploited classes
will now be completely overrun by the political dynasties and the reactionary
parties as a result of a recent decision of the Supreme Court allowing them use
of the system.
It is fine for the revolutionary movement that the reactionaries are
themselves unwittingly doing everything to dispel the illusion that the
reactionary elections are democratic. After all, the reactionary politicians
expose their antinational and anti-democratic character as soon as they betray
the people and grab the spoils of power.
The entire government itself has been
weakened by exposure of its pro-imperialist and reactionary character, the
privatization of its earning assets under the neoliberal policy, the
intolerable levies on the people already impoverished by the crisis, the
reduction and deterioration of social services and runaway wastage of public
funds through bureaucratic corruption, debt service and military spending.
The Aquino regime has never had any serious intention of negotiating a just
peace with the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines. At the first formal
meeting of the NDFP negotiating panel and the Aquino-appointed panel in
Oslo in 2011, the latter
denounced The Hague Joint Declaration as a
揹ocument of perpetual
division.?
The NDFP pointed out that this is the framework agreement that has made
possible more than ten major agreements, including the Comprehensive Agreement
on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). The
regime has consistently refused to release NDFP peace consultants who have been
arrested and detained in violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and
Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).
In 2012, it declared the JASIG inoperative and refused to agree to the
reconstruction of the list of JASIG-protected individuals which had been
destroyed by the Dutch police raids in 2007 upon the Arroyo regime’s
instigation to the Dutch government to arrest the NDFP chief political
consultant on false criminal charges and to raid and seize documents and
electronic media and equipment from NDFP Information Office and the houses of
NDFP negotiators, consultants and staffers. For this reason alone, the NDFP had
the basis to terminate the peace negotiations in accordance with the JASIG but
decided to extend its patience for the sake of seeking a just peace.
The Aquino regime has exposed itself as worse than the Arroyo regime in
violating the CARHRIHL and committing gross and systematic human rights
violations. It has refused to release the hundreds of political prisoners that
the Arroyo regime imprisoned in violation of CARHRIHL, especially the Hernandez
doctrine that political activists and rebels should not be criminalized and
should not be accused of common crimes, instead of political offenses. The
Aquino regime has proceeded to arrest suspected revolutionaries, torture and
murder or detain indefinitely hundreds of them on false charges of common
crimes.
It is upon
US
advice that the Aquino regime has continuously fouled up and considered the
peace negotiations as unnecessary for so long as he can maintain the illusion
of good governance and efficient delivery of services to the people and thus
combine well the triad of psywar, intelligence and combat operations. This
US advice is
clearly spelled out in the US Counterinursurgency Guide. By way of
strengthening psywar and intelligence to serve combat operations, the Aquino
regime has also recycled the failed Aquino-Ramos amnesty and rehabilitation
program of the past by undertaking the Conditional Cash Transfer Program and
PAMANA, using bribery and intimidation to entice entire communities and even
the families of revolutionaries with cash doleouts in exchange for information
against the revolutionary movement.
The Aquino regime is not at all interested in peace negotiations but the
capitulation and pacification of the revolutionary forces and people under the
guise of
搖nilateral
simultaneous indefinite ceasefires.? It has rebuffed the offer of the NDFP for
truce and alliance or cooperation on the basis of a concise general common
intent to realize and carry forward national independence, democracy, social
justice, development through land reform and national industrialization,
people’s culture and international solidarity. The truce and alliance or
cooperation are meant to promote the accelerated negotiation of the remaining
comprehensive agreements in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration.
In view of the proven unwillingness of the Aquino regime to negotiate a just
peace, the revolutionary movement does not expect the resumption of peace
negotiations with the regime. It has no choice but to wait for the next regime
to engage in serious negotiations. It remains to be seen whether the regime can
make a final peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that does
not arouse the opposition of the Moro National Liberation Front headed by Nur
Misuari and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. We are optimistic that the
Bangsamoro will continue to struggle for self-determination and ancestral
domain so long as these are not fulfilled.
The Aquino regime is a shameless puppet of
US imperialism. It allows the
US military
forces to violate Philippine national sovereignty and territorial integrity. It
cravenly believes that the
US
can save the rotten semicolonial and semifedual ruling system in the
Philippines.
Thus, it supports the
US
policy of pivot to
East Asia. It is poised to
sign with the
US
the Increased Rotational Presence Framework Agreement in order to improve
interoperability of personnel, units, equipment and commands under the Visiting
Forces Agreement of 1997 and the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Pact of 1953.
The increased rotational presence of US military forces, the frequent
comings and goings of air and naval vessels, the establishment of forward
stations inside and outside of the puppet camps, the improved interoperability
and joint operations of the US and Philippine military forces constitute foreign
military intervention and are preparations for the reestablishment of US
military bases and for aggression against the Filipino people and neighboring
peoples.
But like the rotting ruling system of the
Philippines,
US
imperialism is on a path of accelerated decline. It has outwitted itself by
imposing on the world the neoliberal economic policy, weakening its
manufacturing base, financializing its economy, ever increasing military
expenditures and extending concessions to
China
and
Russia
for their integration in the world capitalist system. What was once the sole
superpower is now one of several power centers in a multipolar world. It has
overextended itself in wars of aggression to suppress countries assertive of
national independence and in contention with other imperialist powers.
In this context, the Filipino people can take their own destiny into their
own hands more than ever before and continue to wage the new democratic
revolution through protracted people’s war. It can look forward to a near
future when the proletariat and people are again dramatically rising and
reasserting themselves on an ever expanding scale in a world
proletarian-socialist revolution amid the decomposition of the world capitalist
system and the escalating contradictions of the imperialist powers.
III. The Party victoriously leads the new
democratic revolution
Under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the Communist Party of the
Philippines
continues to strengthen itself as the advanced detachment of the proletariat
and lead the broad masses of the people in the new-democratic revolution
through protracted people’s war. It continues resolutely to build itself
ideologically, politically and organizationally.
It takes advantage of the protracted and ever worsening crisis of the world
capitalist capitalist system and the domestic ruling system. It sees clearly
that the crisis inflicts terrible suffering on the people and drives them to
fight
US
imperialism and the local exploiting classes. It is building on its
achievements over the last 45 years and it is confident of winning ever greater
victories.
The Party takes pride in having led one of the world’s most important armed
revolutions for national and social liberation in a period of temporary defeat
and strategic retreat for the international communist movement because of the
sabotage and betrayal carried out by the modern revisionists. But now, the
integration of
Russia and
China in the
world capitalist system is exacerbating inter-imperialist contradictions and
the international communist movement and the broad anti-imperialist movement
are resurgent. The conditions for the Philippine revolution to advance are
better than ever.
In the protracted struggle to complete the people’s democratic revolution,
it has been useful and encouraging for the Party to define the goal of
advancing from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate in the
people’s war and to rally all revolutionary forces to realize the political and
other requirements for such an advance. The goal remains valid even as the plan
and time scale to achieve it may be adjusted and readjusted in whole or in part
in the course of struggle.
In ideological building, the Party has upheld the theory of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and has integrated it with the concrete Philippine
conditions and the concrete practice of the Philippine revolution. We are
opposed to subjectivism, be it of the dogmatic or empiricist type. We have
produced guiding documents, books and articles on the Philippine economy,
politics and culture. We continue to provide timely analysis of major events
and issues in the
Philippines
and abroad, published these in Ang Bayan and other journals and made available
in our website.
We have carried out social investigations of varying scales in all areas in
connection with our revolutionary work. Our Party
抯 leading organs and units
engage in periodic and timely assessment and evaluation of our work as a matter
of course. We conduct study conferences among our Party cadres and members to
sharpen our understanding of crucial issues and campaigns that need to be
carried out.
Whenever we evaluate our work, we conduct criticism and self-criticism in
order to understand our errors and shortcomings and rectify them and thus
improve our work and style of work. We have engaged in rectification movements,
such as the First and Second Great Rectification Movements and others of lesser
scale but of wider scope than the criticism and self-criticism that we conduct
in specific organs and units in the general course of our work .
We plan and carry out formal Party study courses at the basic, intermediate
and advanced levels. We ensure that all Party candidate members finish the
basic Party course within the period of candidature so that they are promptly
sworn in as full Party members. They can take the intermediate Party course
within the first year of Party membership and the advanced Party course within
the second year. The study outlines and texts are published to enable Party
units to conduct the study courses.
The study courses are meant to ensure that Party cadres and members keep on
improving their theoretical knowledge and revolutionary practice; and keep on
deepening their revolutionary commitment. To keep the courses lively and
interesting, they are always related to history and current circumstances and
to current revolutionary work. In every course, the instructors make sure that
the living study of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is done in connection with problems
and issues in the objective situation and in revolutionary work.
Inside and outside the Party study courses, Party cadres and members can
heighten, deepen and widen their knowledge by reading and study of
revolutionary publications and integrating their knowledge with their work. But
many of our Party members come from the ranks of the toiling masses and have
limited formal education and training in reading or have limited time to read
long and complex texts. Thus our Party cadres in education are tasked to
prepare simple reading materials and audio-visual aids for quicker
comprehension in combination with oral discussion based on facts and
experience.
Videos and other audio-visual aids are prepared to facilitate the Party
study courses and the presentation of various subjects of major importance.
They are interesting and educative to all Party cadres and members,
irrespective of their level of formal education. The new media can be used to
serve revolution in conjunction with printed materials that can be easier
distributed to working people who have no access to computers and even
electricity.
In political building, the Party pursues the general line of new democratic
revolution through people’s war against
US imperialism and the local
exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords. The Program for a People’s
Democratic Revolution is a comprehensive instrument for arousing, organizing
and mobilizing the oppressed and exploited masses. On the basis of their
strength, the Party can build the people’s army and the revolutionary united
front as weapons for overthrowing the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system
and establish the people’s democratic state of workers, peasants, the
intelligentsia and other democratic and patriotic classes and sectors.
The Party serves as the advanced detachment of the unionized and
nonunionized workers. Trade unions led by secret Party branches are the most
effective in fighting for the rights and interests of the workers. They provide
a good example to the workers where the unions are not led by the Party or
where there are no unions yet. The Party organizes the workers in the factories
as well as in the communities, together with other urban poor, to struggle for
the just interests of their class as well as for the entire people’s democratic
revolution.
Aware that the industry-based working class is only around 15% of the
population, the Party has exerted all efforts to organize the peasant masses
which comprise around 75% of the population. The peasants are the main force of
the revolution. They are the inexhaustible source of strength for the people’
war. The fulfillment of their demand for land is the main content of the
democratic revolution.
The patriotic and progressive youth movement has urban-based mass
organizations. It fights for the rights and interests of the youth as students
and out-of-school. It is aware that it can make political advances more
effectively only in combination with the workers and other exploited people. It
has produced leaders for other mass movements. The most advanced among them
have become members of the Party and augment the ranks of proletarian
revolutionaries. They have thus become more dedicated to the achievement of the
people’s democratic revolution.
The women’s movement has become powerful because it is based on one half of
the entire people and fights for its rights and interests within the context of
the people’s democratic revolution. Women who become trained as mass activists
have become leaders of various types of mass organizations and have also joined
the Party. They are aware that they cannot advance in their struggle against
millennia of patriarchalism without developing their collective strength
through the people’s democratic revolution.
Men and women in various professional and technical occupations are drawn to
the people’s democratic revolution because here they can contribute their
knowledge and expertise to the people for their national and social liberation.
Although they are better off economically than the exploited masses, they have
their grievances and demands against the increasingly oppressive and exploitative
ruling system.
Since its founding, the Party has considered the New People’s Army as the
main instrument for overthrowing the ruling system and making possible the
establishment of the people’s democratic state. The organization of the
people’s army was facilitated by the combination of the proletarian
revolutionaries from the Manila-based movements of workers and youth with the
good remnants and veterans of the old people’s army in Tarlac province.
Since then, the people’s war has grown from small to big and from weak to
strong by integrating revolutionary armed struggle, agrarian revolution and
mass base building.
Under the leadership of the Party, the New People’s Army is now a nationwide
revolutionary force operating in more than 110 guerrilla fronts, which exist in
substantial portions of 71 out of 81 Philippine provinces. It has thousands of
full-time Red fighters armed with high powered rifles and has a mass base of
millions of people, mainly peasants benefiting from genuine land reform.
A typical guerrilla front has a total force of a guerrilla company, with a
platoon serving as the headquarters, organizer of offensives on the scale of
the front and cooperator with a higher command for the purpose of offensives of
wider scale than the front. The two other platoons disperse into squads and
teams for mass work and for combat operations appropriate to their size,
capability and interoperability with the people’s militia and the self-defense
units of the mass organizations. Combat capability is not limited to the
full-time Red fighters but augmented and amplified by the people’s militia and
self-defense units.
The enemy has repeatedly boasted that it can destroy or reduce the NPA to
inconsequentiality but is always shamed soon enough. Enemy forces have so far
been incapable of attacking simultaneously in concentrated strength for six
months to one year on more than 10% of the guerrilla fronts. Within a typical
guerrilla front, the space for maneuver is wide enough for NPA platoons and
squads to launch counteroffensives against an enemy battalion that sudivides
itself for covering wide areas.
Moreover, the NPA forces under a subregional (interfront) or regional
command can launch counteroffensives within or outside the guerrilla front
under enemy attack. When in certain regions the enemy is concentrating combat
operations, the NPA in other regions can take the initiative of attacking the
enemy forces in their region in order to take advantage of lesser enemy
strength and in order to help the NPA in the regions under attack.
The NPA launches annihilative offensives such as ambushes, raids and arrest
operations to seize the weapons of military, police, paramilitary and private
security units. For attritive actions against the enemy forces, it also uses
sniping operations, land mines, grenades, sapping, interdicting supplies and
destroying military vehicles and fuel stocks at depots.
The NPA has in its ranks the best sons and daughters of the peasant masses
because it is their own army, which enables them to benefit from land reform
and other types of campaigns for their social benefit. The NPA carries out the
minimum land reform program of rent reduction, elimination of usury, raising
farm wages, improving the prices of farm products at the farm gate and promoting
agricultural production and sideline occupations through rudimentary
cooperation. As soon as allowed by circumstances, the maximum land reform
program of confiscating the land and distributing them free to the landless
tenants is carried out.
In times of natural disaster, the NPA and other revolutionary forces do
everything they can for the purpose of rescue, relief, rehabilitation and
reconstruction. In this regard, the Party goes to the extent of declaring
unilateral ceasefires of varying scope in order to concentrate on work for
helping the people. But the enemy forces shamelessly continue to carry out
combat operations. Thus, the NPA has to be alert and ready for defense even
when on ceasefire mode in the face of any impending attack.
The NPA continues to carry out extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on
the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. The Party within the NPA
unit and the Party in the localities make sure that the mass base is developed
in support of the NPA and as a bastion of political struggle against the
reactionary and puppet forces. Mass organizations of workers, peasants, youth,
women, cultural activists and children are built and strengthened. They also
support and assist the local organs of political power which the Party leads.
The organs of political power in the countryside are established at the
barrio, sub-municipal and municipal levels. Appointive organs of political
power established by the unit of the NPA in the barrios precede the elective
barrio revolutionary committees (BRC). The appointive organs of political power
at the barrio level are tasked with hastening the full development of the
different revolutionary mass organizations in the barrio, the building of units
of the people’s militia, and undertaking antifeudal mass struggles and other
mass campaigns of the people. The BRC is elected by the representatives of the
mass organizations or an assembly of the people, depending on the security
situation. They are established in clusters of barrios and can soon be followed
by the establishment of the sub-municipal organs of political power or by the
municipal organs of political power. The local organs of political power are
formed along the line of the united front.
The policy of the united front is followed by the National Democratic Front
and the people’s democratic government from the national level to every lower
level. In representation of the united front, the Party leads the united front
and makes sure that it is based on the worker-peasant alliance and is for the revolutionary
armed struggle. It can combine the toiling masses and the urban petty
bourgeoisie to form the alliance of basic revolutionary forces and further
combine these with the middle bourgeoisie to form the alliance of patriotic
forces. It can further make temporary and unstable alliances with sections of
the reactionary classes to isolate and destroy the most reactionary section.
The Party organizational structure extends to all types of workplaces,
communities, mass organizations and institutions and draws new Party members
from them. It recruits those who have manifested revolutionary commitment and
militancy and who accept the Party Constitution and Program for a People’s
Democratic Revolution. Each recruit is recommended by a full Party member to the
Party branch or committee concerned, which in turn, assigns another full Party
member to verify the personal character and level of consciousness and
commitment of the recommendee. After the aforesaid process, the branch or
committee concerned can approve the status of candidate member and takes charge
of developing the subject to become a full Party member within the stipulated
period of candidature.
The Party can deploy and redeploy Party cadres and members in order to
advance the work of the Party and the revolutionary movement. The NPA and the
countryside are ever in need of Party cadres and members who are workers and
educated youth.
Their integration may be facilitated in various ways. The most important
consideration is that they are determined to stay indefinitely with the NPA or
in the countryside where their competencies are needed.
The Party enjoys high prestige in the international communist movement and
broad anti-imperialist movement because it has continued to lead successfully
the people’s democratic revolution in an archipelagic country, which is
supposed to be in the tight grip of US imperialism and its rabid puppets,
despite the global sway of neoliberalism, the full restoration of capitalism in
former socialist countries and the reign of neocolonialism in third world
countries. The Party has demonstrated that the people’s democratic revolution
through protracted people’s war has continued to grow in strength and advance
with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its powerful guide.
Among the millions of Filipinos who have left for work abroad because of
underdevelopment and poverty in the
Philippines
are members of the Communist Party of the
Philippines and activists of the
national democratic movement. They have been among those most resolute and militant
in fighting for the rights and interests of overseas Filipino workers. They
have been active in developing the solidarity of the Filipino people with the
peoples in many countries. They have readily joined activities of the working
class and the broad anti-imperialist movement in their host countries.
In closing, we wish to stress a number of tasks:
1. Let us do our best to cause the ouster of the Aquino regime or compel
Aquino’s resignation from his office because of puppetry to
US imperialism,
corruption, electoral fraud, grave human rights violations, mismanagement of
pre-disaster preparations and disaster aid, mendacity, unrestricted mining,
logging, landgrabbing and other forms of destroying the environment. We
consider our efforts to remove Aquino from power as part of the process of
strengthening the revolutionary movement and overthrowing the entire ruling
system for the purpose of realizing fully the Program for a People’s Democratic
Revolution and proceeding to the socialist revolution. As proven in the
overthrow of Marcos and Estrada, it is possible for the legal mass movement to
drive the overthrow of Aquino. Even if this would not succeed, the movement
would still be strengthened and will further cause the US-Aquino regime to fail
in its brutal attempt to destroy the armed revolution of the people.
2. Let us further strengthen the Communist Party of the
Philippines
ideologically, politically and organizationally. We must ensure that the
Philippine revolution is led by the revolutionary proletariat in the current
stage of the people’s democratic revolution and in the subsequent stage of the
socialist revolution. The effective leadership of the Party is the most
important political requirement for the current plan of advancing from the
strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate in our protracted people’s war.
We must train and develop big numbers of capable cadres in the different lines
of work, improve the collective leadership and style of work of Party
committees, revitalize the Party system of regular and special reports, and
strengthen the Party organization based on the principles of democratic
centralism. We must strive to bring the number of our Party members to 25,000,
no matter how long it takes to do so. Such organized strength of ideologically
committed and politically competent Party members will give us the capability
to perform all necessary tasks for advancing the revolution.
3. We must continue to intensify the offensives of the New People’s Army. We
must wage battles to wipe out enemy units and seize their weapons. This is the
way to strengthen the people’s army for the purpose of overthrowing the
reactionary state. We must increase the number of our Red fighters to 25,000.
We must be good at frustrating and defeating the enemy forces wherever they
attack, attacking them at their weak points of deployment and their supply lines,
dismantling the mining, plantation and logging enterprises that violate the
laws of the people’s government and compelling enemy forces to take guard duty
and be on the defensive. We have succeeded in preserving and increasing the
people’s army nationwide by following the strategic line of protracted people’s
war: encircling the cities from the countryside until we have accumulated the
armed strength to seize the cities and achieve total victory.
4. We must persevere in our current tactical line of extensive and intensive
guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. We
must be skillful at using the tactics of concentration, dispersal and shifting
for defeating enemy forces in a war of fluid movement. In order to reach the strategic
stalemate, we must strive to reach the goal of more or less 200 guerrilla
fronts, while always improving the Party leadership and army commands at the
national, regional, subregional and front levels. We must always integrate the
armed struggle with agrarian revolution and mass base building. We must build
the mass organizations of various types and the organs of political power. They
should generate the land reform campaign and other social campaigns and build
local defense forces (people’s militia and self-defense units) to augment and
amplify the strength of the people’s army.
5. We must apply the policy of united front in the mass movement and in
building the organs of political power at every level. The united front is
under the leadership of the Party and is mainly for armed struggle. The
National Democratic Front is the embodiment of the united front of the Party,
NPA and all other revolutionary forces. It propagates the line of people’s
democratic revolution. It harmonizes the relations of the revolutionary classes
and their forces within its organized framework and develops alliances with
other forces in a broader united front. It is authorized to engage in peace
negotiations with the reactionary government and is guided by the line of
seeking national liberation, democracy, social justice, real development,
protection of the environment and solidarity of peoples as the basis of a just
peace. There is no point in making any peace agreement without these
objectives.
6. Let us continue having a positive view of all legal forces that seek to
attain such objectives as those of the NDF and welcome their campaigns and
activities. We appreciate that they also pursue the united front for the
purpose of arousing, organizing and mobilizing the people in their millions to
fight for their rights and interests. We condemn the brutal policy of the enemy
towards organizations and activists that uphold, defend and promote the rights
and interests of the workers, peasants, fishermen, urban poor, women, youth, indigenous
people, teachers, journalists, scientists and technologists, health workers,
lawyers and other professions as well as those who focus on good causes and
advocate land reform, human rights, peace, environmental protection and so on.
We encourage all social activists to hold their ground and fight for their
rights. At the same time, we welcome to the revolutionary underground and the
people’s army those who are in danger of death and imprisonment and decide to
join the armed struggle.
7. The Party is guided by the principle of proletarian internationalism and
works for the rebuilding of the international communist movement as well as the
further strengthening of the broad anti-imperialist movement. We consider these
movements of great importance in the face of the protracted and ever worsening
crisis of the world capitalist system, the escalation of oppression and
exploitation and the unleashing of wars of aggression by the imperialist
powers. We must contribute to and support the resurgence of proletarian
revolutionary parties and the anti-imperialist movement. We must raise the
level of common understanding and practical cooperation through bilateral and
multilateral meetings and other activities. In the course of our solidarity
relations with revolutionary and progressive forces and peoples abroad, we must
promote the rights and interests of overseas Filipino workers and we must
encourage the Filipinos in the motherland and abroad to unite with all other
peoples in fighting for and building a fundamentally new and better world free
from the scourge of imperialism and all reaction.
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20131226_advance-the-national-democratic-revolution-through-people-s-war-amid-the-worsening-global-and-domestic-crisis
