CPP/Ang Bayan: Editorial - Youth, join the people’s war!

Ang Bayan Editorial (English version) posted to the CPP Website (Nov 22): Youth, join the people’s war!

The entire Filipino nation will be commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) on November 30. The entire nation, especially the mass of workers and peasants hail the huge role KM has played in the last 50 years in advancing the people’s democratic revolution and the important role it will be playing in the future.

Let us honor all the youth who have offered their lives to advancing the national-democratic movement in the various fields of struggle, especially in the arena of armed struggle. Let us salute the youth who comprise the biggest proportion of Red fighters nationwide. They tread the path of armed revolution for national and social liberation that was first laid by the young sons and daughters of the people under Andres Bonifacio’s leadership.

In the last four and a half decades of advancing protracted people’s war, the Kabataang Makabayan has served as a wellspring of new Red fighters and commanders of the New People’s Army and members and cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Because young revolutionaries continually emerge, the Party and the NPA remain vibrant and daring in shouldering the serious tasks involved in advancing the revolution.

The Filipino people owe a huge debt to the Kabataang Makabayan for its major contributions in the last half century in advancing their national-democratic struggle. In the last 50 years, KM has served as the Party’s assistant in mobilizing the youth in mass struggles and training them in advancing the propaganda movement and cultural revolution, invigorating the democratic struggles of the toiling masses, building the united front and advancing armed struggle.

The Party and the Kabataang Makabayan are aware of the main social problems and issues confronting the Filipino youth. The continuously worsening crisis of the ruling semicolonial and semifeudal system has been aggravating the conditions of millions of young workers, peasants and petty bourgeoisie.

The number of out of school youth has doubled in the last decade due to the worsening commercialization of education. Tuition, miscellaneous fees and other school expenses have relentlessly increased. The reactionary government insists on cutting down on its social expensitures, including its budgetary allocation for education, even as it keeps on strengthening the role of the big bourgeoisie in public education.

Alongside the commercialization of education is stepped-up campus repression. Capitalist school owners in connivance with state security agencies have been suppressing campus journalism, organizations and other student rights with the goal of repressing the students’ collective defiance of policies designed to amass more profits.
The implementation of the K-12 program has further geared Philippine education towards training cheap labor for export or for the burgeoning local army of the unemployed. Half of the unemployed or underemployed are from the youth. An economy devoid of an industrial base, dependent on foreign investments and debt and subject to big foreign capitalist plunder is incapable of generating sufficient employment. The youth are forced to apply at call centers and suffer severe oppression and brutal working conditions.

As adjutants to the Party, the cadres and members of the Kabataang Makabayan are able to reach out to vast numbers of Filipino youth in colleges and high schools. They arouse and mobilize the youth on the basis of the day to day problems they confront and raise their consciousness on how these are rooted in the basic problems of the Filipino people. They provide political education to the youth in order to fire up their progressive and patriotic fervor.

Through KM, proletarian revolutionaries are continually able to take deep root among the student youth and mobilize the‭m in advancing the people’s democratic revolution. They are able to touch base with the youth and people in communities, factories and offices.

Conditions exist for the resurgence of the revolutionary youth-student movement. No effort must be spared in arousing, reaching out to, organizing and mobilizing the student youth in order to advance their democratic welfare and rouse them to join the people’s democratic revolution.

The new and historic participation of great numbers of the youth in street protests and countryside work is a necessary adjunct in the advance of the protracted people’s war towards the next stage of strategic stalemate. When the urban-based youth join the New People’s Army in droves, they will have made a huge contribution to the further invigoration of armed struggle in the countryside.

The resoundingly victorious tactical offensives of the NPA in the countryside inspire the youth and people in the cities. On the other hand, the broad mass struggles and growing street demonstrations invigorate the revolutionary forces in the countryside.
The continuing emergence of new generations of young proletarian revolutionaries is a factor in the Communist Party of the Philippines’ neverending enthusiasm and optimism. Young revolutionaries infuse the Party not just with their physical strength, but with their refreshing determination and perspective in resolving problems and advancing the revolutionary movement. They learn and draw inspiration from elder cadres in carrying out their serious tasks.

http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20141122_youth-join-the-people-s-war