The revolutionary movement in both the Sierra Madre-Southern Tagalog (ST) subregion and the Southwest Negros guerrilla front registered advances. The Sierra Madre-ST subregion encompasses the provinces of Laguna and Rizal as well as northern and central Quezon. Southwest Negros, on the other hand, covers the towns of Cauayan, Hinobaan, Candoni and Ilog and the cities of Kabankalan and Sipalay, as well as parts of Negros Oriental.
In Sierra Madre-ST. In the past two years, the New People’s Army (NPA) was able to launch 50 annihilative and attritive tactical offensives in all the provinces covered by the subregion, or an average of four per month. The enemy suffered platoon-size casualties (26 dead and 27 wounded). Meted blows by the NPA were the enemy fascist troops of the butcher 16th IB, 1st IB, 59th IB, 21st and 22nd DRC. The NPA likewise meted punishment on exploitative and environmentally destructive quarrying companies owned by big comprador bourgeoisie and foreign capitalists like Rapid City Corporation in Antipolo City, JCR Aggregates and Rodriguez Rock, Inc. in Rodriguez, Rizal.
The NPA has been able to maintain initiative and flexibility in battle. Out of the 56 firefights, 50 were initiated by the NPA and only six initiated by the AFP. This, despite the presense of three to four Philippine Army battalions and two battalions of SAF-PNP supported by three CAFGU battalions and the Regional Police Safety and Maneuver Battalion which have been relentlessly launching sustained encirclement and suppression campaigns against NPA forces. The AFP-PNP’s declarations that Laguna is now “insurgency-free” is a big lie. Neither has the NPA been absent from Rizal province and central and northern Quezon.
On the other hand, the mass base continues to expand throughout the subregion. The organized mass base expanded by 68% in the past two years, and the number of full-fledged peasant mass organizations have doubled despite incessant enemy attacks.
The people’s open antifascist, antifeudal and anti-imperialist mass struggles against the reactionary US-Aquino regime is intensifying in the face of the AFP and PNP’s brutality and human rights violations, beatings, rape of women and destruction of the people’s livelihoods.
Protest actions are persistently launched to resist the widespread eviction of minority peoples and peasants from the UP Land Grant in Real, Quezon; from ARC lands in Mauban, Quezon; from lands being claimed by the Roxas family in Nakar, Quezon on which they plan to build the Pacific Coast City; and the upcoming inundation of seven barangays in Tanay, Rizal and two barangays in Nakar, Quezon for the construction of the Laiban and Kaliwa Dams.
The scheduled eviction of residents living around Laguna Lake to give way to the construction of circumferential road-6 (C-6) and plans to extend MRT-7 from Quezon City to Bulacan will further drive the people to take action to defend their lives and livelihoods. It is clear to the people of Sierra Madre-ST that only through their collective opposition and action can they effectively defend their rights.
The Party’s membership and the number of basic Party organizations continue to grow. The Party exercises firm leadership over the theater of guerrilla war, the guerrilla fronts, Sierra Madre-ST’s urban areas and the people in the villages, communities, factories, mass organizations and alliances and within NPA units. More than 95% of Party members within the NPA have taken the Basic Party Course. Almost half of the members of Local Party Branches have also finished taking the basic course. Cadres at the guerrilla front and section levels and a number of Party branch cadres have also taken the Intermediate Party Course.
Company-size guerrilla fronts must be further strengthened. Within Sierra Madre-ST, it is both possible and feasible to maintain nine to 11 company-size guerrilla fronts. The NPA must continually be expanded until platoon-size units have been established in every appropriate town within Sierra Madre-ST.
More people’s militia units as well as barrio defense units and sectoral self-defense units must also be established, trained and armed. The masses must continually be mobilized to join tactical offensives and engage in intelligence work, recruitment, production, raising supplies and logistics and other revolutionary tasks.
In Southwest Negros. As 2015 begins, intensified people’s struggles are expected to confront the next stage of implementation in Southwest Negros of the AFP and Negros Occidental Gov. Alfredo Marañon Jr.‘s Marching for Peace program as well as the US-Aquino regime’s neoliberal policies.
According to Ka Andrea Guerrero, spokesperson of the Armando Sumayang Jr. Command of the New People’s Army in Southwest Negros, the Red fighters have been able to expand their areas of operation and maneuver as the AFP chose to concentrate only on a number of areas. Party Section Committees have been established to assist NPA platoon cadres in maintaining older areas. The NPA likewise engaged in production work together with the peasant masses and the people’s militia.
As a result, the theater of guerrilla war has expanded, providing more favorable conditions to the NPA to exercise initiative. It has been able to launch basic tactical offensives, including punitive actions against two construction companies and their CAFGU security guards “(see related article)”: and bodyguards of despotic landlord Pablo “Jin” Sola. The NPA also punished rabid fascist elements and military intelligence operatives.
Agrarian revolution has consistently been implemented. Peasants and farm workers have demanded higher wages for work in sugar cane fields, higher prices for charcoal and coffee crops and the right to till vacant land. There is intense resistance to landgrabbing in the uplands to replace existing crops with pineapple, oil palm, rubber trees and banana. The middle forces in Hinobaan and Cauayan have undertaken significant action against black sand mining in coastal and upland areas. There is also a widespread petition among residents of coastal areas in Cauayan against Aquino’s “No Build Zone” (NBZ) policy.
These various mass struggles have exposed the hollowness of the much-vaunted peace and development under the Provincial Integration Development Unit (Providu) and Marching for Peace. The regime’s reforestation program is nothing but a smokescreen to enable big companies to penetrate ancestral land. There is widespread resistance among minorities and settlers to schemes by the government and landlords to provide Ancestral Domain Titles (ADT) to the national minorities in exchange for allowing their land to be planted to rubber trees, oil palm and banana.
Marañon’s much-vaunted claims of having put a stop to illegal logging in Hinobaan is all for show to cover up his role in denuding the uplands and divert the people’s attention from the construction of a pier in Barangay Culipapa that will cause the eviction of hundreds of families. In Candoni town, huge amounts of local government funds have been poured into the establishment of Barangay Peacekeeping Action Teams (BPAT) to ensure the suppression of the people’s resistance to plans by TADECO to plant banana and pineapple in the villages of Gatuslao, Agboy and Payawan. Meanwhile, Marañon turns a blind eye to the proliferation of illegal drugs.
Residents of Sipalay and Cauayan are likewise worried about the reopening of Philex Mining Corp. because this would lead anew to the destruction of the environment and the people’s livelihoods.
[Ang Bayan is the official news organ of the Communist
Party of the Philippines
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/publications/ang_bayan/20150107/advances-in-sierra-madre-st-and-southwest-negros
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