MESSAGE FROM CAMP BAGONG DIWA: Greetings from detained members of NDFP on its 43rd anniversary

From the Manila Times (Apr 25): MESSAGE FROM CAMP BAGONG DIWA: Greetings from detained members of NDFP on its 43rd anniversary

[The following is the unedited greeting to the NDFP sent to The Manila Times by National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultants and other political prisoners in Camp Bagong Diwa and in other detention areas throughout the country.]

Militant Greetings to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines on the 43rd Anniversary of its Founding (April 24, 2016).

We, foully detained National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultants and other political prisoners in Camp Bagong Diwa and in other detention areas throughout the country, send our militant greetings to the NDFP on the 43rd anniversry of its founding.

The NDFP, a solid and deep alliance of 18 national democratic revolutionary organizations with millions in total membership throughout the country and abroad, has consistently been growing and gaining significant inroads through the wide swath of struggles these patriotic and progressive people’s organizations have been waging, in the interest of the mass of the Filipino people, in the country and abroad.

The NDFP has been carrying on revolutionary struggles of the Filipino people and its various sectors in the country and abroad. Its revolutionary activities have been ranging from arousing, educating, and organizing the masses; waging of mass struggles for agrarian reform, production, health care, environmental protection; waging of revolutionary armed struggle; and building local organs of political power. It has also been promoting extra-parliamentary struggles, and forging various levels of unities and cooperation with other revolutionary, patriotic and other allied forces in the country.

It has also been actively supporting people’s wars and other struggles of fraternal people’s organizations in other countries, joining a number of international organizations, leagues and associations of peoples, and participating in international people’s fora, tribunals and other progressive people’s activities abroad.

The NDFP, a solid and deep alliance of 18 national democratic revolutionary organizations with millions in total membership throughout the country and abroad, has consistently been growing and gaining significant inroads through the wide swath of struggles these patriotic and progressive people’s organizations have been waging, in the interest of the mass of the Filipino people, in the country and abroad.

The NDFP has been carrying on revolutionary struggles of the Filipino people and its various sectors in the country and abroad. Its revolutionary activities have been ranging from arousing, educating, and organizing the masses; waging of mass struggles for agrarian reform, production, health care, environmental protection; waging of revolutionary armed struggle; and building local organs of political power. It has also been promoting extra-parliamentary struggles, and forging various levels of unities and cooperation with other revolutionary, patriotic and other allied forces in the country.

It has also been actively supporting people’s wars and other struggles of fraternal people’s organizations in other countries, joining a number of international organizations, leagues and associations of peoples, and participating in international people’s fora, tribunals and other progressive people’s activities abroad.

The NDFP has, since the downfall of the outright fascist regime of Ferdinand Marcos, also been engaged in peace talks with successive post-martial law regimes.

Just as it had been doing with earlier post-martial law regimes, the NDFP has consistently been seeking peace talks with the current — even if outgoing – ruling regime of Benigno S. Aquino III.
It has, however, been under the present reactionary puppet regime of Benigno S. Aquino III, where practically nothing has been achieved in the peace process. Nor has the latter shown any real interest in the peace process with the NDFP.

Since the downfall of the outright Martial Law regime, it has also been under the present regime where the biggest number of NDFP peace consultants and other political prisoners have been foully hurled into and viciously kept in jail on the basis of trumped-up charges – all, in violation of standing peace agreements, as well as of local and international protocols and laws. Despite the clear, documented existence of more than 500 NDFP-related political prisoners at present, the ruling reactionary regime of Benigno S. Aquino III has even kept on denying the existence of political prisoners.

Since Day One of its rule up to the present eve of its exit and replacement, the current reactionary puppet regime of Benigno S. Aquino III has only shown that it knows nothing and has done nothing, but to kowtow to the interests of its US imperialist master and the interests of the big compradors, big feudal lords and big bureaucrat capitalists.

Worse, it has conditioned the committing of outright fascist violence against hungry, exploited and oppressed people asking for their right to land, food and protection from violence.

The massacre committed in 2004 against peasants and their supporters demanding agrarian reform in the Hacienda Luisita of Benigno S. Aquino III’s clan has recently been followed by the firing of bullets, beatings, arrests, harassments, hurling into jail and other gross acts of violence – against other hungry, exploited and oppressed masses – committed under the reign of Benigno S. Aquino III.

Most recent among these have been the Sept. 2015 and onward killings and other acts of fascism against the Lumad and their communities, their educators and the shutting down of their schools.
They have instigated forced evacuations and further acts of fascism against Lumad refugees seeking protection in the Haran compound of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) in Davao del Norte; the Nov. 2015 total burning down of the Lumad Alternative Learning Center for Livelihood and Development (ALCADEV) and harassment of surrounding Lumad communities in Tandag City; and the April 1, 2016 and onward killings and other acts of fascism against hungry peasants merely asking for rice and seeking protection from violence in the Methodist compound in Kidapawan City, North Cotabato.

Even as it relies mainly on the people’s war – waged by the New People’s Army and related NDFP forces – for as long as such fascist acts will only continue unabated and even be heightened further, and for as long as the other age-old basic problems of the people continue to be ignored and unresolved, and for as long as the people’s demands for substantive solutions are met only with deaf ears and violence from the reactionary ruling state and regimes, still the NDFP remains always open to peace talks with the other side. This, for as long as the other side would also be open to peace efforts.

Aside from its many crimes against the people – including the aforementioned grave acts of violence against the displaced Lumad and hungry peasants – because of the lack of intent and little time left for it to change, the outgoing regime of Benigno S. Aquino III is already a dead duck.

On its 43rd anniversary, the NDFP celebrates the all-rounded victories of the people’s war and the continuing defeat of the US and its local puppet regime’s Oplan Bayanihan and the latter’s arrogant objective of defeating and marginalizing the NPA within a few years.

At the same time, the NDFP always remains open to peace talks and hopeful for the progress of such, and is thus always willing to sit at the negotiating table with its opposite at the helm of the ruling state – for as long as the latter is also truly open to it and serious enough about it.

The NDFP looks forward to more victories for the people at present and in the future!

Long live the NDFP and its allied organizations!

Victory to the causes and struggles of the NDFP and the Filipino people!

[By National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultants Adelberto Silva, Alan Jazmines, Ernesto Lorenzo, Loida Magpatoc, Ruben Saluta, Tirso Alcantara and other political prisoners in Camp Bagong Diwa.]

http://www.manilatimes.net/greetings-from-detained-members-of-ndfp-on-its-43rd-anniversary/258362/