From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 25): Lorenzana slams Joma anew for tagging gov't in NegOcc massacre
"Look who's talking".
This was the reaction of Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana after Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria "Joma" Sison blamed anew the military for the murder of nine workers in a sugar farm in Sagay City, Negros Occidental.
"Yeah right! Coming from the mastermind of the Plaza Miranda bombing, the killing of hundreds of New People’s Army (NPA) cadres suspected of being agents of the government, as well as assassination/killings of innocent civilians in the past 50 years?" the DND chief said in a statement sent to reporters Thursday.
Lorenzana also warned Sison to refrain from pointing fingers, noting that the CPP founder's "other fingers are pointing back at you".
"You have been unmasked as the man behind these atrocities by no less than your former comrades. Your psywar no longer works. Nobody, even your so-called fighters, believes you anymore," the DND chief added.
The defense chief also said Sison is doomed to be consigned to the dustbin of history as a pathetic revolutionary failure, who has achieved nothing significant and instead brought bloodshed and suffering to the Filipino people.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1052092
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Sugar workers’ group asks Duterte, AFP to stop ‘red-tagging’ members
From the Manila Bulletin (Oct 25): Sugar workers’ group asks Duterte, AFP to stop ‘red-tagging’ members
A group of sugar workers asked President Duterte and the military to stop ‘red tagging’’ its members.
(MANILA BULLETIN)
The National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) issued the call insisting that there is a concerted effort to malign its leaders and discredit the just claims of sugar workers and farmers for free land distribution and genuine agrarian reform.
Earlier, the group claimed that Duterte in his speech in Malacañang insensitively castigated farmers launching their ‘bungkalan’ campaigns and red-baiting them in presuming they have links to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).
Even with the ongoing investigation, the group maintained the President quickly absolved the military, which has been nestling the Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) under the AFP’s Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (SCAA) unit stationed in Hacienda Mirasol, barangay Baterya, some 2 kilometers from the massacre site.
NFSW secretary general John Milton “Ka Butch” Lozande said, “Just days after the Sagay massacre, President Duterte did not lose time using the brutal killings to prove his Red October fiction.”
He added that instead of implementing a free land distribution program with support services for the poor landless farmers, the president even threatened them if they ever plan to occupy and cultivate idle lands.
On the same day, General Carlito Galvez Jr., AFP chief of staff, tried to convince the general public and media of its grand narrative that the CPP-NPA was behind the massacre of nine farm workers in Hacienda Nene in Sagay City, as part of its long debunked “Red October” myth, said Lozande.
The group said the “AFP repeatedly confused journalists as it fumbled over its own lies by pushing its theory that the CPP-NPA made the farmworkers bait to incite the massacre, while they are also the ones who perpetrated the killings.”
“Instead of looking for the perpetrators and bringing them to justice, the AFP, like their president, chose to throw baseless accusations, red-tagging NFSW leaders and members and making them open targets to extrajudicial killings, threats, harassment, and prosecution. If anything happens to them, there is only the AFP to blame,” said Lozande.
In 2017, NFSW leaders Alexander Ceballos and Flora Jemola, were brutally murdered. The following year, Ronald Manlapat and Julius Barellano were also gunned down. None have been brought to justice.
The group added the AFP wantonly named Lozande, Bayan Muna chairperson Neri Colmenares, Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao, Kabataan Partylist Rep. Sarah Elago, and ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tino, berating them for speaking out against the Sagay massacre.
“Ridiculously, the AFP denounced these public pronouncements that call for respect of human rights and justice as “mind conditioning,” the group added.
“As the AFP insisted that the Sagay massacre is part of the CPP-NPA’s ‘sinister plot,’ along with organizing workers and creating a broad alliance, it unwittingly revealed its own devious scheme of finding justification to finally declare a nationwide martial law. This means that the Filipino people must become all the more vigilant and not cower in fear as the Duterte government, the AFP and PNP would want us to be,” Lozande said.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/10/25/sugar-workers-group-asks-duterte-afp-to-stop-red-tagging-members/
A group of sugar workers asked President Duterte and the military to stop ‘red tagging’’ its members.
(MANILA BULLETIN)
The National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) issued the call insisting that there is a concerted effort to malign its leaders and discredit the just claims of sugar workers and farmers for free land distribution and genuine agrarian reform.
Earlier, the group claimed that Duterte in his speech in Malacañang insensitively castigated farmers launching their ‘bungkalan’ campaigns and red-baiting them in presuming they have links to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).
Even with the ongoing investigation, the group maintained the President quickly absolved the military, which has been nestling the Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) under the AFP’s Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (SCAA) unit stationed in Hacienda Mirasol, barangay Baterya, some 2 kilometers from the massacre site.
NFSW secretary general John Milton “Ka Butch” Lozande said, “Just days after the Sagay massacre, President Duterte did not lose time using the brutal killings to prove his Red October fiction.”
He added that instead of implementing a free land distribution program with support services for the poor landless farmers, the president even threatened them if they ever plan to occupy and cultivate idle lands.
On the same day, General Carlito Galvez Jr., AFP chief of staff, tried to convince the general public and media of its grand narrative that the CPP-NPA was behind the massacre of nine farm workers in Hacienda Nene in Sagay City, as part of its long debunked “Red October” myth, said Lozande.
The group said the “AFP repeatedly confused journalists as it fumbled over its own lies by pushing its theory that the CPP-NPA made the farmworkers bait to incite the massacre, while they are also the ones who perpetrated the killings.”
“Instead of looking for the perpetrators and bringing them to justice, the AFP, like their president, chose to throw baseless accusations, red-tagging NFSW leaders and members and making them open targets to extrajudicial killings, threats, harassment, and prosecution. If anything happens to them, there is only the AFP to blame,” said Lozande.
In 2017, NFSW leaders Alexander Ceballos and Flora Jemola, were brutally murdered. The following year, Ronald Manlapat and Julius Barellano were also gunned down. None have been brought to justice.
The group added the AFP wantonly named Lozande, Bayan Muna chairperson Neri Colmenares, Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao, Kabataan Partylist Rep. Sarah Elago, and ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tino, berating them for speaking out against the Sagay massacre.
“Ridiculously, the AFP denounced these public pronouncements that call for respect of human rights and justice as “mind conditioning,” the group added.
“As the AFP insisted that the Sagay massacre is part of the CPP-NPA’s ‘sinister plot,’ along with organizing workers and creating a broad alliance, it unwittingly revealed its own devious scheme of finding justification to finally declare a nationwide martial law. This means that the Filipino people must become all the more vigilant and not cower in fear as the Duterte government, the AFP and PNP would want us to be,” Lozande said.
https://news.mb.com.ph/2018/10/25/sugar-workers-group-asks-duterte-afp-to-stop-red-tagging-members/
Bulatlat: WANTED: New Women of the NPA
From the pro-Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) online propaganda publication Bulatlat (Oct 25): WANTED: New Women of the NPA
BLOOD RUSH
By SARAH RAYMUNDO
“More women from different sectors of society are joining the armed struggle because of worsening exploitation #MMKWomenInArms (1).” Up on Twitter, this is just one of the several tweets on women and the armed struggle in the Philippines by the Philippine Revolution Web Central (PRWC). Since President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD) labeled the communist forces in the Philippines “terrorist” during the last quarter of 2017, tweets on the increasing number of citizens coming from different backgrounds joining the New People’s Army (NPA) and the significant role it plays in remote communities would be one of the themes in PRWC’s tweets.
In June of this year, TIME magazine’s recap of most influential people on the internet includes Filipino women who spearheaded the #BabaeAko (I Am Woman) Movement. This online action is being led by artist Mae “Juana Change” Paner, former Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary and Martial Law survivor, Professor Judy Taguiwalo, and journalist Inday Espina Varona, among others. #BabaeAko pushes back against PRRD’s misogyny.
During his campaign, PRRD shocked and angered many when he quipped that “he should have been first” referring to an Australian lay minister who was raped, and whom he in the same statement described as beautiful. In the middle of Martial Law and intense fighting in Marawi, PRRD assured the military that he would take responsibility for the consequences of Martial Law, including the rape of women by soldiers. Earlier this year, PRRD ordered his men to shoot female members of the NPA in the vagina to render them “useless.” More recently, in a public engagement in South Korea, PRRD demanded a Filipina overseas worker to kiss him on the lips. Duterte’s men ridiculously explained away these sexist and misogynist acts as jokes which are part and parcel of Philippine culture.
Culture Matters
Filipino culture in the hands of the ruling elite sounds more like a noun rather than a verb: a static or permanent characteristic instead of a dynamic process. Those in power are likely to depict culture as a set of prescriptions to maintain the status quo. The rest of us who do not have a stake in using culture to legitimize conditions of oppression and exploitation have more freedom to mediate culture in terms of its changing dynamics— the forces behind its powerful hold on people and its organizing myths within the context of social struggles. In other words, culture in the hands of those who want to change the world can be wielded as a form of truth-telling.
What follows is a documentation of a dimension of Philippine culture that is rarely tackled by mainstream media. Yet it is an aspect of Filipino life that is very well known among ordinary folk who live in poor communities. PRWC’s tweet about various sectors of Filipina joining the armed revolution can be substantiated by a set of collated materials written by and on martyred women of the communist NPA of the Second Rectification Movement (1992-present). This is the generation that succeeds the first when the NPA was founded on March 29, 1969.
In many ways, the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 1968 was hastened and fortified by the urgencies of Martial Law. Martyred NPAs of that generation are considered as heroes to this day. However, those who would join and eventually die in the armed revolution after the ouster of the dictator in 1986 seem to no longer occupy the same social recognition accorded to NPAs of the preceding generation.
Let me hazard an explanation.
The Cory fever (woman president who replaced Marcos after the 1986 People Power) informed the mainstream discourse of democratic space: No need for mass base building, agrarian revolution and revolutionary self-defense through armed struggle. Yet amidst this counter-revolutionary fever emerged great young women who left the comforts petit bourgeois existence to join the NPA. This, even if the 90s atmosphere turned the necessity of the anti-imperialist struggle toward socialism a difficult politics to explain to fellow students, and much harder to professors who were preaching about “democratic space.” It meant to highlight and almost absolutize the triumph of a functional democracy and so-called economic growth through the trickle down promise of globalization.
This testimony focuses on Mary, Recca, Tin and Tanya who went to the University of the Philippines-Diliman. As activists and eventually as part of the revolutionary NPA, these women forged their identities by fighting across lines of interlocking oppressions. This account cannot give justice to their work. Rather, my goal is to talk about how revolution looks like in the lives of these revolutionary women. In the light of one of the well known campaign hashtag online, #BabaeAko and the current red tagging and subsequent violent attacks on progressive unions and organizations, this modest contribution aims to provide some leads on an important question about the legacy of revolutionary women: how they, who are no longer here, continue to inform the ways we do revolution.
The struggle for national liberation toward socialism
Classic images of the class struggle are invasions, wars, brutal killings, torching, lynching, all that shock and gore. Yet conditions in the Philippines after the very dark days of Martial Law under Marcos are not far removed from horrifying scenes of colonial massacres, CIA-instigated killings of peasants, military hamletting of villages, and all that has made the Filipino working poor a tortured, traumatized, hungry and a fighting people.
In his introduction to Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Jean Paul Sartre names the circumtances which shape the lives of a colonized/native people as nervous conditions. The wretched of the earth is dispossessed and made to understand only one kind of language—violence.
Under nervous conditions, the tendency for the oppressed to approach oppression as a “miraculous remedy” looms like a curse. For it is in the interest of the oppressor to reduce the colonized/native into a helpless subject who embraces the colonizer for as violence and inhuman treatment have become unbearable. The purpose of violence is to alienate the colonized/native from her/his very own and collective sense of self-determination. Sartre observes a process at once psychological and structural: the colonized/native “desists from the culture he has been forced to despise.”
The opposite of the colonizer’s projected outcome is revolutionary people’s war. It insists upon a collective sense of self-determination as the only remedy for a system that immiserates the lives of the majority.
At this point, let me offer a few words on the struggle for national liberation toward socialism in the Philippines waged by the CPP-NPA-NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines).
The Philippines remains to be a semi-feudal semi-colony of the United States. The goal of nationalism and democracy is to defeat the hold of imperialism through the parallel strengths of an urban mass movement and an underground revolutionary movement led by the peasant-worker alliance. This two-stage revolution consists in the national democratic revolution’s struggle for land redistribution and national industrialization toward socialism.
The armed revolutionary Left or the NPA is guided by the CPP. It is an army that engages with peasant communities as an expanding mass base. The goal of expansion necessitates mobility as the NPA shifts from forest or mountain encampments. Its spread across the archipelago typically contains platoon-size formations which cover two to three municipalities relative to the terrain.
Unbeknownst to many, the NPA organizes peasant communities around activities that provide welfare and basic rights from health to education, from cultural and socioeconomic projects to collective labor arrangements as well as mediation in cases of conflict among community members. NPA leaders claim that the work of the revolutionary guerilla is 90 percent mass work and 10 percent military work (2).
Social Reproduction and Revolutionary Labor
In her illuminating introduction to the book “Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (2017), ” Tithi Bhattacharya prepares the readers for an engagement with the question of separate spheres and their historical forms of appearance. The two spheres of production, the economic and the social. The economic sphere is understood as the workplace where workers produce total wealth. The social sphere is understood as the end of the work day or the home where workers regenerate “and hence the reproduction of the workforce.” “If, as we propose,’ Bhattacharya argues, “the spatial separation between production… and reproduction is a historical form of appearance, then the labor that is dispensed in both spheres must also be theorized integratively (2017:49).” [3]
This compelling problematization offered by Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) that is grounded on labor as a basic human activity rather than just an economic concept, as when labor is reduced to mere human capital in bourgeois economics, allows us to think about the potentials of labor that does not produce surplus value— and this is social reproduction, a form of labor that is reproductive of capitalism. But what if this labor that does not produce surplus value is revolutionary labor? Here I propose to read revolution as labor in the era of capitalist time, making this very moment a time for revolution. But what does that labor which takes place in spaces of armed revolution in the Global South, particularly in the national democratic revolution toward socialism look like? Genuine recognition of revolution entails a concrete consideration of the human condition. One aspect of the human condition is how people live and die as revolutionaries.
Women of the NPA (3)
Let me begin with Lorena Barros, NPA red fighter who did not live long enough to be part of the Second Great Rectification Movement of the CPP-NPA-NDF. She was an Anthropology major in the University of the Philippines Diliman and joined the underground movement during the Marcos dictatorship and played a key role in the establishment of the dynamic and robust revolutionary organization of Filipino women. Her contributions make way for rectification and the reaffirmation of the national democratic revolution toward socialism.
Lorrie: “The new woman, the new Filipina, is first and foremost a militant. The new Filipina is one who can stay whole nights with striking workers, learning from them the social realities which her bourgeois education has kept from her. She is a woman who has discovered the exalting realm of responsibility, a woman fully engaged in the making of history. No longer is she a woman-for-marriage, but more and more a woman-for-action.”
Mary
This is exactly the choice that Mary made in her late teens. She was studying Journalism at UP Diliman until she decided to join the people’s protracted war. Mary was a guerilla and a poet.
In her poem “Kawayan” or “Bamboo,” Mary tackles the resilience of bamboos that populate the biodiversity of the countryside and red zones to the guerilla. The poem is descriptive of the tediousness of revolutionary struggle likened to the tediousness of agrarian production.
This experience speaks to the reaffirmation of the CPP-NPA-NDF’s basic principles of going back to the basics: the process of politicization and organization of the poorest farmers in the countryside toward a self-conscious, self-governing organs of political power which possess the capacity to, at the minimum, end usurious practices, increase the prices of their produce, lower the cost of the production of rice and corn; and at the maximum, take back what is theirs: the land that they till. When Mary describes the guerilla’s participation in the cycles of food production such as the planting of seeds that will eventually make fields of green, she also refers to a coming home to where every guerilla belongs, a home where people take back the means of production.
Her poem on the occasion of the formal wedding ceremonies in a guerilla zone, “Kasal,” Mary addresses her comrade and husband as she traces the history that brings them together: a union that was chosen for them by the people in struggle. She points to a love that was borne out of class war. She likens their love to a pearl (referring to the nation, the pearl of the orient) that is borne out of a race that is at once oppressed and free, such that every action, such as this wedding ceremony, “is a child of commitment, each word is a seed of a liberating truth. Hold fast to the dream of the human race to break the chains of class oppression. And ceaselessly dream of attaining the humanity of the people of the world.”
Recently, a reference to Mary was made in a social media platform with this caption:
Recca was an excellent student all throughout her school life from kindergarten to college. She is remembered by her classmates from the College of Engineering of UP-Diliman as the best mathematician in their batch. As an NPA guerilla trained in Mechanical Engineering, Recca led a two-year project in one of the remote barrios of the Cordilleras in Northern Luzon to create a system of hyrdaulics in order to provide electricity to this community that had never known electricity until their collective project was finished. It is in this region where the first American military base was built. Camp John Hay was a luxurious residential and office area for the generals that administered the US colonial period in the Philippines.
Recca wrote tremendous letters to her friends (5), comrades, and family while she was in the red zone, now in book form. Among them are the following:
1)
Christine Puche is from the Department of Journalism of the University of the Philippines-Diliman. When she was killed in a massacre (not an encounter) with seven other comrades, Tin was a staff of the Public Information Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in Southern Luzon that is producing revolutionary newspaper, revolutionary radio program, revolutionary multimedia. Her professor, a distinguished left journalist describes the journalism that Tin propagated during her days outside of the University as a “different kind of journalism (6).”
In the mid-90s, the split within the communist movement was also felt in the conduct of political organizations in the University. A comrade challenged her about the heated national debate on whether to reaffirm or reject the revolutionary line of struggle. This comrade was questioning the necessity of sacrifice in the era of so-called democratic space. Tanya retorts: “The revolution is not a dinner party,” and walks away.
Tanya
Tanya is a Visual Arts major from the College of Fine arts. In her diary that she kept during her days in the red zone, she wrote: “Yet what I saw was a different kind of fire. It is the kind that cannot be extinguished by water. Because water is water, and love is not just fire.”
At Tanya’s memorial, one of her friends shared that the last time she saw Tanya was when her friend was on her way to Mendiola for a rally. Please be careful, she told Tanya as the latter was about to board a jeepney. She shared how Tanya replied with a plan for passing, and I quote: “She told me what she wanted as her epitaph…But so sorry, I cannot remember what it was.”
In lieu of this failing memory, a very tender moment, I must say, let me share a few notes which I have already written on what we may learn from full time revolutionary labor:
For someone who is gainfully employed yet shares a communist view of the world, the non-commodity nature of revolutionary labor is arguably one of the most unsettling and humbling achievement in the history of human relations so far. It is an unspoken principle mediating between and among revolutionaries and their families, friends, and a whole society that normalizes the sale and exploitation of human labor.
The non-commodity nature of labor is a situation that defines the lives of revolutionaries who work full time for the struggle for national liberation toward socialism. It poses a challenge to our expectations from full time revolutionaries and provides a better understanding of revolutionary capacities, which include but are not limited to the following:***
1) the revolutionary’s capacity to surmount difficulties;
2) the collective ability of revolutionaries to adapt to their position as producer of enabling conditions for people to contribute to significant change in the deeper texture of Philippine economy and politics;
3) their capacity to expand and consolidate democratic interest groups into a mass movement whose bid for change are both structural and redistributive;
4) the ability to offer something concrete for big dreams like democracy to come to life without reducing the same into personal liberty and a minimized opportunity to enjoy hints of social welfare
;
5) the capacity to win the confidence and love of the people whom full time revolutionaries serve.
Social Reproduction Theory’s demand to reflect on labor that does not produce surplus value yet is reproductive of capital opens up a space for an understanding of another kind of labor that does not produce surplus value for the accumulation of capital, and this is the non-commoditized labor of revolutionary guerillas, the same kind of labor that consciously refuses capitalist instrutmentalization.
Sarah Raymundo teaches at the University of the Philippine Diliman-Center for International Studies. She is the Chairperson of the Philippines-Venezuela Bolivarian Friendship Association. She also chairs the International Committee of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT). She is also the External Vice Chair of the Philippine Anti-Imperialist Studies (PAIS) and a member of the Editorial Board of Interface: A Journal for Social Movements.
An earlier version of this article was presented at the Social Reproduction Theory: Feminism for the 99% Panel of the Left Forum 2018 John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, June 3, 2018. I wish to recognize our panel Chair, Hester Eisenstein for her determination to make our panel happen and for insisting on a topic that will feature the lives of filipino women. I am deeply grateful to Hester, as well as to the rest of our panel, Lise Vogel, Kate Doyle Griffiths and Tithi Bhattacharya—scholar-activists whose contributions to Social Reproduction Theory, international solidarity, and the urgent task of changing the world in revolutionary ways are indispensable and inspiring, to say the very least. I wish to thank the most reliable and passionate group of Filipino-American scholar-activists I have ever worked with, whether here or abroad, dear comrades, Joi Barrios-LeBlanc, Michael Viola and Valerie Francisco who initiated a conference panel for the Association for Asian American Studies 2018 in San Francisco in March 2018, which compelled me to pursue preliminary research on women NPAs.
(1)The hashtag was prompted by a featured story of women in arms in the context of agrarian unrest in a popular Philippine anthology series “Maalaala Mo Kaya” aka Memories (or literally, Would you remember).
(2) Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Conflict Situation in the Philippines: a Needs Assessment of Children and Women Affected by Armed Conflict. 2007. UNICEF and Ibon Foundation.
(3) Bhattacharya, T. 2017. Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression.
London: Pluto Press
(4) All quotes/attributions are from publicly available documents such as books and online platforms. The unevenness of the references for each featured woman red fighter is largely due to availability of public documents
(5) Taguiwalo, J. 2015. Recca: From Diliman to the Cordilleras. Philippines: Southern Voices.
(6) http://pinoyweekly.org/new/2014/07/peryodismong-pulahan-sa-alaala-ni-christine-puche-1976-2013/
(7) from the article “Full time and all the way” notes on the book More Than A Red Warrior, 2015. http://bulatlat.com/main/2015/12/14/full-time-and-all-the-way/
http://bulatlat.com/main/2018/10/25/wanted-new-women-of-the-npa/
BLOOD RUSH
By SARAH RAYMUNDO
“More women from different sectors of society are joining the armed struggle because of worsening exploitation #MMKWomenInArms (1).” Up on Twitter, this is just one of the several tweets on women and the armed struggle in the Philippines by the Philippine Revolution Web Central (PRWC). Since President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD) labeled the communist forces in the Philippines “terrorist” during the last quarter of 2017, tweets on the increasing number of citizens coming from different backgrounds joining the New People’s Army (NPA) and the significant role it plays in remote communities would be one of the themes in PRWC’s tweets.
In June of this year, TIME magazine’s recap of most influential people on the internet includes Filipino women who spearheaded the #BabaeAko (I Am Woman) Movement. This online action is being led by artist Mae “Juana Change” Paner, former Department of Social Welfare and Development Secretary and Martial Law survivor, Professor Judy Taguiwalo, and journalist Inday Espina Varona, among others. #BabaeAko pushes back against PRRD’s misogyny.
During his campaign, PRRD shocked and angered many when he quipped that “he should have been first” referring to an Australian lay minister who was raped, and whom he in the same statement described as beautiful. In the middle of Martial Law and intense fighting in Marawi, PRRD assured the military that he would take responsibility for the consequences of Martial Law, including the rape of women by soldiers. Earlier this year, PRRD ordered his men to shoot female members of the NPA in the vagina to render them “useless.” More recently, in a public engagement in South Korea, PRRD demanded a Filipina overseas worker to kiss him on the lips. Duterte’s men ridiculously explained away these sexist and misogynist acts as jokes which are part and parcel of Philippine culture.
Culture Matters
Filipino culture in the hands of the ruling elite sounds more like a noun rather than a verb: a static or permanent characteristic instead of a dynamic process. Those in power are likely to depict culture as a set of prescriptions to maintain the status quo. The rest of us who do not have a stake in using culture to legitimize conditions of oppression and exploitation have more freedom to mediate culture in terms of its changing dynamics— the forces behind its powerful hold on people and its organizing myths within the context of social struggles. In other words, culture in the hands of those who want to change the world can be wielded as a form of truth-telling.
What follows is a documentation of a dimension of Philippine culture that is rarely tackled by mainstream media. Yet it is an aspect of Filipino life that is very well known among ordinary folk who live in poor communities. PRWC’s tweet about various sectors of Filipina joining the armed revolution can be substantiated by a set of collated materials written by and on martyred women of the communist NPA of the Second Rectification Movement (1992-present). This is the generation that succeeds the first when the NPA was founded on March 29, 1969.
In many ways, the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 1968 was hastened and fortified by the urgencies of Martial Law. Martyred NPAs of that generation are considered as heroes to this day. However, those who would join and eventually die in the armed revolution after the ouster of the dictator in 1986 seem to no longer occupy the same social recognition accorded to NPAs of the preceding generation.
Let me hazard an explanation.
The Cory fever (woman president who replaced Marcos after the 1986 People Power) informed the mainstream discourse of democratic space: No need for mass base building, agrarian revolution and revolutionary self-defense through armed struggle. Yet amidst this counter-revolutionary fever emerged great young women who left the comforts petit bourgeois existence to join the NPA. This, even if the 90s atmosphere turned the necessity of the anti-imperialist struggle toward socialism a difficult politics to explain to fellow students, and much harder to professors who were preaching about “democratic space.” It meant to highlight and almost absolutize the triumph of a functional democracy and so-called economic growth through the trickle down promise of globalization.
This testimony focuses on Mary, Recca, Tin and Tanya who went to the University of the Philippines-Diliman. As activists and eventually as part of the revolutionary NPA, these women forged their identities by fighting across lines of interlocking oppressions. This account cannot give justice to their work. Rather, my goal is to talk about how revolution looks like in the lives of these revolutionary women. In the light of one of the well known campaign hashtag online, #BabaeAko and the current red tagging and subsequent violent attacks on progressive unions and organizations, this modest contribution aims to provide some leads on an important question about the legacy of revolutionary women: how they, who are no longer here, continue to inform the ways we do revolution.
The struggle for national liberation toward socialism
Classic images of the class struggle are invasions, wars, brutal killings, torching, lynching, all that shock and gore. Yet conditions in the Philippines after the very dark days of Martial Law under Marcos are not far removed from horrifying scenes of colonial massacres, CIA-instigated killings of peasants, military hamletting of villages, and all that has made the Filipino working poor a tortured, traumatized, hungry and a fighting people.
In his introduction to Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Jean Paul Sartre names the circumtances which shape the lives of a colonized/native people as nervous conditions. The wretched of the earth is dispossessed and made to understand only one kind of language—violence.
Under nervous conditions, the tendency for the oppressed to approach oppression as a “miraculous remedy” looms like a curse. For it is in the interest of the oppressor to reduce the colonized/native into a helpless subject who embraces the colonizer for as violence and inhuman treatment have become unbearable. The purpose of violence is to alienate the colonized/native from her/his very own and collective sense of self-determination. Sartre observes a process at once psychological and structural: the colonized/native “desists from the culture he has been forced to despise.”
The opposite of the colonizer’s projected outcome is revolutionary people’s war. It insists upon a collective sense of self-determination as the only remedy for a system that immiserates the lives of the majority.
At this point, let me offer a few words on the struggle for national liberation toward socialism in the Philippines waged by the CPP-NPA-NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines).
The Philippines remains to be a semi-feudal semi-colony of the United States. The goal of nationalism and democracy is to defeat the hold of imperialism through the parallel strengths of an urban mass movement and an underground revolutionary movement led by the peasant-worker alliance. This two-stage revolution consists in the national democratic revolution’s struggle for land redistribution and national industrialization toward socialism.
The armed revolutionary Left or the NPA is guided by the CPP. It is an army that engages with peasant communities as an expanding mass base. The goal of expansion necessitates mobility as the NPA shifts from forest or mountain encampments. Its spread across the archipelago typically contains platoon-size formations which cover two to three municipalities relative to the terrain.
Unbeknownst to many, the NPA organizes peasant communities around activities that provide welfare and basic rights from health to education, from cultural and socioeconomic projects to collective labor arrangements as well as mediation in cases of conflict among community members. NPA leaders claim that the work of the revolutionary guerilla is 90 percent mass work and 10 percent military work (2).
Social Reproduction and Revolutionary Labor
In her illuminating introduction to the book “Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression (2017), ” Tithi Bhattacharya prepares the readers for an engagement with the question of separate spheres and their historical forms of appearance. The two spheres of production, the economic and the social. The economic sphere is understood as the workplace where workers produce total wealth. The social sphere is understood as the end of the work day or the home where workers regenerate “and hence the reproduction of the workforce.” “If, as we propose,’ Bhattacharya argues, “the spatial separation between production… and reproduction is a historical form of appearance, then the labor that is dispensed in both spheres must also be theorized integratively (2017:49).” [3]
This compelling problematization offered by Social Reproduction Theory (SRT) that is grounded on labor as a basic human activity rather than just an economic concept, as when labor is reduced to mere human capital in bourgeois economics, allows us to think about the potentials of labor that does not produce surplus value— and this is social reproduction, a form of labor that is reproductive of capitalism. But what if this labor that does not produce surplus value is revolutionary labor? Here I propose to read revolution as labor in the era of capitalist time, making this very moment a time for revolution. But what does that labor which takes place in spaces of armed revolution in the Global South, particularly in the national democratic revolution toward socialism look like? Genuine recognition of revolution entails a concrete consideration of the human condition. One aspect of the human condition is how people live and die as revolutionaries.
Women of the NPA (3)
Let me begin with Lorena Barros, NPA red fighter who did not live long enough to be part of the Second Great Rectification Movement of the CPP-NPA-NDF. She was an Anthropology major in the University of the Philippines Diliman and joined the underground movement during the Marcos dictatorship and played a key role in the establishment of the dynamic and robust revolutionary organization of Filipino women. Her contributions make way for rectification and the reaffirmation of the national democratic revolution toward socialism.
Lorrie: “The new woman, the new Filipina, is first and foremost a militant. The new Filipina is one who can stay whole nights with striking workers, learning from them the social realities which her bourgeois education has kept from her. She is a woman who has discovered the exalting realm of responsibility, a woman fully engaged in the making of history. No longer is she a woman-for-marriage, but more and more a woman-for-action.”
Mary
This is exactly the choice that Mary made in her late teens. She was studying Journalism at UP Diliman until she decided to join the people’s protracted war. Mary was a guerilla and a poet.
In her poem “Kawayan” or “Bamboo,” Mary tackles the resilience of bamboos that populate the biodiversity of the countryside and red zones to the guerilla. The poem is descriptive of the tediousness of revolutionary struggle likened to the tediousness of agrarian production.
This experience speaks to the reaffirmation of the CPP-NPA-NDF’s basic principles of going back to the basics: the process of politicization and organization of the poorest farmers in the countryside toward a self-conscious, self-governing organs of political power which possess the capacity to, at the minimum, end usurious practices, increase the prices of their produce, lower the cost of the production of rice and corn; and at the maximum, take back what is theirs: the land that they till. When Mary describes the guerilla’s participation in the cycles of food production such as the planting of seeds that will eventually make fields of green, she also refers to a coming home to where every guerilla belongs, a home where people take back the means of production.
Her poem on the occasion of the formal wedding ceremonies in a guerilla zone, “Kasal,” Mary addresses her comrade and husband as she traces the history that brings them together: a union that was chosen for them by the people in struggle. She points to a love that was borne out of class war. She likens their love to a pearl (referring to the nation, the pearl of the orient) that is borne out of a race that is at once oppressed and free, such that every action, such as this wedding ceremony, “is a child of commitment, each word is a seed of a liberating truth. Hold fast to the dream of the human race to break the chains of class oppression. And ceaselessly dream of attaining the humanity of the people of the world.”
Recently, a reference to Mary was made in a social media platform with this caption:
“Happy All Soul’s Day Mama. Some things:Recca
you weren’t that much older than me when this picture was taken. you were really the only person I ever visit during all soul’s, and I barely even know you. i still feel like I barely even know you, all the time. you were robbed of your life and I was robbed of a chance to ever get to know you. I still don’t know where your diary is. i don’t think I’ll ever get to see it. you sacrificed so much to protect many people; not just your family and friends but the masses. the “everyone else.” revolution, at times, seems too alien a concept to me. i am slowly trying to understand: sometimes, it is simple, like breathing; at times i doubt and i wonder if you ever felt the same in your life. i miss you so much, but i don’t know you, and i never will. thank you for my life.”
The last of the many comments to this post reads: “You will get to know her through your own work for the people…She will always be with us, in our struggles and our victories. Remember to always carry her in your heart because we always do.”
Recca was an excellent student all throughout her school life from kindergarten to college. She is remembered by her classmates from the College of Engineering of UP-Diliman as the best mathematician in their batch. As an NPA guerilla trained in Mechanical Engineering, Recca led a two-year project in one of the remote barrios of the Cordilleras in Northern Luzon to create a system of hyrdaulics in order to provide electricity to this community that had never known electricity until their collective project was finished. It is in this region where the first American military base was built. Camp John Hay was a luxurious residential and office area for the generals that administered the US colonial period in the Philippines.
Recca wrote tremendous letters to her friends (5), comrades, and family while she was in the red zone, now in book form. Among them are the following:
1)
”As Sir Gelacio Guillermo, a great writer said, “It will be so much the worse for us if we believe that life cannot be changed.”
And because of this, I don’t think my life has gone to waste. In fact, I’m making this life worth living for all the people who are important and give importance to me. I’m thinking, this is actually my dream since I was a kid. To live my life with passion. And I’m glad that I’m doing OK. Sure, this is not a stable and peaceful life. But who has a stable and peaceful life, really?
Be angry and love.
(Recca Noelle Monte, “Mula kay Nena”)”
“Boycott SM (a chain of malls owned by one of the biggest compradors, Henry Sy
“84% of the workers of SM are women and they daily undergo various forms of harassment. For example, they are required to put on make up and use stockings everyday which they have to pay for from their low salaries. … Going to the toilet is prohibited unless you have a pass. They are on their feet the whole day as sitting down is not allowed. Worse, everyday they suffer from various sexual molestation as they are searched coming in and going out of the mall. ”
(Recca Noelle Monte, “Boycott SM)
“I truly pity our country. It is totally Third World. In many of the villages that I have visited, land is cultivated by the farmers using only their feet. Even simple technology such as the plow and carabao are non-existent. In this age of robotics and high-technology, this is still the method used by our peasants. And there are myriads of cases where ancestral lands are confiscated by the government and declared as part of the public domain. There is already a historic neglect of basic social services (the few existing schools there employ the multi-grade system, most barrios do not have health clinics, and there are very few to no basic facilities at all for water and electricity), yet they take away their source of livelihood!”Tin
(Recca Noelle Monte, “Mula kay Nena”)
Christine Puche is from the Department of Journalism of the University of the Philippines-Diliman. When she was killed in a massacre (not an encounter) with seven other comrades, Tin was a staff of the Public Information Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in Southern Luzon that is producing revolutionary newspaper, revolutionary radio program, revolutionary multimedia. Her professor, a distinguished left journalist describes the journalism that Tin propagated during her days outside of the University as a “different kind of journalism (6).”
In the mid-90s, the split within the communist movement was also felt in the conduct of political organizations in the University. A comrade challenged her about the heated national debate on whether to reaffirm or reject the revolutionary line of struggle. This comrade was questioning the necessity of sacrifice in the era of so-called democratic space. Tanya retorts: “The revolution is not a dinner party,” and walks away.
Tanya
Tanya is a Visual Arts major from the College of Fine arts. In her diary that she kept during her days in the red zone, she wrote: “Yet what I saw was a different kind of fire. It is the kind that cannot be extinguished by water. Because water is water, and love is not just fire.”
At Tanya’s memorial, one of her friends shared that the last time she saw Tanya was when her friend was on her way to Mendiola for a rally. Please be careful, she told Tanya as the latter was about to board a jeepney. She shared how Tanya replied with a plan for passing, and I quote: “She told me what she wanted as her epitaph…But so sorry, I cannot remember what it was.”
In lieu of this failing memory, a very tender moment, I must say, let me share a few notes which I have already written on what we may learn from full time revolutionary labor:
For someone who is gainfully employed yet shares a communist view of the world, the non-commodity nature of revolutionary labor is arguably one of the most unsettling and humbling achievement in the history of human relations so far. It is an unspoken principle mediating between and among revolutionaries and their families, friends, and a whole society that normalizes the sale and exploitation of human labor.
The non-commodity nature of labor is a situation that defines the lives of revolutionaries who work full time for the struggle for national liberation toward socialism. It poses a challenge to our expectations from full time revolutionaries and provides a better understanding of revolutionary capacities, which include but are not limited to the following:***
1) the revolutionary’s capacity to surmount difficulties;
2) the collective ability of revolutionaries to adapt to their position as producer of enabling conditions for people to contribute to significant change in the deeper texture of Philippine economy and politics;
3) their capacity to expand and consolidate democratic interest groups into a mass movement whose bid for change are both structural and redistributive;
4) the ability to offer something concrete for big dreams like democracy to come to life without reducing the same into personal liberty and a minimized opportunity to enjoy hints of social welfare
;
5) the capacity to win the confidence and love of the people whom full time revolutionaries serve.
Social Reproduction Theory’s demand to reflect on labor that does not produce surplus value yet is reproductive of capital opens up a space for an understanding of another kind of labor that does not produce surplus value for the accumulation of capital, and this is the non-commoditized labor of revolutionary guerillas, the same kind of labor that consciously refuses capitalist instrutmentalization.
Sarah Raymundo teaches at the University of the Philippine Diliman-Center for International Studies. She is the Chairperson of the Philippines-Venezuela Bolivarian Friendship Association. She also chairs the International Committee of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT). She is also the External Vice Chair of the Philippine Anti-Imperialist Studies (PAIS) and a member of the Editorial Board of Interface: A Journal for Social Movements.
An earlier version of this article was presented at the Social Reproduction Theory: Feminism for the 99% Panel of the Left Forum 2018 John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, June 3, 2018. I wish to recognize our panel Chair, Hester Eisenstein for her determination to make our panel happen and for insisting on a topic that will feature the lives of filipino women. I am deeply grateful to Hester, as well as to the rest of our panel, Lise Vogel, Kate Doyle Griffiths and Tithi Bhattacharya—scholar-activists whose contributions to Social Reproduction Theory, international solidarity, and the urgent task of changing the world in revolutionary ways are indispensable and inspiring, to say the very least. I wish to thank the most reliable and passionate group of Filipino-American scholar-activists I have ever worked with, whether here or abroad, dear comrades, Joi Barrios-LeBlanc, Michael Viola and Valerie Francisco who initiated a conference panel for the Association for Asian American Studies 2018 in San Francisco in March 2018, which compelled me to pursue preliminary research on women NPAs.
(1)The hashtag was prompted by a featured story of women in arms in the context of agrarian unrest in a popular Philippine anthology series “Maalaala Mo Kaya” aka Memories (or literally, Would you remember).
(2) Uncounted Lives: Children, Women and Conflict Situation in the Philippines: a Needs Assessment of Children and Women Affected by Armed Conflict. 2007. UNICEF and Ibon Foundation.
(3) Bhattacharya, T. 2017. Social Reproduction Theory: Remapping Class, Recentering Oppression.
London: Pluto Press
(4) All quotes/attributions are from publicly available documents such as books and online platforms. The unevenness of the references for each featured woman red fighter is largely due to availability of public documents
(5) Taguiwalo, J. 2015. Recca: From Diliman to the Cordilleras. Philippines: Southern Voices.
(6) http://pinoyweekly.org/new/2014/07/peryodismong-pulahan-sa-alaala-ni-christine-puche-1976-2013/
(7) from the article “Full time and all the way” notes on the book More Than A Red Warrior, 2015. http://bulatlat.com/main/2015/12/14/full-time-and-all-the-way/
http://bulatlat.com/main/2018/10/25/wanted-new-women-of-the-npa/
DWDD: PROCUREMENT | PH and Spain promote defense industry and logistics cooperation
From DWDD AFP Civil Relations Service Radio Website (Oct 25): PROCUREMENT | PH and Spain promote defense industry and logistics cooperation
CAMP GEN EMILIO AGUINALDO, Quezon City (DWDD) – Top officials of the Department of National Defense (DND) Philippines and the Directorate General of Armaments and Materiel (DGAM) of the Ministry of Defense of Spain met in Manila during the latter’s visit last October 20-232018.
Headed by MGen Felipe De La Plaza, Deputy National Armament Director for International Relations, the Spain delegation discussed with Philippine Defense officials the proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Logistics, Defense Materiel, Armaments and Defense Industry Cooperation between the two countries.
“The proposed MOU will serve as the legal framework for the DND to procure defense equipment from Spain through Government-to-Government deals pursuant to RA 9184. This is very timely in light of the ongoing implementation of the 2nd Horizon of the Revised AFP Modernization Program (RAFPMP),” said Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Logistics Jesus Rey R. Avilla, who led the delegation of the DND and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
The Spanish delegation also manifested interest in collaborating with the local defense industry and even visited ARMSCOR, a local firearms manufacturing company.
Spanish Defense Industries have been actively participating in various procurement projects of the AFP under the AFP Modernization Program.
Among the most recent acquisitions involving Spain were the three (3) units of Medium Lift Aircraft (C295) for the Philippine Air Force (PAF) worth PhP5.29 billion, which were procured from Spanish aircraft manufacturer EADS CASA, now Airbus.
The aircraft are now being used for air transport and humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR).
Additionally, a Notice of Award has been issued on 16 October 2018 in favor of Airbus for the procurement of one (1) unit of Command and Control Fixed Wing Turbo Prop Aircraft for the PAF with a contract price of Php1.8 billion. DND PAS / MCAG
http://dwdd.com.ph/2018/10/25/procurement-ph-and-spain-promote-defense-industry-and-logistics-cooperation/
CAMP GEN EMILIO AGUINALDO, Quezon City (DWDD) – Top officials of the Department of National Defense (DND) Philippines and the Directorate General of Armaments and Materiel (DGAM) of the Ministry of Defense of Spain met in Manila during the latter’s visit last October 20-232018.
Headed by MGen Felipe De La Plaza, Deputy National Armament Director for International Relations, the Spain delegation discussed with Philippine Defense officials the proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Logistics, Defense Materiel, Armaments and Defense Industry Cooperation between the two countries.
“The proposed MOU will serve as the legal framework for the DND to procure defense equipment from Spain through Government-to-Government deals pursuant to RA 9184. This is very timely in light of the ongoing implementation of the 2nd Horizon of the Revised AFP Modernization Program (RAFPMP),” said Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Logistics Jesus Rey R. Avilla, who led the delegation of the DND and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
The Spanish delegation also manifested interest in collaborating with the local defense industry and even visited ARMSCOR, a local firearms manufacturing company.
Spanish Defense Industries have been actively participating in various procurement projects of the AFP under the AFP Modernization Program.
Among the most recent acquisitions involving Spain were the three (3) units of Medium Lift Aircraft (C295) for the Philippine Air Force (PAF) worth PhP5.29 billion, which were procured from Spanish aircraft manufacturer EADS CASA, now Airbus.
The aircraft are now being used for air transport and humanitarian assistance and disaster response (HADR).
Additionally, a Notice of Award has been issued on 16 October 2018 in favor of Airbus for the procurement of one (1) unit of Command and Control Fixed Wing Turbo Prop Aircraft for the PAF with a contract price of Php1.8 billion. DND PAS / MCAG
http://dwdd.com.ph/2018/10/25/procurement-ph-and-spain-promote-defense-industry-and-logistics-cooperation/
MILF: Kabacan 4Ps Beneficiaries attend Forum on BOL
Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Website (Oct 24): Kabacan 4Ps Beneficiaries attend Forum on BOL
IN PHOTO- Nas Pulindanao of the MILF Committee on Information (holding the microphone) delivers his message to Moro and Christian 4Ps Beneficiaries at the Kabacan Municipal Gym
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) of Kabacan, North Cotabato gathered thousands of Moro and Christian beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4P’s of the Municipality of Kabacan from October 8-15, 2018 at the Municipal Gym of Kabacan, North Cotabato.
DSWD personnel who are assigned in Kabacan facilitated and oversaw the activity were Meriam B. Casanguan, Rasmia K. Santuring, Florence Joy C. Acupinpin, Baiphati A. Luay, Judith A. Yap Gretchen A. Magallon and the Social Welfare Assistant Bai Queenie Tahir.
Part of the activity was a Forum on Understanding Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). Kabacan is consist of 15 barangays but only registered voters of Sanggaddung, Nangaan and Pisan will vote during the plebiscite on January 21st next year.
Nasser Pulindao of the MILF Committee on Information lectured on BOL. He delved on the salient features of the organic law, the benefits that Moro communities can enjoy under the new region, and a brief history of the law.
He said that the former name of BOL was Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) that was crafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) headed by MILF 1st Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar.
The first BTC during President Benigno Aquino’s administration was headed by MILF Peace Implementing Panel Chair Mohagher Iqbal, but he is also a member of the new commission, Pulindao told the participants.
When congress deliberated on the BBL, lawmakers and members of the BTC agreed to change the BBL into BOL. Eventually, congress passed the Organic Law for Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (OLBARMM) on July 27, 2018, and signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte on August 6, 2018, he said.
The new political entity Bangsamoro will replace the current ARMM, and a plebiscite will be held early next year to determine which of the provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays mentioned in the BOL will join the new region, Pulindao explained.
After the ratification of the BOL, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) will assume the administration of the ARMM, thereafter the decommissioning of 30% of MILF combatants and weapons will take place, Pulindao further explained.
The Bangsamoro Parliament will be headed by MILF Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim as interim Chief Minister. The parliament will be composed of 104 members that will include elected members of the Regional Legislative Assembly, and Regional Governor Mujiv S. Hataman, Pulindao added.
However, the RLA members and RG Hataman will only serve until the end of their terms on June 2019, Pulindao stressed.
IN PHOTO- 4Ps Beneficiaries listen to messages and lectures at the Kabacan Municipal Gym
He defined the context of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. ‘’ The BOL is result of peace negotiation from GPH and Moro Islamic Liberation Front, BOL not only answered for poor people but answered for peace here in Mindanao’’. The BOL is a called negotiated law lead by the Bnagsamoro Transition Commission and the Upper house and lower house was amended, interpret. He also support his message ‘’ the BOL is the process through the peace livelihood’’. He clarified the provision and the articles within the BOL in the territorial jurisdiction of Bangsamoro government. The BOL is under the Philippine Law as an organic law, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region Muslim in Mindanao approved in BOL. ‘’This is the law legitimate for u, a systematic living in mediations of BOL. He explained the internal revenue and the power shared by the Bangsamoro government. The youth, IP’s and women have position in the Bangsamoro government and they can file a candidacy but not in a one head but also in a whole body of the people. He tackled about the justices was rectification but not in penalty way but the way of leading the leadership. The mechanics of maintaining peace is joint implementing peace such as LMT, IMT and the other security agencies. He illustrated how to file a petition for inclusion.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1560/kabacan-4ps-beneficiaries-attend-forum-on-bol
IN PHOTO- Nas Pulindanao of the MILF Committee on Information (holding the microphone) delivers his message to Moro and Christian 4Ps Beneficiaries at the Kabacan Municipal Gym
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) of Kabacan, North Cotabato gathered thousands of Moro and Christian beneficiaries of Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4P’s of the Municipality of Kabacan from October 8-15, 2018 at the Municipal Gym of Kabacan, North Cotabato.
DSWD personnel who are assigned in Kabacan facilitated and oversaw the activity were Meriam B. Casanguan, Rasmia K. Santuring, Florence Joy C. Acupinpin, Baiphati A. Luay, Judith A. Yap Gretchen A. Magallon and the Social Welfare Assistant Bai Queenie Tahir.
Part of the activity was a Forum on Understanding Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL). Kabacan is consist of 15 barangays but only registered voters of Sanggaddung, Nangaan and Pisan will vote during the plebiscite on January 21st next year.
Nasser Pulindao of the MILF Committee on Information lectured on BOL. He delved on the salient features of the organic law, the benefits that Moro communities can enjoy under the new region, and a brief history of the law.
He said that the former name of BOL was Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) that was crafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) headed by MILF 1st Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar.
The first BTC during President Benigno Aquino’s administration was headed by MILF Peace Implementing Panel Chair Mohagher Iqbal, but he is also a member of the new commission, Pulindao told the participants.
When congress deliberated on the BBL, lawmakers and members of the BTC agreed to change the BBL into BOL. Eventually, congress passed the Organic Law for Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (OLBARMM) on July 27, 2018, and signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte on August 6, 2018, he said.
The new political entity Bangsamoro will replace the current ARMM, and a plebiscite will be held early next year to determine which of the provinces, cities, municipalities, and barangays mentioned in the BOL will join the new region, Pulindao explained.
After the ratification of the BOL, the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA) will assume the administration of the ARMM, thereafter the decommissioning of 30% of MILF combatants and weapons will take place, Pulindao further explained.
The Bangsamoro Parliament will be headed by MILF Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim as interim Chief Minister. The parliament will be composed of 104 members that will include elected members of the Regional Legislative Assembly, and Regional Governor Mujiv S. Hataman, Pulindao added.
However, the RLA members and RG Hataman will only serve until the end of their terms on June 2019, Pulindao stressed.
IN PHOTO- 4Ps Beneficiaries listen to messages and lectures at the Kabacan Municipal Gym
He defined the context of the Bangsamoro Organic Law. ‘’ The BOL is result of peace negotiation from GPH and Moro Islamic Liberation Front, BOL not only answered for poor people but answered for peace here in Mindanao’’. The BOL is a called negotiated law lead by the Bnagsamoro Transition Commission and the Upper house and lower house was amended, interpret. He also support his message ‘’ the BOL is the process through the peace livelihood’’. He clarified the provision and the articles within the BOL in the territorial jurisdiction of Bangsamoro government. The BOL is under the Philippine Law as an organic law, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region Muslim in Mindanao approved in BOL. ‘’This is the law legitimate for u, a systematic living in mediations of BOL. He explained the internal revenue and the power shared by the Bangsamoro government. The youth, IP’s and women have position in the Bangsamoro government and they can file a candidacy but not in a one head but also in a whole body of the people. He tackled about the justices was rectification but not in penalty way but the way of leading the leadership. The mechanics of maintaining peace is joint implementing peace such as LMT, IMT and the other security agencies. He illustrated how to file a petition for inclusion.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1560/kabacan-4ps-beneficiaries-attend-forum-on-bol
MILF: ‘Political struggle of the Bangsamoro could move forward through Federalism’: Advocate says
Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Website (Oct 24): ‘Political struggle of the Bangsamoro could move forward through Federalism’: Advocate says
The political struggle of the Bangsamoro people, aimed to achieve their right to self-determination, could still move forward through a federal set up of government in the country, a human rights lawyer and advocate of federalism said.
Lawyer Mary Ann Arnado who is part of the All Moro Convention (AMC), a group that drafted the Bangsamoro State Constitution, said the idea of coming up the proposed charter is to help advance the political struggle of the Bangsamoro people.
Arnado was a resource person in a panel session entitled “The Bangsamoro Organic Law and Federalism: How can these new forms of governance strengthen human rights and peacebuilding in the Bangsamoro region?” in the second day of 5th International Conference on Justice, Peace and Conflict in Southeast Asia held at Marco Polo Hotel at Pasig City on October 15-17, 2018.
She said, “While we have the organic law deliberated in Congress, we are also aware it has been subjected to so many amendments, so many substitution provisions in the guise of constitutionality.”
The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) which was drafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) and passed by the Philippine Congress last August was diluted, according to her.
Arnado pointed out that “Coming up with a basic law that is faithful and compliant to the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) could not be realized because it was always confronted with the issue of constitutionality.”
“Basically it’s the same political arrangement that was developed in the CAB, but the intent of the framers is to have a Bangsamoro state that will be under the federal set-up,” she conveyed.
Arnado added that the AMC, comprised of peace advocates, Moro intellectuals, lawyers, former members of the peace panel, and negotiators, have decided to come together to informally engage the Federalism Project by coming up with a Bangsamoro State Constitution.
“The Constitutional Commission has come up with a draft but it was more on the regionalization. The old Region 10 simply becomes one state. The other regions also becomes one state,” she said.
“The draft Bangsamoro State Constitution was already presented to President Duterte in the last Eidul Fit’r celebration,” the presenter said.
The CAB, a peace deal signed by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2014, provides the passage of BBL by Philippine Congress.
The BBL, the legal translation of the peace agreement, seeks to establish a Bangsamoro autonomous political entity with more fiscal and political powers.
The measure, known as Republic Act 11054 or the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has been popularized as Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).
“In the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, in every page there is a question. Is this constitutional? Is this constitutional? They question on the subtext of constitutionality,” Arnado lamented.
The Duterte Administration is pushing for the charter change (cha-cha) to shift the current unitary system of government into federal set up.
“In the AMC draft, we just put everything that we want for the Bangsamoro state to govern effectively,” she said unlike in the crafting the BOL whose provisions were limited because of the issue of constitutionality. Arnado also clarified that the AMC is not against BOL.
She said, “We should not stop with the BOL itself, we should continue this process forward and if there is an operation for cha-cha for federalism project, we should push further the Bangsamoro assertion for self-determination.”
Arnado is optimistic that the efforts of lawmakers to shift the form of governance to federalism will continue despite being busy in the upcoming of 2019 national and local elections.
More than two hundred peace workers, human rights activists and researchers from Southeast Asian states pooled in the said event to discuss the status of human rights, peace and conflict in the region.
The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Ayesah Uy Abubakar, a senior lecturer of Universiti Malaysia Sabah and member of the Southeast Asian Human Rights Network, the organizer of the event.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), one of the agencies of the UN that has been providing assistance to the conflict-affected areas in Mindanao, supported the conference.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1563/---political-struggle-of-the-bangsamoro-could-move-forward-through-federalism-----advocate-says
The political struggle of the Bangsamoro people, aimed to achieve their right to self-determination, could still move forward through a federal set up of government in the country, a human rights lawyer and advocate of federalism said.
Lawyer Mary Ann Arnado who is part of the All Moro Convention (AMC), a group that drafted the Bangsamoro State Constitution, said the idea of coming up the proposed charter is to help advance the political struggle of the Bangsamoro people.
Arnado was a resource person in a panel session entitled “The Bangsamoro Organic Law and Federalism: How can these new forms of governance strengthen human rights and peacebuilding in the Bangsamoro region?” in the second day of 5th International Conference on Justice, Peace and Conflict in Southeast Asia held at Marco Polo Hotel at Pasig City on October 15-17, 2018.
She said, “While we have the organic law deliberated in Congress, we are also aware it has been subjected to so many amendments, so many substitution provisions in the guise of constitutionality.”
The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) which was drafted by the Bangsamoro Transition Commission (BTC) and passed by the Philippine Congress last August was diluted, according to her.
Arnado pointed out that “Coming up with a basic law that is faithful and compliant to the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) could not be realized because it was always confronted with the issue of constitutionality.”
“Basically it’s the same political arrangement that was developed in the CAB, but the intent of the framers is to have a Bangsamoro state that will be under the federal set-up,” she conveyed.
Arnado added that the AMC, comprised of peace advocates, Moro intellectuals, lawyers, former members of the peace panel, and negotiators, have decided to come together to informally engage the Federalism Project by coming up with a Bangsamoro State Constitution.
“The Constitutional Commission has come up with a draft but it was more on the regionalization. The old Region 10 simply becomes one state. The other regions also becomes one state,” she said.
“The draft Bangsamoro State Constitution was already presented to President Duterte in the last Eidul Fit’r celebration,” the presenter said.
The CAB, a peace deal signed by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in 2014, provides the passage of BBL by Philippine Congress.
The BBL, the legal translation of the peace agreement, seeks to establish a Bangsamoro autonomous political entity with more fiscal and political powers.
The measure, known as Republic Act 11054 or the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao has been popularized as Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).
“In the draft Bangsamoro Basic Law, in every page there is a question. Is this constitutional? Is this constitutional? They question on the subtext of constitutionality,” Arnado lamented.
The Duterte Administration is pushing for the charter change (cha-cha) to shift the current unitary system of government into federal set up.
“In the AMC draft, we just put everything that we want for the Bangsamoro state to govern effectively,” she said unlike in the crafting the BOL whose provisions were limited because of the issue of constitutionality. Arnado also clarified that the AMC is not against BOL.
She said, “We should not stop with the BOL itself, we should continue this process forward and if there is an operation for cha-cha for federalism project, we should push further the Bangsamoro assertion for self-determination.”
Arnado is optimistic that the efforts of lawmakers to shift the form of governance to federalism will continue despite being busy in the upcoming of 2019 national and local elections.
More than two hundred peace workers, human rights activists and researchers from Southeast Asian states pooled in the said event to discuss the status of human rights, peace and conflict in the region.
The panel discussion was moderated by Dr. Ayesah Uy Abubakar, a senior lecturer of Universiti Malaysia Sabah and member of the Southeast Asian Human Rights Network, the organizer of the event.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), one of the agencies of the UN that has been providing assistance to the conflict-affected areas in Mindanao, supported the conference.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1563/---political-struggle-of-the-bangsamoro-could-move-forward-through-federalism-----advocate-says
MILF: JNC plays big role in the implementation of Normalization Process- Guerra
Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Website (Oct 24): JNC plays big role in the implementation of Normalization Process- Guerra
IN PHOTO- Edward Guerra, Chair of MILF Joint Normalization Committee during the interview Cotabato City - The Chairman of the MILF Joint Normalization Committee (JNC) Architect Eduard Uy Guerra gave updates on the normalization track during an interview at Cafe Mindanaw on October 22, 2018.
According to him, the mandates and mechanisms that they are pursuing to succeed in the implementation process of normalization track is within the context of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) signed between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (GPH-MILF) on March 27, 2014.
“We make progress on the aspect of normalization,” Guerra said.
However, he emphasized that the JNC has two tracks to follow, such as the political and the normalization tracks. The political track is about to end and we are just waiting for the result of referendum as the remaining process.
He believes that the normalization needs to be fast tracked, but cautiously. We expect that we will be in-charged of all decommissioning process.
Along with our counterpart in the GPH, we will oversee the decommissioning of MILF combatants and weapons in accordance with the CAB.
He explained that a primary coordinator will supervise all the mechanisms and the implementations that has been identified such as the decommissioning of combatants, transformation of six (6) recognized camps, economic assistance, and the security by a joint committee, and the creation of Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC).
For now, they will focus on the joint peace and security concerns, Guerra said.
Accordingly, about 30,000 to 40,000 combatants will be decommissioned phase by phase as part of the agreement but such a process is anchored on the progress of political track.
“The first phase consisting of 30% of MILF combatants and weapons will take place after the plebiscite on January 21st next year. We are now preparing for the listing and identifying the assembly areas under the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB),” Guerra further said.
“There are group of people in every mechanism of the normalization to handle such as the IDB led by a former ambassador with representatives from Brunei and Norway as members. They have the mandate to create their own mechanism on how to implement them”, Guerra added.
Guerra told this writer that the JNC has its prepared timeline in implementing their plans, and activities. More than twenty (20) assembly areas were identified in their proposal but they consolidated into nine (9) areas that are strategically located for the combatants so that it will not cause them hardship, expensive and less time consuming.
“Handling this forty thousand (40,000) combatants is challenging on our part because if we cannot handle it properly, it may create a problem in the next phase of implementation process,” Guerra stressed.
“The JNC creates its own formula in preparation for succeeding decommissioning but not yet finalized. The symbolic decommissioning conducted before where about 145 combatants and 79 firearms were decommissioned signified the sincerity of the MILF in the peace process. And that event gives us a test case to conduct study on what shortcomings we have,” Guerra said.
Guerra told this writer that they have also schedules for the conduct of internal training at Camp Parang, Maguindanao. The purpose of the training is to orient them on their combined tasks, cultural sensitivity for observing cultural practices and mutual respect.
According to Guerra, the said training will be tool to bridge gaps and differences for a purpose of establishing unity and solidarity to counter those spoilers of peace who are trying to destroy the harmonious life of the people in the Bangsamoro.
“The normalization process is aimed to infuse development and transformation in our areas to become more productive for combatants, thus securing their livelihood and other kind of development that make them and their families to enjoy,” Guerra also said.
“Generally, the normalization objective is to transform former combatants into more productive civilian life where they can live with prosperity, that no more war to destruct their lives, instead it makes their lives normal and peaceful,” Guerra said.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1562/jnc-plays-big-role-in-the-implementation-of-normalization-process--guerra
IN PHOTO- Edward Guerra, Chair of MILF Joint Normalization Committee during the interview Cotabato City - The Chairman of the MILF Joint Normalization Committee (JNC) Architect Eduard Uy Guerra gave updates on the normalization track during an interview at Cafe Mindanaw on October 22, 2018.
According to him, the mandates and mechanisms that they are pursuing to succeed in the implementation process of normalization track is within the context of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) signed between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (GPH-MILF) on March 27, 2014.
“We make progress on the aspect of normalization,” Guerra said.
However, he emphasized that the JNC has two tracks to follow, such as the political and the normalization tracks. The political track is about to end and we are just waiting for the result of referendum as the remaining process.
He believes that the normalization needs to be fast tracked, but cautiously. We expect that we will be in-charged of all decommissioning process.
Along with our counterpart in the GPH, we will oversee the decommissioning of MILF combatants and weapons in accordance with the CAB.
He explained that a primary coordinator will supervise all the mechanisms and the implementations that has been identified such as the decommissioning of combatants, transformation of six (6) recognized camps, economic assistance, and the security by a joint committee, and the creation of Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC).
For now, they will focus on the joint peace and security concerns, Guerra said.
Accordingly, about 30,000 to 40,000 combatants will be decommissioned phase by phase as part of the agreement but such a process is anchored on the progress of political track.
“The first phase consisting of 30% of MILF combatants and weapons will take place after the plebiscite on January 21st next year. We are now preparing for the listing and identifying the assembly areas under the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB),” Guerra further said.
“There are group of people in every mechanism of the normalization to handle such as the IDB led by a former ambassador with representatives from Brunei and Norway as members. They have the mandate to create their own mechanism on how to implement them”, Guerra added.
Guerra told this writer that the JNC has its prepared timeline in implementing their plans, and activities. More than twenty (20) assembly areas were identified in their proposal but they consolidated into nine (9) areas that are strategically located for the combatants so that it will not cause them hardship, expensive and less time consuming.
“Handling this forty thousand (40,000) combatants is challenging on our part because if we cannot handle it properly, it may create a problem in the next phase of implementation process,” Guerra stressed.
“The JNC creates its own formula in preparation for succeeding decommissioning but not yet finalized. The symbolic decommissioning conducted before where about 145 combatants and 79 firearms were decommissioned signified the sincerity of the MILF in the peace process. And that event gives us a test case to conduct study on what shortcomings we have,” Guerra said.
Guerra told this writer that they have also schedules for the conduct of internal training at Camp Parang, Maguindanao. The purpose of the training is to orient them on their combined tasks, cultural sensitivity for observing cultural practices and mutual respect.
According to Guerra, the said training will be tool to bridge gaps and differences for a purpose of establishing unity and solidarity to counter those spoilers of peace who are trying to destroy the harmonious life of the people in the Bangsamoro.
“The normalization process is aimed to infuse development and transformation in our areas to become more productive for combatants, thus securing their livelihood and other kind of development that make them and their families to enjoy,” Guerra also said.
“Generally, the normalization objective is to transform former combatants into more productive civilian life where they can live with prosperity, that no more war to destruct their lives, instead it makes their lives normal and peaceful,” Guerra said.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1562/jnc-plays-big-role-in-the-implementation-of-normalization-process--guerra
MILF: Thousands of Marawi IDPs face uncertainty, demand continued support
Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Website (Oct 25): Thousands of Marawi IDPs face uncertainty, demand continued support
IN PHOTO-Ground Zero in Marawi City, still a no-man’s land after a 5-month heavy fighting between the AFP and Maute Group
COTABATO City – “They struggle every day to make ends meet with whatever help they can get, as uncertainty about their homecoming adds to their worries,” said Meher Khatcherian, Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Iligan City in a press release issued on Tuesday, October 23.
“They deserve support and clarity about the future. Though there have been some positive developments, the people of Marawi had hoped for more to be done by now,” Khatcherian added.
The ICRC said that some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are staying in the homes of their relatives, many are still in evacuation centers or in transitional sites.
It said that families that have been displaced do not have regular access to potable water and proper sanitation facilities. Adults lack adequate livelihood opportunities, while their children’s education remains disrupted.
There were reported families of IDPs who went missing in Marawi that need to be accompanied during the process of clarifying the fate of their missing loved ones.
Having witnessed firsthand the plight of the people since clashes broke out in May 2017, Khatcherian and his colleagues witnessed what had happened to the evacuees, they worked to help the affected people from Marawi, bringing in whatever respite possible.
Together with the Philippine Red Cross (PRC), the ICRC continues to focus on the evolving needs of the people, about 65,000 individuals uprooted from their place of origin. And this people are continuously demanding for urgent action and support to overcome the burden left in the wake of the conflict.
To somehow ease the burdens felt by the IDPs, the ICRC initiated to address the gaps while waiting for the start of the rehabilitation phase, in coordination with other aid organizations and the authorities. The ICRC and the PRC have distributed cash grants to thousands of returnee families, helping them restore their livelihoods.
The PRC distributed tools to repair for the shelters of residents. The authorities have been providing technical support to ensure smooth functioning and potential expansion of the city’s water network.
ICRC stressed that they also provide health-care facilities, essential medicines and supplies to the IDPS in Lanao del Sur.
“But there is one thing that remains a top priority for the displaced families and it’s the need to get clarity about their future so that they can move ahead. After having their lives completely disrupted by the five-month conflict, and their properties destroyed, they need to regain a sense of ownership about their future. Their voices need to be heard,” Khatcherian concluded.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1564/thousands-of-marawi-idps-face-uncertainty--demand-continued-support
IN PHOTO-Ground Zero in Marawi City, still a no-man’s land after a 5-month heavy fighting between the AFP and Maute Group
COTABATO City – “They struggle every day to make ends meet with whatever help they can get, as uncertainty about their homecoming adds to their worries,” said Meher Khatcherian, Head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) office in Iligan City in a press release issued on Tuesday, October 23.
“They deserve support and clarity about the future. Though there have been some positive developments, the people of Marawi had hoped for more to be done by now,” Khatcherian added.
The ICRC said that some Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are staying in the homes of their relatives, many are still in evacuation centers or in transitional sites.
It said that families that have been displaced do not have regular access to potable water and proper sanitation facilities. Adults lack adequate livelihood opportunities, while their children’s education remains disrupted.
There were reported families of IDPs who went missing in Marawi that need to be accompanied during the process of clarifying the fate of their missing loved ones.
Having witnessed firsthand the plight of the people since clashes broke out in May 2017, Khatcherian and his colleagues witnessed what had happened to the evacuees, they worked to help the affected people from Marawi, bringing in whatever respite possible.
Together with the Philippine Red Cross (PRC), the ICRC continues to focus on the evolving needs of the people, about 65,000 individuals uprooted from their place of origin. And this people are continuously demanding for urgent action and support to overcome the burden left in the wake of the conflict.
To somehow ease the burdens felt by the IDPs, the ICRC initiated to address the gaps while waiting for the start of the rehabilitation phase, in coordination with other aid organizations and the authorities. The ICRC and the PRC have distributed cash grants to thousands of returnee families, helping them restore their livelihoods.
The PRC distributed tools to repair for the shelters of residents. The authorities have been providing technical support to ensure smooth functioning and potential expansion of the city’s water network.
ICRC stressed that they also provide health-care facilities, essential medicines and supplies to the IDPS in Lanao del Sur.
“But there is one thing that remains a top priority for the displaced families and it’s the need to get clarity about their future so that they can move ahead. After having their lives completely disrupted by the five-month conflict, and their properties destroyed, they need to regain a sense of ownership about their future. Their voices need to be heard,” Khatcherian concluded.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1564/thousands-of-marawi-idps-face-uncertainty--demand-continued-support
MILF: Editorial - Deal on good governance
Posted to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front Website (Oct 24): Editorial - Deal on good governance
The Philippines has one of the best election laws in the world that puts men and women in power. But why is this country lagging in terms of delivery of public services, protection and promotion of human rights, and speed of progress and development?
Every third year, there is election in the Philippines. If we include those conducted for barangays (village) and the youth, the frequency becomes more frequent. Virtually, there is election in this country year-round. It is as if genuine democracy anchors only on holding these political exercises.
In the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), election is also conducted every three years. This is not what the MILF proposed; we wanted the election to be conducted every five years, or at least empowering the Bangsamoro Parliament to make such laws, including how elections are held. But in the end, what is provided for in the 1987 Constitution prevailed.
Our logic is very simple. More elections, more expenses; oftentimes, it results in shady reimbursements from the public coffer. Candidates spend so much money, more than what the law allows, for legitimate expenses or for other purposes, like buying votes or buying-out of opponents.
But we cannot blame entirely those using their money to buy votes or their opponents; those receiving them should also be as guilty. If there are no takers, there would be no bribers. But in the whole, the system, that unwritten norm in society which people like or tolerate, should be blamed.
But how to change the system is the real challenge. Some say the system can only be changed through radical means or revolution; others say reformism would suffice.
More on elections: The other reason is that most of those who win in the elections are virtually the same faces or families or clans, because they have the three Gs (guns, gold, and goons). Thus, it is better to make the exercises every five years, to save the money of the government.
A close look at countries of the world today would indicate that those with less frequent elections or those with elected officials holding longer terms of office, say the United States, are more stable or progressive. The reason is obvious: policies are pursued, developed or improved, and sustained, and development projects are pursued and sustained with intensity.
This is the trend, but in every rule, there is an exception. Countries, which have no elections, such as those ruled by despots, monarchs, or monolithic parties, are usually backward. They are poor and stagnant.
As in past years, the MILF has reiterated its policy of non-participation in elections, except those in parliamentary elections in the future. This is why we organize the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), in preparation for this election. We let the present breed of leaders vie in these elections. All what we urge them is whoever gets elected should adopt and observe good governance. The money of the people, including those intended for them in the internal revenue allocation (IRA), should be spent for them.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1561/deal-on-good-governance
The Philippines has one of the best election laws in the world that puts men and women in power. But why is this country lagging in terms of delivery of public services, protection and promotion of human rights, and speed of progress and development?
Every third year, there is election in the Philippines. If we include those conducted for barangays (village) and the youth, the frequency becomes more frequent. Virtually, there is election in this country year-round. It is as if genuine democracy anchors only on holding these political exercises.
In the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), election is also conducted every three years. This is not what the MILF proposed; we wanted the election to be conducted every five years, or at least empowering the Bangsamoro Parliament to make such laws, including how elections are held. But in the end, what is provided for in the 1987 Constitution prevailed.
Our logic is very simple. More elections, more expenses; oftentimes, it results in shady reimbursements from the public coffer. Candidates spend so much money, more than what the law allows, for legitimate expenses or for other purposes, like buying votes or buying-out of opponents.
But we cannot blame entirely those using their money to buy votes or their opponents; those receiving them should also be as guilty. If there are no takers, there would be no bribers. But in the whole, the system, that unwritten norm in society which people like or tolerate, should be blamed.
But how to change the system is the real challenge. Some say the system can only be changed through radical means or revolution; others say reformism would suffice.
More on elections: The other reason is that most of those who win in the elections are virtually the same faces or families or clans, because they have the three Gs (guns, gold, and goons). Thus, it is better to make the exercises every five years, to save the money of the government.
A close look at countries of the world today would indicate that those with less frequent elections or those with elected officials holding longer terms of office, say the United States, are more stable or progressive. The reason is obvious: policies are pursued, developed or improved, and sustained, and development projects are pursued and sustained with intensity.
This is the trend, but in every rule, there is an exception. Countries, which have no elections, such as those ruled by despots, monarchs, or monolithic parties, are usually backward. They are poor and stagnant.
As in past years, the MILF has reiterated its policy of non-participation in elections, except those in parliamentary elections in the future. This is why we organize the United Bangsamoro Justice Party (UBJP), in preparation for this election. We let the present breed of leaders vie in these elections. All what we urge them is whoever gets elected should adopt and observe good governance. The money of the people, including those intended for them in the internal revenue allocation (IRA), should be spent for them.
http://www.luwaran.com/news/article/1561/deal-on-good-governance
NDF/Sison: Duterte regime, AFP & PNP are culpable for Sagay 9 massacre
Jose Maria Sison propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front Website (Oct 23): Duterte regime, AFP & PNP are culpable for Sagay 9 massacre
Comment by Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
October 23, 2018
Latest report from the Department of Agrarian Reform, a civilian government agency, is to the effect that the so-called Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) is probably responsible for the massacre of the nine farmers in Hacienda Nene of Sagay, Negros Ocidental. This contradicts the earlier claims of Duterte and his military minions that the NPA is responsible for the massacre.
The so-called RPA has long been a paramilitary auxiliary of the AFP and PNP and is practically a private gang of the provincial governor and sugar landlords. However. The Duterte regime, the AFP and PNP cannot escape responsibility for the continuing existence and crimes of the RPA. The RPA always operates under the command and direction of the AFP and the PNP.
The culpability of the Duterte regime, AFP and PNP for the massacre of nine farmers is emphasized by their baseless blaming of the NPA as the perpetrator. By blaming the NPA, the real perpetrators are covered up and go scotfree after murdering the poor farmers, including two minors. This is in line with the Duterte policy of killing poor people with impunity.
The people know very well that the victimized farmers belong to the National Federation of Sugar Workers, which the AFP and PNP have long accused of being a ”front” organization of the CPP and NPA. But the Duterte regime. AFP and PNP know no bounds for outrightly lying and self-contradiction when they commit crimes against the poor with impunity.
https://www.ndfp.org/duterte-regime-afp-pnp-are-culpable-for-sagay-9-massacre/
Comment by Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
October 23, 2018
Latest report from the Department of Agrarian Reform, a civilian government agency, is to the effect that the so-called Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA) is probably responsible for the massacre of the nine farmers in Hacienda Nene of Sagay, Negros Ocidental. This contradicts the earlier claims of Duterte and his military minions that the NPA is responsible for the massacre.
The so-called RPA has long been a paramilitary auxiliary of the AFP and PNP and is practically a private gang of the provincial governor and sugar landlords. However. The Duterte regime, the AFP and PNP cannot escape responsibility for the continuing existence and crimes of the RPA. The RPA always operates under the command and direction of the AFP and the PNP.
The culpability of the Duterte regime, AFP and PNP for the massacre of nine farmers is emphasized by their baseless blaming of the NPA as the perpetrator. By blaming the NPA, the real perpetrators are covered up and go scotfree after murdering the poor farmers, including two minors. This is in line with the Duterte policy of killing poor people with impunity.
The people know very well that the victimized farmers belong to the National Federation of Sugar Workers, which the AFP and PNP have long accused of being a ”front” organization of the CPP and NPA. But the Duterte regime. AFP and PNP know no bounds for outrightly lying and self-contradiction when they commit crimes against the poor with impunity.
https://www.ndfp.org/duterte-regime-afp-pnp-are-culpable-for-sagay-9-massacre/
NDF/Sison: On Duterte’s bait of housing, jobs and cash rewards
Jose Maria Sison propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front Website (Oct 23): On Duterte’s bait of housing, jobs and cash rewards
Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
October 23, 2018
Duterte and his political and military minions talk as if they had all the money in the world to buy or bribe every one of the thousands of NPA Red fighters, the tens of thousands in the people’s militia, the hundreds of thousands in self-defense units of the rural based mass organizations and even the millions of the revolutionary masses.
The US-Duterte regime is in fact bankrupt. It is afflicted by bureaucratic corruption from the level of the President down, excessive expenditures for the military and police, graft-laden infrastructure projects, budgetary and trade deficits and growing foreign and local public debt.
Thus Duterte and his economic managers have callously raised the regressive tax burden at the expense of the ordinary consumers and have caused the prices of basic goods and services to soar. As a result, the broad masses of the people detest the Duterte regime for their economic hardship and suffering.
The discretionary and intelligence funds as well as the funds intended for expanding the armed forces have become the milking cows of Duterte and the highest military officers for their private enrichment. Lower level military officers have their own lucrative rackets in making expensive intelligence projects and in killing supposed NPA suspects to collect cash rewards.
The Red fighters of the NPA are well disciplined and intelligent enough to recognize that the offers of housing, jobs and cash rewards are a bait for a few gullibles to be entrapped in the scheme of military officers who can condemn them any time as having pretended to surrender or having gone back to the NPA and kill them to collect the cash rewards for killing NPA fighters.
https://www.ndfp.org/on-dutertes-bait-of-housing-jobs-and-cash-rewards/
Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
October 23, 2018
Duterte and his political and military minions talk as if they had all the money in the world to buy or bribe every one of the thousands of NPA Red fighters, the tens of thousands in the people’s militia, the hundreds of thousands in self-defense units of the rural based mass organizations and even the millions of the revolutionary masses.
The US-Duterte regime is in fact bankrupt. It is afflicted by bureaucratic corruption from the level of the President down, excessive expenditures for the military and police, graft-laden infrastructure projects, budgetary and trade deficits and growing foreign and local public debt.
Thus Duterte and his economic managers have callously raised the regressive tax burden at the expense of the ordinary consumers and have caused the prices of basic goods and services to soar. As a result, the broad masses of the people detest the Duterte regime for their economic hardship and suffering.
The discretionary and intelligence funds as well as the funds intended for expanding the armed forces have become the milking cows of Duterte and the highest military officers for their private enrichment. Lower level military officers have their own lucrative rackets in making expensive intelligence projects and in killing supposed NPA suspects to collect cash rewards.
The Red fighters of the NPA are well disciplined and intelligent enough to recognize that the offers of housing, jobs and cash rewards are a bait for a few gullibles to be entrapped in the scheme of military officers who can condemn them any time as having pretended to surrender or having gone back to the NPA and kill them to collect the cash rewards for killing NPA fighters.
https://www.ndfp.org/on-dutertes-bait-of-housing-jobs-and-cash-rewards/
NDF/Agcaoili: Pet Parrot
Fidel V. Agcaoili propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front Website (Oct 23): Pet Parrot
Fidel V. Agcaoili
NDFP Negotiating Panel
Press Statement
23 October 2018
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
It seems that Atty. Salvador Panelo is serving not only as the spokesman of President Rodrigo Duterte. He is also National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr.’s pet parrot.
In 2006, Esperon attempted to put one over on UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston by submitting “documentary evidence” purportedly showing that the Left was responsible for the rampant extrajudicial killings of activists under the Arroyo regime. Alston dismissed the theory as “strikingly unconvincing” and bearing “hallmarks of a fabrication” which “cannot be taken as evidence of anything other than disinformation.”
Enter 2018, and we hear Panelo claiming that the nine sugar workers massacred on October 20 in Negros Occidental were members of a CPP-NPA legal front deliberately killed by the NPA to discredit the Duterte government.
At least Esperon presented some bogus documents to Professor Alston to pass off as proof of his preposterous lies. Parrot Panelo just manages to be preposterous.
To paraphrase the Chinese writer, Lu Hsun, lies written in ink cannot erase facts written in blood.
https://www.ndfp.org/pet-parrot/
Fidel V. Agcaoili
NDFP Negotiating Panel
Press Statement
23 October 2018
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
It seems that Atty. Salvador Panelo is serving not only as the spokesman of President Rodrigo Duterte. He is also National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr.’s pet parrot.
In 2006, Esperon attempted to put one over on UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston by submitting “documentary evidence” purportedly showing that the Left was responsible for the rampant extrajudicial killings of activists under the Arroyo regime. Alston dismissed the theory as “strikingly unconvincing” and bearing “hallmarks of a fabrication” which “cannot be taken as evidence of anything other than disinformation.”
Enter 2018, and we hear Panelo claiming that the nine sugar workers massacred on October 20 in Negros Occidental were members of a CPP-NPA legal front deliberately killed by the NPA to discredit the Duterte government.
At least Esperon presented some bogus documents to Professor Alston to pass off as proof of his preposterous lies. Parrot Panelo just manages to be preposterous.
To paraphrase the Chinese writer, Lu Hsun, lies written in ink cannot erase facts written in blood.
https://www.ndfp.org/pet-parrot/
CPP/NDF-Bikol: Hinggil sa masaker ng mga magsasaka sa Negros Occidental
NDF-Bikol propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Oct 23): Hinggil sa masaker ng mga magsasaka sa Negros Occidental
Maria Roja Banua
Spokesperson
NDF-Bicol
October 23, 2018
Nakikibahagi ang NDF-Bikol sa pagluluksa ng buong bansa sa masaker ng siyam na manggagawang-bukid sa Negros noong isang araw, Oktubre 22. Ang pinangyarihan ng insidente ay lugar-bungkalan ng mga magsasakang Negrense. Ang mga lugar-bungkalan ay mga eryang ikinakampanya ng mga magsasakang matamnan at gawing produktibo sa harap ng kainutilan ng gubyernong harapin ang reporma sa lupa. Ang siyam ay pawang kasapi ng National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), isang pederasyon ng mga sakada at manggagawa sa mga asukarera na may mahaba nang kasaysayan sa pakikipaglaban sa pagsasamantala at karahasan ng sabwatang panginoong may-lupa at gubyerno sa mga magsasaka at manggagawa.
Malinaw na ang mga bayarang nakabonet na mamamatay-tao ng estado ang salarin sa karumal-dumal na masaker. Malinaw na may kinalaman sa tahasang pamamaslang ang PNP-Negros Occidental na kagyat nag-akusa na NPA ang may kagagawan ng krimen. Napakahaba na ng listahan ng mga kahalintulad na krimen laban sa masang anakpawis na ang tanging hangad ay makamit ang kanilang mga karapatan sa maayos na pamumuhay at seguridad sa pagkain. Nitong 2016, karahasan din ang sumalubong sa mga magsasaka ng Kidapawan City sa Mindanao na noon ay nagpoprotesta sa kawalan ng suporta ng gubyerno matapos maapektuhan ng El Nino ang kanilang mga sakahan. Dalawang magsasaka ang namatay habang marami ang sugatan, kabilang ang isang buntis, sa kamay ng kapulisan at militar.
Noong Nobyembre 16, 2004, dinilig ng dugo ang 6,435 ektaryang lupain ng Hacienda Luisita sa Tarlac. Walang habas na pinagbabaril ng magkakumbinang pwersa ng militar, kapulisan at mga pribadong gwardya ang mga magsasakang nagprotesta at nagpiket para sa makatarungang panawagang ibalik ang lupa sa kanila. Pito ang pinatay habang 121 naman ang sugatan sa masaker. Sa mga sumunod na linggo, walong tagasuporta ng mga magsasaka pa ang pinaslang: sina Bishop Alberto Ramento, dating supreme bishop ng Iglesia Filipina Independiente; Fr. William Tadena; konsehal ng Tarlac City Abel Ladera; presidente ng Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union at apat pang lider-masa.
Higit na papasahol pa ang kriminal na rekord ng rehimeng Duterte laban sa mga magsasaka at manggagawang bukid dulot ng mga neoliberal na patakaran ng pangangamkam ng lupa at pagbansot ng agrikultura para sa interes ng lokal na naghaharing-uri at ng Imperyalistang US.
Sadyang marahas ang saligang katangian ng estado bilang tagapagtaguyod ng naghaharing-uri. Walang ibang papel ang mga reaksyunaryong gubyerno kundi panatilihin ang sistemang panlipunang magsisilbi sa pagsipsip ng lakas-paggawa at pagkakamal ng labis na tubo ng mga panginoong may-lupa at malalaking burgesya komprador. Ang lahat ng instrumento ng estado – mula lehislatura hanggang sa sandatahang lakas nito ay nagsisilbi sa ganitong layunin.
Protesta sa lansangan, lobbying sa kongreso, kampanyang bungkalan sa mga sakahan, pagtutulak ng Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER) sa usapang pangkapayapaan ñ ang lahat ng iyan, at marami pang iba, ay ginagawa ng mga magsasaka at ng sambayanan upang dinggin ng gubyerno ang kanilang mga makatarungang panawagan. Ngunit ano ang tugon ng gubyerno sa mapayapang paglaban ng mamamayan? Bala at karahasan. Anoít hindi mag-aalsa at tatahak sa landas ng armadong pakikibaka ang sambayanang habang nalulunod sa kasalatan ay papatayin ng marahas na estadong naglilingkod sa interes ng mapagsamantalang uri?
Higit na binibigyang-linaw ng mga ganitong krimen laban sa masa ang dahilan kung bakit tumatangan ng armas ang sambayanan. Madali para sa mga propesyunal at ilang mga petiburges sabihing madadaan sa mapayapang usapan ang suliranin ng bansa. Ngunit para sa mga magsasakang ilang siglo nang pinagkaitan ng lupa at dinarahas sa tuwing ipinapanawagan ang kanilang mga karapatan, walang ibang masasandigan kundi ang armadong pakikibaka. Makatwiran at makatarungan ang pag-aarmas ng mamamayan at pagsusulong ng digmang bayan dahil layunin nitong wakasan ang marahas na paghahari ng iilan.
Ang pinakamataas na parangal na kikilala sa lahat ng buhay na ibinuwis para sa karapatang magbungkal sa lupa ay ang pagpapatuloy ng labang sinimulan. Marapat na pagtibayin ng mga anakpawis ang kanilang hanay sa buong bansa at mapagpasyang baklasin ang kaayusang ilang salinlahi nang pinakinabangan ng mga panginoong may-lupa. Dapat labanan ang mga patakarang neoliberal na lalong nagpapahigpit sa kadenang sumasakal sa mga magsasaka. Walang aasahang katarungan mula sa isang gubyernong kuta ng mga burukrata kapitalista at panginoong may-lupa. Dapat manindigan ang bawat magsasaka sa lakas ng uring anakpawis at pangatawanan ang dakilang tungkuling likhain ang kasaysayan.
Hindi mapatatahimik ng punglo ng pasistang rehimen ang sigaw ng mamamayan para sa karapatan sa lupa at tunay na panlipunang pagbabago. Walang makapipigil sa pagliyab ng kaparangan sa apoy ng digmaan at sa pagbawi ng anakpawis sa karapatang magbungkal ng sariling lupa ñ lupang sumalubong sa mga nabuwal na kasamahan at lupang patuloy na kakanlong sa daluyong ng rebolusyon.
HUSTISYA SA MGA BIKTIMA NG NEGROS MASAKER!
IPAGLABAN ANG TUNAY NA REPORMA SA LUPA!
INUTANG NA DUGO NG PASISTANG REHIMEN, SINGILIN AT PAGBAYARIN!
MAGSASAKA, SUMAPI SA BAGONG HUKBONG BAYAN! ISULONG ANG DIGMANG BAYAN!
Maria Roja Banua
Spokesperson
NDF-Bicol
October 23, 2018
Nakikibahagi ang NDF-Bikol sa pagluluksa ng buong bansa sa masaker ng siyam na manggagawang-bukid sa Negros noong isang araw, Oktubre 22. Ang pinangyarihan ng insidente ay lugar-bungkalan ng mga magsasakang Negrense. Ang mga lugar-bungkalan ay mga eryang ikinakampanya ng mga magsasakang matamnan at gawing produktibo sa harap ng kainutilan ng gubyernong harapin ang reporma sa lupa. Ang siyam ay pawang kasapi ng National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW), isang pederasyon ng mga sakada at manggagawa sa mga asukarera na may mahaba nang kasaysayan sa pakikipaglaban sa pagsasamantala at karahasan ng sabwatang panginoong may-lupa at gubyerno sa mga magsasaka at manggagawa.
Malinaw na ang mga bayarang nakabonet na mamamatay-tao ng estado ang salarin sa karumal-dumal na masaker. Malinaw na may kinalaman sa tahasang pamamaslang ang PNP-Negros Occidental na kagyat nag-akusa na NPA ang may kagagawan ng krimen. Napakahaba na ng listahan ng mga kahalintulad na krimen laban sa masang anakpawis na ang tanging hangad ay makamit ang kanilang mga karapatan sa maayos na pamumuhay at seguridad sa pagkain. Nitong 2016, karahasan din ang sumalubong sa mga magsasaka ng Kidapawan City sa Mindanao na noon ay nagpoprotesta sa kawalan ng suporta ng gubyerno matapos maapektuhan ng El Nino ang kanilang mga sakahan. Dalawang magsasaka ang namatay habang marami ang sugatan, kabilang ang isang buntis, sa kamay ng kapulisan at militar.
Noong Nobyembre 16, 2004, dinilig ng dugo ang 6,435 ektaryang lupain ng Hacienda Luisita sa Tarlac. Walang habas na pinagbabaril ng magkakumbinang pwersa ng militar, kapulisan at mga pribadong gwardya ang mga magsasakang nagprotesta at nagpiket para sa makatarungang panawagang ibalik ang lupa sa kanila. Pito ang pinatay habang 121 naman ang sugatan sa masaker. Sa mga sumunod na linggo, walong tagasuporta ng mga magsasaka pa ang pinaslang: sina Bishop Alberto Ramento, dating supreme bishop ng Iglesia Filipina Independiente; Fr. William Tadena; konsehal ng Tarlac City Abel Ladera; presidente ng Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union at apat pang lider-masa.
Higit na papasahol pa ang kriminal na rekord ng rehimeng Duterte laban sa mga magsasaka at manggagawang bukid dulot ng mga neoliberal na patakaran ng pangangamkam ng lupa at pagbansot ng agrikultura para sa interes ng lokal na naghaharing-uri at ng Imperyalistang US.
Sadyang marahas ang saligang katangian ng estado bilang tagapagtaguyod ng naghaharing-uri. Walang ibang papel ang mga reaksyunaryong gubyerno kundi panatilihin ang sistemang panlipunang magsisilbi sa pagsipsip ng lakas-paggawa at pagkakamal ng labis na tubo ng mga panginoong may-lupa at malalaking burgesya komprador. Ang lahat ng instrumento ng estado – mula lehislatura hanggang sa sandatahang lakas nito ay nagsisilbi sa ganitong layunin.
Protesta sa lansangan, lobbying sa kongreso, kampanyang bungkalan sa mga sakahan, pagtutulak ng Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER) sa usapang pangkapayapaan ñ ang lahat ng iyan, at marami pang iba, ay ginagawa ng mga magsasaka at ng sambayanan upang dinggin ng gubyerno ang kanilang mga makatarungang panawagan. Ngunit ano ang tugon ng gubyerno sa mapayapang paglaban ng mamamayan? Bala at karahasan. Anoít hindi mag-aalsa at tatahak sa landas ng armadong pakikibaka ang sambayanang habang nalulunod sa kasalatan ay papatayin ng marahas na estadong naglilingkod sa interes ng mapagsamantalang uri?
Higit na binibigyang-linaw ng mga ganitong krimen laban sa masa ang dahilan kung bakit tumatangan ng armas ang sambayanan. Madali para sa mga propesyunal at ilang mga petiburges sabihing madadaan sa mapayapang usapan ang suliranin ng bansa. Ngunit para sa mga magsasakang ilang siglo nang pinagkaitan ng lupa at dinarahas sa tuwing ipinapanawagan ang kanilang mga karapatan, walang ibang masasandigan kundi ang armadong pakikibaka. Makatwiran at makatarungan ang pag-aarmas ng mamamayan at pagsusulong ng digmang bayan dahil layunin nitong wakasan ang marahas na paghahari ng iilan.
Ang pinakamataas na parangal na kikilala sa lahat ng buhay na ibinuwis para sa karapatang magbungkal sa lupa ay ang pagpapatuloy ng labang sinimulan. Marapat na pagtibayin ng mga anakpawis ang kanilang hanay sa buong bansa at mapagpasyang baklasin ang kaayusang ilang salinlahi nang pinakinabangan ng mga panginoong may-lupa. Dapat labanan ang mga patakarang neoliberal na lalong nagpapahigpit sa kadenang sumasakal sa mga magsasaka. Walang aasahang katarungan mula sa isang gubyernong kuta ng mga burukrata kapitalista at panginoong may-lupa. Dapat manindigan ang bawat magsasaka sa lakas ng uring anakpawis at pangatawanan ang dakilang tungkuling likhain ang kasaysayan.
Hindi mapatatahimik ng punglo ng pasistang rehimen ang sigaw ng mamamayan para sa karapatan sa lupa at tunay na panlipunang pagbabago. Walang makapipigil sa pagliyab ng kaparangan sa apoy ng digmaan at sa pagbawi ng anakpawis sa karapatang magbungkal ng sariling lupa ñ lupang sumalubong sa mga nabuwal na kasamahan at lupang patuloy na kakanlong sa daluyong ng rebolusyon.
HUSTISYA SA MGA BIKTIMA NG NEGROS MASAKER!
IPAGLABAN ANG TUNAY NA REPORMA SA LUPA!
INUTANG NA DUGO NG PASISTANG REHIMEN, SINGILIN AT PAGBAYARIN!
MAGSASAKA, SUMAPI SA BAGONG HUKBONG BAYAN! ISULONG ANG DIGMANG BAYAN!
CPP/NPA-Northern Negros: https: Martial Law sa North Negros? Sunod-sunod nga pagpanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung, Nasinati!
NPA-Northern Negros propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Oct 23): Martial Law sa North Negros? Sunod-sunod nga pagpanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung, Nasinati!
Cecil Estrella
NPA-Northern Negros (Roselyn Pelle Command)
Cecil Estrella
NPA-Northern Negros (Roselyn Pelle Command)
October 23, 2018
Ang Roselyn Jean Pelle Command (RJPC)-North Negros Front sa Bagong Hukbong Bayan, nagkundena, sa pinakamaisog nga posibleng madagway, sa sunod-sunod nga pagpapanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung nga nasinati sa pumuluyo idalum sa pseudo- martial law sa pasistang diktaduryang rehimeng US-Duterte sulod lang sa duha (2) ka adlaw.
Sagay 9 Masaker
Brutal nga ginpamatay ang siyam (9) ka mangunguma, human sa ilang unang adlaw nga pagkultibar sa bakanteng luna sa Hda. Nene, Sitio Pine Tree, Bulanon, Sagay City niadtong Oktubre 20, 2018, pasado alas 9 sa kagabhion.
Repleksyon sa pakyas nga reporma sa yuta ang pagposisyon ug pag-tikad sa mga mangunguma sa bakanteng luna sa Hda. Nene, duso sa kagutom ug kapigadohon. Nihimo og lain-laing legal nga tikang ang mga mangunguma para maangkon ang yuta idalum sa ‘magarbosong’ CARP, apan sobra dekada na ang ilang pag-proseso wala gihapon sila magtikad og kaugalingon yuta.
Subay sa mga datos nga nakalap, tuig 2003, nag-file og inclusion, isip benepisyaryo sa Hda. Nene, ang 33 ka mangunguma/mamumugon-sa-umahan sa DAR apan dili daw kini ma- cover sa CARP ug dili mahatag sa ila kay ang 75 ektaryas nga kayutaan adunay ‘Deed of Donation’ gikan ni AMD Carmen Tolentino ngadto sa 25 ka tawo sa tag-3 ektaryas niadtong 1975. Apan, wala kini gipahibalo kanila ug walay pormal nga distribusyon nga nahitabo ug nagpabilin pa ang yuta, biskan karon, sa kamot sa agalong may duta ug gani, ginpa-aryenduhan pa kini. Gin-dialogue pa sa 33 ka mangunguma ang DAR kabahin sa status sa yuta (tuig 2012), apan walay igong tikang nga gibuhat para masulbad ang problema taliwala sa 3 ka hugna nga petisyon sa mga mangunguma. Human ang 15 ka tuig nga kawalay desaysibong tikang sa DAR, tungod sa kagutom ug kapigaduhon ug tungod wala nay laing legal nga kasandigan ang mga mangunguma, nidesisyon sila nga mu-posisyon sa yuta. Gikastorya nila ang arendador antes ang pag-posisyon, ug nagkasabot nga tigayonon kini human matapas ang tanom nga tubo sa arendador.
Gigamit nila ang Deed of Donation aron mahimong erroneous ang Notice of Coverage (NOC). Nagpakita lang kung unsa ka inutil ang DAR sa pagproseso sa mga ginplastar nga problema sa mangunguma. Sa usa ka adlaw lang nga pagbungkal sa yuta, gipaulanan dayon og bala. Ang yuta nga iyaha na unta sa mangunguma, gi-angkon gihapon sa agalong may duta (AMD) bulig sa proteksyon sa DAR.
Ang Mala-Kolonyal ug Mala-Pyudal (MK-MP) nga sistema sa katilingban padayon nagalala ug nagaduso sa kawalay hustisya sosyal sa pungsod. Ang mga wala sg kasingkasing nga mga agalong may duta kg pasistang rehimeng Duterte tawhay lang ang kahimtang sa pagdepensa sa ilang mga kaugalingong interes. Apan kadtong mga mangungumang nagpakaon sa bilog pungsod, wala lang kulbi og kaldero, gani, ginapamatay pa.
Para pagtabon sa ila ka inutil, gipasibangdan sa reaksyunaryong diktador nga rehimeng US- Duterte ang hukbo sa pumuluyo, ang NPA, nga maoy nibuhat sa brutal nga hinimuan ngadto sa mangunguma. Nagpaguwa pa ang mag-amay nga NegOcc Gov. Alfredo Maranon Jr. ug Sagay City Mayor Alfredo Maranon III og pabuya nga Php500,000 para pagpanghinaw nga wala silay kalambigitan biskan sa pagkatinuod sila pud ni ang nagsagod sa mga SCAA nga nagsabwag og kahadlok sa Sagay City. Ang pamilya Maranon pud ang interesado sa kayutaan sa Sagay City. Dali-dali nga gipahid sa AMD, DAR, militar, pulis ug ilang mga grupong para-militar, ug private goons nga mga kanhi RPA ug mga SCAA, ang dugo sa ilang kamot ngadto sa NPA, daw buang nga nagtabon sa ilang sala sa pumuluyo.
Ubay ubay na ang salaod nga nahimo sa mga SCAA. Kun mahinumduman, sila ang responsible sa pagsunog ug pagstraffing sa peasant center sa Aliwanay-Luna Farmworkers Union nga nahimutang sa General Luna, Sagay City. Sila usab ang suspect sa brutal nga pagpatay kay Ronald Manlanat sa Hacienda Joefred, General Luna, Sagay City ug brutal nga pagpatay sa Chairperson sa NFSW Sagay Citynga si Flora Jemola sa Hacienda Susan, Sagay City. Sa tanang mga lugar nga may Land Cultivation Area, sa Sagay City lang ang grabe ka madugoon tungod kay may gisaligan ang AMD nga mga SCAA nga dali lang nilang mabayaran ug tataw ang proteksyon sa DAR ug LGU sa mga AMD. Dinhi usab masinati ang grabe ka dugay nga pagproseso sa CARP.
Sa pikas bahin, hugot nga gin-uyatan kg ginpatuman sa NPA ang Programa sa Demokratikong Rebolusyong sg Banwa (PDRB), nga ang unang kaundan amo ang agraryong rebolusyon ukon ang paghimakas sa mangunguma sa pagsulbad sa problema sa kawad-on ug kawalay yutang matikad, diin nagtumong nga mag-apud-apod sg yuta ngadto sa mga mangungumang kulang o walay yutang matikad.
Pumuluyo Ginpangkastigo, Ginransak ang Panimalay, Ginpriso
Sunod-sunod nga pagpanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung ang nasinati sa pumuluyo sa Purok Hoodam, Sitio Bideo, Brgy. Codcod, San Carlos City idalum sa kamot sa 79th Infantry Battalion niadtong Oktubre 22, 2018.
Subay sa pasiunang datos, anaa sa 100 ka tropa sg reaksyunaryong militar ang nag operation diin gipangransak ang panimalay ug gipang-ukay ang mga kagamitan sa halos tanan panimalay sa amo man nga lugar. Wala pa sila nakuntento ug nangulata og dili muubos sa 13 ka pumuluyo, human pugos nga gipaako nga sila katapo sg NPA. Ang lima (5) niini, gipangdakup ug gindala sa kampo sa 79th IB sa Bato, Sagay City, Negros Occidental. Dili na kita makibot kung adunay “Fake Surrenderees” nga ila ipaguwa sa mga musunod nga inadlaw.
Nagkaduol na ang ‘deadline’ sa mga halimawng tropa sa AFP sa paglutos sa NPA ug tibuok kahublagan sulod sa tuig 2018. Wala’g tuo na ang ilang paghimo og pampanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung, ug dali-dali kining gintabunan nga mga armadong NPA, katapo sg NPA ukon nagasuporta sa NPA aron mahimong lehitimong operasyon ang ilang kapakyasan.
Walay laing pasibangdan sa amo nga kahimuan kundi ang pasistang diktador nga rehimeng US-Duterte sa pagsabwag sa pasistang pagsawalay sala ug pagsibya og kakugmat sa bilog pungsod. Sa iyang mga proklamasyon, si Duterte naghatag og ‘go signal’ sa paglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung, lakip ang pagpamatay, sa mga mubabag sa iyang ambisyon mahimong diktador sa bilog pungsod. Ang pasistang diktaduryang rehimeng Duterte ang matuod-tuod nga terorista.
PANAWAGAN
Hustisya alang sa biktima sa maduguong gyera kontra pumuluyo! Hustisya alang sa Sagay 9!
Sukton ang rehimeng US-Duterte sa sunod-sunod nga paglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung!
Pahalinon ang pasistang diktaduryang rehimeng US-Duterte!
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/statement/martial-law-sa-north-negros-sunod-sunod-nga-pagpanglapas-sa-tawhanong-kinamatarung-nasinati/
Sagay 9 Masaker
Brutal nga ginpamatay ang siyam (9) ka mangunguma, human sa ilang unang adlaw nga pagkultibar sa bakanteng luna sa Hda. Nene, Sitio Pine Tree, Bulanon, Sagay City niadtong Oktubre 20, 2018, pasado alas 9 sa kagabhion.
Repleksyon sa pakyas nga reporma sa yuta ang pagposisyon ug pag-tikad sa mga mangunguma sa bakanteng luna sa Hda. Nene, duso sa kagutom ug kapigadohon. Nihimo og lain-laing legal nga tikang ang mga mangunguma para maangkon ang yuta idalum sa ‘magarbosong’ CARP, apan sobra dekada na ang ilang pag-proseso wala gihapon sila magtikad og kaugalingon yuta.
Subay sa mga datos nga nakalap, tuig 2003, nag-file og inclusion, isip benepisyaryo sa Hda. Nene, ang 33 ka mangunguma/mamumugon-sa-umahan sa DAR apan dili daw kini ma- cover sa CARP ug dili mahatag sa ila kay ang 75 ektaryas nga kayutaan adunay ‘Deed of Donation’ gikan ni AMD Carmen Tolentino ngadto sa 25 ka tawo sa tag-3 ektaryas niadtong 1975. Apan, wala kini gipahibalo kanila ug walay pormal nga distribusyon nga nahitabo ug nagpabilin pa ang yuta, biskan karon, sa kamot sa agalong may duta ug gani, ginpa-aryenduhan pa kini. Gin-dialogue pa sa 33 ka mangunguma ang DAR kabahin sa status sa yuta (tuig 2012), apan walay igong tikang nga gibuhat para masulbad ang problema taliwala sa 3 ka hugna nga petisyon sa mga mangunguma. Human ang 15 ka tuig nga kawalay desaysibong tikang sa DAR, tungod sa kagutom ug kapigaduhon ug tungod wala nay laing legal nga kasandigan ang mga mangunguma, nidesisyon sila nga mu-posisyon sa yuta. Gikastorya nila ang arendador antes ang pag-posisyon, ug nagkasabot nga tigayonon kini human matapas ang tanom nga tubo sa arendador.
Gigamit nila ang Deed of Donation aron mahimong erroneous ang Notice of Coverage (NOC). Nagpakita lang kung unsa ka inutil ang DAR sa pagproseso sa mga ginplastar nga problema sa mangunguma. Sa usa ka adlaw lang nga pagbungkal sa yuta, gipaulanan dayon og bala. Ang yuta nga iyaha na unta sa mangunguma, gi-angkon gihapon sa agalong may duta (AMD) bulig sa proteksyon sa DAR.
Ang Mala-Kolonyal ug Mala-Pyudal (MK-MP) nga sistema sa katilingban padayon nagalala ug nagaduso sa kawalay hustisya sosyal sa pungsod. Ang mga wala sg kasingkasing nga mga agalong may duta kg pasistang rehimeng Duterte tawhay lang ang kahimtang sa pagdepensa sa ilang mga kaugalingong interes. Apan kadtong mga mangungumang nagpakaon sa bilog pungsod, wala lang kulbi og kaldero, gani, ginapamatay pa.
Para pagtabon sa ila ka inutil, gipasibangdan sa reaksyunaryong diktador nga rehimeng US- Duterte ang hukbo sa pumuluyo, ang NPA, nga maoy nibuhat sa brutal nga hinimuan ngadto sa mangunguma. Nagpaguwa pa ang mag-amay nga NegOcc Gov. Alfredo Maranon Jr. ug Sagay City Mayor Alfredo Maranon III og pabuya nga Php500,000 para pagpanghinaw nga wala silay kalambigitan biskan sa pagkatinuod sila pud ni ang nagsagod sa mga SCAA nga nagsabwag og kahadlok sa Sagay City. Ang pamilya Maranon pud ang interesado sa kayutaan sa Sagay City. Dali-dali nga gipahid sa AMD, DAR, militar, pulis ug ilang mga grupong para-militar, ug private goons nga mga kanhi RPA ug mga SCAA, ang dugo sa ilang kamot ngadto sa NPA, daw buang nga nagtabon sa ilang sala sa pumuluyo.
Ubay ubay na ang salaod nga nahimo sa mga SCAA. Kun mahinumduman, sila ang responsible sa pagsunog ug pagstraffing sa peasant center sa Aliwanay-Luna Farmworkers Union nga nahimutang sa General Luna, Sagay City. Sila usab ang suspect sa brutal nga pagpatay kay Ronald Manlanat sa Hacienda Joefred, General Luna, Sagay City ug brutal nga pagpatay sa Chairperson sa NFSW Sagay Citynga si Flora Jemola sa Hacienda Susan, Sagay City. Sa tanang mga lugar nga may Land Cultivation Area, sa Sagay City lang ang grabe ka madugoon tungod kay may gisaligan ang AMD nga mga SCAA nga dali lang nilang mabayaran ug tataw ang proteksyon sa DAR ug LGU sa mga AMD. Dinhi usab masinati ang grabe ka dugay nga pagproseso sa CARP.
Sa pikas bahin, hugot nga gin-uyatan kg ginpatuman sa NPA ang Programa sa Demokratikong Rebolusyong sg Banwa (PDRB), nga ang unang kaundan amo ang agraryong rebolusyon ukon ang paghimakas sa mangunguma sa pagsulbad sa problema sa kawad-on ug kawalay yutang matikad, diin nagtumong nga mag-apud-apod sg yuta ngadto sa mga mangungumang kulang o walay yutang matikad.
Pumuluyo Ginpangkastigo, Ginransak ang Panimalay, Ginpriso
Sunod-sunod nga pagpanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung ang nasinati sa pumuluyo sa Purok Hoodam, Sitio Bideo, Brgy. Codcod, San Carlos City idalum sa kamot sa 79th Infantry Battalion niadtong Oktubre 22, 2018.
Subay sa pasiunang datos, anaa sa 100 ka tropa sg reaksyunaryong militar ang nag operation diin gipangransak ang panimalay ug gipang-ukay ang mga kagamitan sa halos tanan panimalay sa amo man nga lugar. Wala pa sila nakuntento ug nangulata og dili muubos sa 13 ka pumuluyo, human pugos nga gipaako nga sila katapo sg NPA. Ang lima (5) niini, gipangdakup ug gindala sa kampo sa 79th IB sa Bato, Sagay City, Negros Occidental. Dili na kita makibot kung adunay “Fake Surrenderees” nga ila ipaguwa sa mga musunod nga inadlaw.
Nagkaduol na ang ‘deadline’ sa mga halimawng tropa sa AFP sa paglutos sa NPA ug tibuok kahublagan sulod sa tuig 2018. Wala’g tuo na ang ilang paghimo og pampanglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung, ug dali-dali kining gintabunan nga mga armadong NPA, katapo sg NPA ukon nagasuporta sa NPA aron mahimong lehitimong operasyon ang ilang kapakyasan.
Walay laing pasibangdan sa amo nga kahimuan kundi ang pasistang diktador nga rehimeng US-Duterte sa pagsabwag sa pasistang pagsawalay sala ug pagsibya og kakugmat sa bilog pungsod. Sa iyang mga proklamasyon, si Duterte naghatag og ‘go signal’ sa paglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung, lakip ang pagpamatay, sa mga mubabag sa iyang ambisyon mahimong diktador sa bilog pungsod. Ang pasistang diktaduryang rehimeng Duterte ang matuod-tuod nga terorista.
PANAWAGAN
Hustisya alang sa biktima sa maduguong gyera kontra pumuluyo! Hustisya alang sa Sagay 9!
Sukton ang rehimeng US-Duterte sa sunod-sunod nga paglapas sa tawhanong kinamatarung!
Pahalinon ang pasistang diktaduryang rehimeng US-Duterte!
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/statement/martial-law-sa-north-negros-sunod-sunod-nga-pagpanglapas-sa-tawhanong-kinamatarung-nasinati/
CPP/NPA-Sorsogon: Masaker sa Sagay, Kundenahin!
NPA-Sorsogon propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Oct 24): Masaker sa Sagay, Kundenahin!
Samuel Guerrero
Tagapagsalita
Celso Minguez Command BHB-Sorsogon
October 24, 2018
Mariing kinukundena ng Celso Minguez Command Bagong Hukbong Bayan-Sorsogon ang naganap na pagmasaker sa siyam na magsasaka noong Oktubre 20, 2018 sa Hacienda Nene, Purok Fire Tree, Brgy. Bulanon, Sagay City. Ang mga biktima ay myembro ng National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) kung saan sinisimulan na ang kanilang kampanya para sa pagbubungkal ng lupa.
Walang puso si Duterte sa mga magsasakang ang tanging layunin ay bungkalin ang matagal na at tiwangwang na lupa na nakatakda din sanang ipamahagi ng Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). Inutil ang DAR sa pagsasabing “ipinagtanggol lamang ng may ari ng lupa ang pag-aari nya”, malinaw na nagsisilbi ito sa panginoong maylupa.
Katawa-tawa naman ang paglulubid ng mga kwento ng tauhan ni Duterte sa AFP at PNP at abogadong si Salvador Panelo na NPA diumano ang may kagagawan ng pagmasaker. Sukol at hindi na maitatago ng mga kasinungalingan ang tunay na nangyari sa mga magsasaka.
Ganunpaman, walang takot at may pagmamalaki pa ang rehimeng US-Duterte na isulat ang kanyang sarili sa kasaysayan bilang “berdugong diktador”. Nilampasan na ni Duterte ang kaso ng mga pagpaslang ng mga nakalipas na mga administrasyon. Ang kanyang walang respeto sa buhay at ari-arian ng mga biktima ng kanyang pamamaslang ay tiyak na magbubuyo sa mabilis niyang pagbagsak.
Naturingang abogado si Duterte pero asal-hayop ito sa kanyang paggugubyerno at hindi kumikilala sa matagal nang pinagkasunduan sa ilalim ng Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL) na ang lahat ng mamamayan ay may karapatang pumili sa larangang pampulitika at magsagawa ng mga aktibidad sa pinili nyang pulitika.
Tila asong ulol na nagwawala ang rehimeng US-Duterte na walang pakialam at gigil na gigil kung sino ang lalapain para pulbusin diumano ang NPA sa loob ng tatlong buwan hanggang sa ekspansyon nito sa 2019. Ngunit sumasalungat ito sa sunod-sunod na taktikal na opensibang inilunsad sa iba’t-ibang panig ng Pilipinas na nagresulta sa humigit-kumulang 120 kaswalti sa hanay ng AFP sa loob lamang ng isang buwan.
Sa pagbaling ng rehimeng US-Duterte sa mamamayan, dapat higit pang palawakin, palalimin ang pagkakaisa ng sambayanang Pilipino. Sa 50 taong karanasan ng Partido at BHB ay higit na itong nakapulot ng mga aral sa iba’t-ibang planadong pagdurog ng estado.
Mamamayan, magkaisa, labanan at ibagsak ang rehimeng US-Duterte!!
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/2018/10/24/masaker-sa-sagay-kundenahin/
Samuel Guerrero
Tagapagsalita
Celso Minguez Command BHB-Sorsogon
October 24, 2018
Mariing kinukundena ng Celso Minguez Command Bagong Hukbong Bayan-Sorsogon ang naganap na pagmasaker sa siyam na magsasaka noong Oktubre 20, 2018 sa Hacienda Nene, Purok Fire Tree, Brgy. Bulanon, Sagay City. Ang mga biktima ay myembro ng National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) kung saan sinisimulan na ang kanilang kampanya para sa pagbubungkal ng lupa.
Walang puso si Duterte sa mga magsasakang ang tanging layunin ay bungkalin ang matagal na at tiwangwang na lupa na nakatakda din sanang ipamahagi ng Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR). Inutil ang DAR sa pagsasabing “ipinagtanggol lamang ng may ari ng lupa ang pag-aari nya”, malinaw na nagsisilbi ito sa panginoong maylupa.
Katawa-tawa naman ang paglulubid ng mga kwento ng tauhan ni Duterte sa AFP at PNP at abogadong si Salvador Panelo na NPA diumano ang may kagagawan ng pagmasaker. Sukol at hindi na maitatago ng mga kasinungalingan ang tunay na nangyari sa mga magsasaka.
Ganunpaman, walang takot at may pagmamalaki pa ang rehimeng US-Duterte na isulat ang kanyang sarili sa kasaysayan bilang “berdugong diktador”. Nilampasan na ni Duterte ang kaso ng mga pagpaslang ng mga nakalipas na mga administrasyon. Ang kanyang walang respeto sa buhay at ari-arian ng mga biktima ng kanyang pamamaslang ay tiyak na magbubuyo sa mabilis niyang pagbagsak.
Naturingang abogado si Duterte pero asal-hayop ito sa kanyang paggugubyerno at hindi kumikilala sa matagal nang pinagkasunduan sa ilalim ng Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL) na ang lahat ng mamamayan ay may karapatang pumili sa larangang pampulitika at magsagawa ng mga aktibidad sa pinili nyang pulitika.
Tila asong ulol na nagwawala ang rehimeng US-Duterte na walang pakialam at gigil na gigil kung sino ang lalapain para pulbusin diumano ang NPA sa loob ng tatlong buwan hanggang sa ekspansyon nito sa 2019. Ngunit sumasalungat ito sa sunod-sunod na taktikal na opensibang inilunsad sa iba’t-ibang panig ng Pilipinas na nagresulta sa humigit-kumulang 120 kaswalti sa hanay ng AFP sa loob lamang ng isang buwan.
Sa pagbaling ng rehimeng US-Duterte sa mamamayan, dapat higit pang palawakin, palalimin ang pagkakaisa ng sambayanang Pilipino. Sa 50 taong karanasan ng Partido at BHB ay higit na itong nakapulot ng mga aral sa iba’t-ibang planadong pagdurog ng estado.
Mamamayan, magkaisa, labanan at ibagsak ang rehimeng US-Duterte!!
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/2018/10/24/masaker-sa-sagay-kundenahin/
CPP/NPA-Sorsogon: Pagpupugay sa mga Dakilang Martir at Bayani ng Mamamayan!
NPA-Sorsogon propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Oct 24): Pagpupugay sa mga Dakilang Martir at Bayani ng Mamamayan!
Samuel Guerrero
Tagapagsalita
Celso Minguez Command – BHB Sorsogon
October 24, 2018
Nakikiisa ang Celso Minguez Command-BHB Sorsogon sa paggunita ng All Soul’s Day ngayong darating na Nobyembre 1, 2018. Ang araw na ito ay panahon ng pag-alaala sa mga pumanaw na mahal natin sa buhay.
Taas-kamaong nagpupugay ang rebolusyonaryong kilusan sa bawat Pulang kumander at mandirigma na nag-alay ng pinakamataas na antas ng kanilang sakripisyo para sa bayan. Hindi kailanman matatawaran ang kanilang kabayanihan sa pag-aambag ng kanilang talino at lakas upang buong husay na isulong ang makatarungang digma na tunay na magpapalaya sa sambayanang Pilipino.
Hindi maisasantabi ng rebolusyonaryong kilusan ang mga pangalang humugis sa kasaysayan ng pagpupundar at pagpapalakas ng kilusan sa probinsya. Magmula kina Lorena “Ka Ligaya” Barrios, Celso “Ka Fox” Minguez, Dr.Juan Escandor hanggang kina Frankie Joe “Ka Greg ” Serrano, Cristine “Ka Nel” Puche,Ted “Ka Garry” Palacio, Andres “Ka Magno” Hubilla at marami pang iba. Sa kanilang pagkamatay, hindi ito naging dahilan ng panghihina ng mga kasamang naiwan bagkus mas lalong nagpursige sa gawaing pang-oorganisa dahilan upang libu-libo pa ang muling lumitaw at gumampan ng kanilang mga naiwang tungkulin.
Inaalala din ng rebolusyonaryong kilusan maging ang mga biktima ng pamamaslang sa ilalim ng rehimeng US-Duterte at kanyang mga kasapakat na AFP-PNP gamit ang Oplan Kapayapaan.Sila yaong mga hindi tumigil na ilantad ang kabulukan ni Duterte, nanawagan ng tunay na reporma sa lupa, regularisasyon sa manggagawa, pambansang industriyalisasyon at pambansang kasarinlan.
Sa anu’t-anuman, hangga’t may inaapi at pinagsasamantalahan ang naghaharing-uri, patuloy na lalaban ang mamamayan para sa tunay at pambansang pagbabago. Sa gabay ng Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo, patuloy na aabante ang demokratikong rebolusyong bayan.
Pagpupugay sa mga martir at bayani ng rebolusyong Pilipino!
Mamamayan, Sumapi sa Bagong Hukbong Bayan!
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/2018/10/24/pagpupugay-sa-mga-dakilang-martir-at-bayani-ng-mamamayan/
Samuel Guerrero
Tagapagsalita
Celso Minguez Command – BHB Sorsogon
October 24, 2018
Nakikiisa ang Celso Minguez Command-BHB Sorsogon sa paggunita ng All Soul’s Day ngayong darating na Nobyembre 1, 2018. Ang araw na ito ay panahon ng pag-alaala sa mga pumanaw na mahal natin sa buhay.
Taas-kamaong nagpupugay ang rebolusyonaryong kilusan sa bawat Pulang kumander at mandirigma na nag-alay ng pinakamataas na antas ng kanilang sakripisyo para sa bayan. Hindi kailanman matatawaran ang kanilang kabayanihan sa pag-aambag ng kanilang talino at lakas upang buong husay na isulong ang makatarungang digma na tunay na magpapalaya sa sambayanang Pilipino.
Hindi maisasantabi ng rebolusyonaryong kilusan ang mga pangalang humugis sa kasaysayan ng pagpupundar at pagpapalakas ng kilusan sa probinsya. Magmula kina Lorena “Ka Ligaya” Barrios, Celso “Ka Fox” Minguez, Dr.Juan Escandor hanggang kina Frankie Joe “Ka Greg ” Serrano, Cristine “Ka Nel” Puche,Ted “Ka Garry” Palacio, Andres “Ka Magno” Hubilla at marami pang iba. Sa kanilang pagkamatay, hindi ito naging dahilan ng panghihina ng mga kasamang naiwan bagkus mas lalong nagpursige sa gawaing pang-oorganisa dahilan upang libu-libo pa ang muling lumitaw at gumampan ng kanilang mga naiwang tungkulin.
Inaalala din ng rebolusyonaryong kilusan maging ang mga biktima ng pamamaslang sa ilalim ng rehimeng US-Duterte at kanyang mga kasapakat na AFP-PNP gamit ang Oplan Kapayapaan.Sila yaong mga hindi tumigil na ilantad ang kabulukan ni Duterte, nanawagan ng tunay na reporma sa lupa, regularisasyon sa manggagawa, pambansang industriyalisasyon at pambansang kasarinlan.
Sa anu’t-anuman, hangga’t may inaapi at pinagsasamantalahan ang naghaharing-uri, patuloy na lalaban ang mamamayan para sa tunay at pambansang pagbabago. Sa gabay ng Marxismo-Leninismo-Maoismo, patuloy na aabante ang demokratikong rebolusyong bayan.
Pagpupugay sa mga martir at bayani ng rebolusyong Pilipino!
Mamamayan, Sumapi sa Bagong Hukbong Bayan!
https://www.philippinerevolution.info/2018/10/24/pagpupugay-sa-mga-dakilang-martir-at-bayani-ng-mamamayan/
CPP: Reject the Big Lie being peddled by the AFP and Duterte
Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Oct 24): Reject the Big Lie being peddled by the AFP and Duterte
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies to seek justification for the extension and expansion of martial law powers. Duterte seeks absolute power to secure his tyranny through state terrorism.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies in their desperation to discredit the NPA, a peasant army, which has been consistently and solidly behind the clamor of the peasant masses for genuine land reform. They are terror-struck as the NPA continues to grow stronger as the peasant masses are roused to take up arms and join the armed revolution.
The CPP reiterates its condemnation of the Sagay Massacre and the spate of killings in Negros and across the country. The massacre is the 13th case of mass killing by AFP troops and AFP-organized paramilitary groups. It will not likely be the last under Duterte’s Oplan Kapayapaan and Mindanao martial law.
Duterte and his military and police officials lied about the “Red October plot.” Now they are lying in accusing the NPA as perpetrators of the Sagay Massacre. They lie unscrupulously. They lie barefaced. They lie again and again.
The AFP chief is himself at the helm of this Big Lie campaign. Clearly Gen. Galvez is a disciple of Joseph Goebbels, top Hitlerite fascist ideologue, who propounded:
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth. If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
This time, however, the Filipino people are incredulous. They do not accept the lies being peddled by the AFP and Duterte.
Gen. Galvez and his cabal of liars are only making themselves look stupid by weaving one fantastic tale after another, however self-contradictory. On the one hand, they Red-tag the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) claiming that it is a front of the CPP/NPA. Yet, on the other hand, it claims the NPA is behind the killing of the peasants belonging to the NFSW. To resolve this illogical argument, they now insist on another Big Lie: that the killing is part of the “Red October plot” to incite the people against Duterte.
For the record, the CPP and NPA does not engage in such idiotic conspiracies and acts of terror to incite the masses. The grave social crisis worsened by Duterte’s policies and his fascist crimes are rousing the people enough. They are ever determined to see Duterte’s downfall.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies to confuse the people and conceal their culpability for the Sagay Massacre which was perpetrated by the Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (RPA/SCAA) which is under the direct command of the AFP and financed by the big Negros landlords led by Duterte-ally Negros Gov. Alfredo Marañon Sr. and Mayor Alfredo Marañon Jr. of Sagay. The SCAA is headquarterd in the AFP camp inside Hacienda Mirasol, just two kilometers from the massacre site.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies to drown the clamor of the peasants for land. The bloodthirsty Duterte and his military officials are staging high drama in expressing sympathy to the victims of the Sagay Massacre. Duterte gave them some cash and cellphones, clearly unsympathetic to the clamor of the peasants and farm workers who are demanding, not cellphones, but the right to till the land for food.
The AFP chief is himself at the helm of this Big Lie campaign. Clearly Gen. Galvez is a disciple of Joseph Goebbels, top Hitlerite fascist ideologue, who propounded:
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth. If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
This time, however, the Filipino people are incredulous. They do not accept the lies being peddled by the AFP and Duterte.
Gen. Galvez and his cabal of liars are only making themselves look stupid by weaving one fantastic tale after another, however self-contradictory. On the one hand, they Red-tag the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) claiming that it is a front of the CPP/NPA. Yet, on the other hand, it claims the NPA is behind the killing of the peasants belonging to the NFSW. To resolve this illogical argument, they now insist on another Big Lie: that the killing is part of the “Red October plot” to incite the people against Duterte.
For the record, the CPP and NPA does not engage in such idiotic conspiracies and acts of terror to incite the masses. The grave social crisis worsened by Duterte’s policies and his fascist crimes are rousing the people enough. They are ever determined to see Duterte’s downfall.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies to confuse the people and conceal their culpability for the Sagay Massacre which was perpetrated by the Special Civilian Active Auxiliary (RPA/SCAA) which is under the direct command of the AFP and financed by the big Negros landlords led by Duterte-ally Negros Gov. Alfredo Marañon Sr. and Mayor Alfredo Marañon Jr. of Sagay. The SCAA is headquarterd in the AFP camp inside Hacienda Mirasol, just two kilometers from the massacre site.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies to drown the clamor of the peasants for land. The bloodthirsty Duterte and his military officials are staging high drama in expressing sympathy to the victims of the Sagay Massacre. Duterte gave them some cash and cellphones, clearly unsympathetic to the clamor of the peasants and farm workers who are demanding, not cellphones, but the right to till the land for food.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies to seek justification for the extension and expansion of martial law powers. Duterte seeks absolute power to secure his tyranny through state terrorism.
Duterte and the AFP are peddling Big Lies in their desperation to discredit the NPA, a peasant army, which has been consistently and solidly behind the clamor of the peasant masses for genuine land reform. They are terror-struck as the NPA continues to grow stronger as the peasant masses are roused to take up arms and join the armed revolution.
The CPP reiterates its condemnation of the Sagay Massacre and the spate of killings in Negros and across the country. The massacre is the 13th case of mass killing by AFP troops and AFP-organized paramilitary groups. It will not likely be the last under Duterte’s Oplan Kapayapaan and Mindanao martial law.
Militant groups call anew for resumption of GRP-NDFP peace talks
From MindaNewes (Oct 23): Militant groups call anew for resumption of GRP-NDFP peace talks
Militant groups renewed calls for President Rodrigo Rodrigo R. Duterte to reopen the stalled peace negotiations between government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
Anakpawis partylist Rep. Ariel Casilao told reporters during a protest rally marking the Peasants’ Month in Davao City Tuesday that resuming the talks has become urgent amid the escalation of armed encounters affecting the indigenous communities, farmers, and Lumad schools.
At least 173 farmers have been killed under the Duterte administration, Casilao claimed.
The lawmaker said Duterte is aware of the root causes of the communist insurgency and that these could not be resolved by military means.
He said returning to the negotiating table will allow both parties to thresh out part I of Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and part II of National Industrialization and Economic Development under the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms.
“After his time and Joma’s (Jose Maria Sison) time, he stated that already, the NPA (New People’s Army) will continue to exist because he knows the root causes of the armed conflict can never be addressed by military means,” he said.
Both parties cannot not arrive at an agreement if the President will not direct the government panel to do backchannel negotiations with the NDFP that will lead to the formal resumption of peace talks, he said.
“There are concrete agreements between the two parties at hand but without formal negotiations it can never be represented and can never be agreed upon,” he said.
On November 23 last year, two days before the scheduled resumption of formal negotiations in Norway, Duterte issued Presidential Proclamation 360 directing the government panel to cancel the talks “for lack of sincerity” on the part of the NDFP.
The President subsequently issued Proclamation 374 designating the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA as terrorist organizations pursuant to Republic Act No. 10168 or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2002.
Casilao urged the President to lift his declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao, which he said has trampled on basic human rights.
Bai Ali Indayla, spokesperson of Gabriela Women’s Party Mindanao, said there is no need extend the martial law in Mindanao if the claims of the government forces that it had won the fight against the terrorists in Marawi City were true.
The deployment of soldiers and establishment of checkpoints around Mindanao did little to thwart the bombings allegedly by terrorist groups, she added.
She said what’s even more terrorizing is the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion that was blamed for the rising prices of basic commodities in the country.
She said that of the 88 alleged victims of political killings in Southern Mindanao, 68 of them were farmers.
“We want to show through a protest action our call to end martial law. It has no result more than a year after its declaration,” she said.
Casilao said they staged a protest rally to call out the government for the “injustices” committed against the people and to assert genuine land reform and basic democratic rights.
He said they do not intend to destabilize the government.
He added farmers continue to bear the brunt of the rising inflation in the country.
“Instead of recognizing the efforts of our farmers in producing food for our consumption, they are presented in a very sad state of our farmers. They do not have the land, they experience hunger, and the threats they face,” he said.
http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/10/militant-groups-call-anew-for-resumption-of-grp-ndfp-peace-talks/
Militant groups renewed calls for President Rodrigo Rodrigo R. Duterte to reopen the stalled peace negotiations between government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
Anakpawis partylist Rep. Ariel Casilao told reporters during a protest rally marking the Peasants’ Month in Davao City Tuesday that resuming the talks has become urgent amid the escalation of armed encounters affecting the indigenous communities, farmers, and Lumad schools.
At least 173 farmers have been killed under the Duterte administration, Casilao claimed.
The lawmaker said Duterte is aware of the root causes of the communist insurgency and that these could not be resolved by military means.
He said returning to the negotiating table will allow both parties to thresh out part I of Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and part II of National Industrialization and Economic Development under the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms.
“After his time and Joma’s (Jose Maria Sison) time, he stated that already, the NPA (New People’s Army) will continue to exist because he knows the root causes of the armed conflict can never be addressed by military means,” he said.
Both parties cannot not arrive at an agreement if the President will not direct the government panel to do backchannel negotiations with the NDFP that will lead to the formal resumption of peace talks, he said.
“There are concrete agreements between the two parties at hand but without formal negotiations it can never be represented and can never be agreed upon,” he said.
On November 23 last year, two days before the scheduled resumption of formal negotiations in Norway, Duterte issued Presidential Proclamation 360 directing the government panel to cancel the talks “for lack of sincerity” on the part of the NDFP.
The President subsequently issued Proclamation 374 designating the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA as terrorist organizations pursuant to Republic Act No. 10168 or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2002.
Casilao urged the President to lift his declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao, which he said has trampled on basic human rights.
Bai Ali Indayla, spokesperson of Gabriela Women’s Party Mindanao, said there is no need extend the martial law in Mindanao if the claims of the government forces that it had won the fight against the terrorists in Marawi City were true.
The deployment of soldiers and establishment of checkpoints around Mindanao did little to thwart the bombings allegedly by terrorist groups, she added.
She said what’s even more terrorizing is the implementation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion that was blamed for the rising prices of basic commodities in the country.
She said that of the 88 alleged victims of political killings in Southern Mindanao, 68 of them were farmers.
“We want to show through a protest action our call to end martial law. It has no result more than a year after its declaration,” she said.
Casilao said they staged a protest rally to call out the government for the “injustices” committed against the people and to assert genuine land reform and basic democratic rights.
He said they do not intend to destabilize the government.
He added farmers continue to bear the brunt of the rising inflation in the country.
“Instead of recognizing the efforts of our farmers in producing food for our consumption, they are presented in a very sad state of our farmers. They do not have the land, they experience hunger, and the threats they face,” he said.
http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/10/militant-groups-call-anew-for-resumption-of-grp-ndfp-peace-talks/
Davao police, militants tussle over presence of children in rally
From MindaNewes (Oct 24): Davao police, militants tussle over presence of children in rally
Is it illegal to let minors or children join their elders in protest actions? Local police and militant groups have expressed opposing views on the issue.
City police director Supt. Alexander Tagum said they will file charges against leaders of militant groups for “using minors” in a rally held Tuesday at the Freedom Park to protest the rising food prices, extended martial law in Mindanao, and alleged human rights abuses against Lumads (indigenous peoples) and farmers.
In an interview with reporters Tuesday, Tagum accused the rally organizers of exploiting children who were mostly Lumad from different provinces of Davao Region and students of the Salugpongan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center (STTICLC), a school for Lumads.
“The children are very pitiful because they are being used. You saw it. We can see that most of them are Lumad, mostly from Salugpongan schools, who are brought here in Davao),” he said in the vernacular.
Militant groups in Davao Region and other parts of Mindanao held rallies on Tuesday to mark the National Peasants’ Month.
Tagum said many of the protesters were among those staying at Haran evacuation center of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Davao City for the past few years now due to alleged harassment by paramilitary and military units in their communities.
He said others entered the city in smaller groups riding buses and passenger vans.
But Karapatan-Southern Mindanao spokesperson Jay Apiag argued that the right of children to participate in protests is enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the country’s 1987 Constitution.
“Tagum is not aware of the rights of the children. In fact, the right to participation of the children is enshrined both in the international and local instruments, most especially in decision-making,” he said.
He added the children are the primary targets of the government’s counterinsurgency program or Oplan Kapayapaan and martial law in Mindanao.
He said the police cannot equate their right to participation to exploitation because their families have been displaced from their homes due to military presence and encampments in school campuses.
“The children strived to go to school for free but the government bombed, burned and destroyed the schools they tried hard to build,” he said in the vernacular.
Alliance of Concerned Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio also maintained it is the right of the children to protest against the government because they are the primary subjects of the alleged military operations and harassment in their communities and schools.
“I know they have a legitimate cause, to expose the oppression and threats in their communities, harassment and closure of their schools. That’s why they’re here,” he said in Filipino.
He said the struggle for education is a basic right of the Filipino children.
http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/10/davao-police-militants-tussle-over-presence-of-children-in-rally/
Is it illegal to let minors or children join their elders in protest actions? Local police and militant groups have expressed opposing views on the issue.
City police director Supt. Alexander Tagum said they will file charges against leaders of militant groups for “using minors” in a rally held Tuesday at the Freedom Park to protest the rising food prices, extended martial law in Mindanao, and alleged human rights abuses against Lumads (indigenous peoples) and farmers.
In an interview with reporters Tuesday, Tagum accused the rally organizers of exploiting children who were mostly Lumad from different provinces of Davao Region and students of the Salugpongan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center (STTICLC), a school for Lumads.
“The children are very pitiful because they are being used. You saw it. We can see that most of them are Lumad, mostly from Salugpongan schools, who are brought here in Davao),” he said in the vernacular.
Militant groups in Davao Region and other parts of Mindanao held rallies on Tuesday to mark the National Peasants’ Month.
Tagum said many of the protesters were among those staying at Haran evacuation center of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Davao City for the past few years now due to alleged harassment by paramilitary and military units in their communities.
He said others entered the city in smaller groups riding buses and passenger vans.
But Karapatan-Southern Mindanao spokesperson Jay Apiag argued that the right of children to participate in protests is enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the country’s 1987 Constitution.
“Tagum is not aware of the rights of the children. In fact, the right to participation of the children is enshrined both in the international and local instruments, most especially in decision-making,” he said.
He added the children are the primary targets of the government’s counterinsurgency program or Oplan Kapayapaan and martial law in Mindanao.
He said the police cannot equate their right to participation to exploitation because their families have been displaced from their homes due to military presence and encampments in school campuses.
“The children strived to go to school for free but the government bombed, burned and destroyed the schools they tried hard to build,” he said in the vernacular.
Alliance of Concerned Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio also maintained it is the right of the children to protest against the government because they are the primary subjects of the alleged military operations and harassment in their communities and schools.
“I know they have a legitimate cause, to expose the oppression and threats in their communities, harassment and closure of their schools. That’s why they’re here,” he said in Filipino.
He said the struggle for education is a basic right of the Filipino children.
http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/10/davao-police-militants-tussle-over-presence-of-children-in-rally/
Maute remnants told to live normal lives with families
From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 25): Maute remnants told to live normal lives with families
“Surrender and live normal lives with your families.”
With these words, Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares, police regional director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), appealed Wednesday to remaining members of the Islamic State-linked Maute terrorist group in Lanao del Sur to choose the right path of life.
Mijares issued the appeal after six members of the Maute terrorist group voluntarily surrendered to police and military authorities in the town of Sultan Dumalondong, Lanao del Sur, on Monday.
Mijares lauded Maute members Kasanudin Hadji Razul, Hizam Imran, Salic Musa Mangao, Taybo Abaser Kandi, Songra Hadji Razul and Nader Musa Mangao, all farmers and residents of Barangay Sumalindao, for their surrender.
The surrenderers were recruited in 2016 by Abdullah Maute, one of the founding leaders of the terrorist group that attacked Marawi City in 2017. The rebels also turned over to the Army’s 49th Infantry Battalion three M79 grenade launchers, one Barrett sniper rifle, and a Carbine rifle.
Mijares said the police are working closely with the Philippine Army to employ diplomacy and convince the terrorists that “life outside is happier and easier than in the jungles fighting the government”.
He said some remnants of the Maute terror group have already sent surrender feelers to local officials in Lanao del Sur.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1051994
“Surrender and live normal lives with your families.”
With these words, Chief Supt. Graciano Mijares, police regional director for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), appealed Wednesday to remaining members of the Islamic State-linked Maute terrorist group in Lanao del Sur to choose the right path of life.
Mijares issued the appeal after six members of the Maute terrorist group voluntarily surrendered to police and military authorities in the town of Sultan Dumalondong, Lanao del Sur, on Monday.
Mijares lauded Maute members Kasanudin Hadji Razul, Hizam Imran, Salic Musa Mangao, Taybo Abaser Kandi, Songra Hadji Razul and Nader Musa Mangao, all farmers and residents of Barangay Sumalindao, for their surrender.
The surrenderers were recruited in 2016 by Abdullah Maute, one of the founding leaders of the terrorist group that attacked Marawi City in 2017. The rebels also turned over to the Army’s 49th Infantry Battalion three M79 grenade launchers, one Barrett sniper rifle, and a Carbine rifle.
Mijares said the police are working closely with the Philippine Army to employ diplomacy and convince the terrorists that “life outside is happier and easier than in the jungles fighting the government”.
He said some remnants of the Maute terror group have already sent surrender feelers to local officials in Lanao del Sur.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1051994
NPA unit in ComVal destroyed: military
From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 25): NPA unit in ComVal destroyed: military
DAVAO CITY – The communist New People’s Army (NPA) operating in Compostela Valley province suffered another setback after government troops destroyed one of its biggest guerrilla fronts in the region.
Capt. Jerry Lamosao, spokesperson of the Army's 10th Infantry Division, said Wednesday that the 66th Infantry Battalion troops dismantled the NPA's Guerilla Front (GF) 25 belonging to the Sub-Regional Committee (SRC) 1, Southern Mindanao Regional Committee.
GF 25 is the second NPA front declared dissolved by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) following continued military operations that forced the rebels to surrender, Lamosao said.
The first NPA front declared dissolved was GF 27.
Lamosao said GF 25 suffered losses since January when 24 of its regular members surrendered to the 66th IB, as well as the death of two fighters and the wounding of several others in a series of military operations.
In mid-June, Lamosao said GF 25 was left with nine members and failed to recruit more.
According to Lamosao, the NPA’s SRC 1 failed to revive the GF 25, which also lost its mass base Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo sa Munisipalidad (KRM) and the Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo sa Baryo. This also includes the Compostela Farmer’s Association, the NPA’s legal front, he added.
Brig. General Reuben Basiao, commander of the Army's 701st Infantry Brigade based in Compostela Valley, said GF 25's dismantling was "another proof that the NPA continues to lose tactically.”
With this development, Basiao called on the NPA members and supporters to surrender.
“You are at the losing end, fight the government and you will surely perish. Surrender now while peaceful ends are being offered to you,” Basiao said.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1052035
DAVAO CITY – The communist New People’s Army (NPA) operating in Compostela Valley province suffered another setback after government troops destroyed one of its biggest guerrilla fronts in the region.
Capt. Jerry Lamosao, spokesperson of the Army's 10th Infantry Division, said Wednesday that the 66th Infantry Battalion troops dismantled the NPA's Guerilla Front (GF) 25 belonging to the Sub-Regional Committee (SRC) 1, Southern Mindanao Regional Committee.
GF 25 is the second NPA front declared dissolved by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) following continued military operations that forced the rebels to surrender, Lamosao said.
The first NPA front declared dissolved was GF 27.
Lamosao said GF 25 suffered losses since January when 24 of its regular members surrendered to the 66th IB, as well as the death of two fighters and the wounding of several others in a series of military operations.
In mid-June, Lamosao said GF 25 was left with nine members and failed to recruit more.
According to Lamosao, the NPA’s SRC 1 failed to revive the GF 25, which also lost its mass base Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo sa Munisipalidad (KRM) and the Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo sa Baryo. This also includes the Compostela Farmer’s Association, the NPA’s legal front, he added.
Brig. General Reuben Basiao, commander of the Army's 701st Infantry Brigade based in Compostela Valley, said GF 25's dismantling was "another proof that the NPA continues to lose tactically.”
With this development, Basiao called on the NPA members and supporters to surrender.
“You are at the losing end, fight the government and you will surely perish. Surrender now while peaceful ends are being offered to you,” Basiao said.
http://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1052035
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