CPP/NDF-PKM-Southern Mindanao: The Filipino peasant class is a formidable force in resisting the tyrant Duterte and waging the people’s war

Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Oct 21, 2020): The Filipino peasant class is a formidable force in resisting the tyrant Duterte and waging the people’s war

RESTITUTO BAGUER

SPOKESPERSON

PAMBANSANG KATIPUNAN NG MGA MAGBUBUKID-SOUTHERN MINDANAO

NDF-SOUTHERN MINDANAO

NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT OF THE PHILIPPINES

OCTOBER 21, 2020

This Peasant Month, the Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM) in Southern Mindanao upholds the revolutionary struggle for land, life, and justice of the Filipino peasantry against feudal bondage, fascism, injustice, and inequality. At a historical time when a global pandemic is instigating a domino effect on the collective socio-economic lives of Filipinos, we reckon the vital position of the peasant class as a formidable force in resisting the tyrannical and fascist US-Duterte regime and advancing the people’s war in general.

The present plight of the peasant masses reflects and reaffirms the reality of our semicolonial and semifeudal society: that peasants, including the Lumad and other indigenous people in the countryside, bear the heaviest onus of poverty, oppression, and tyranny perpetrated by the unholy alliance of landed gentries, big-compradors, and the fascist Duterte regime. The Covid-19 pandemic, which has fractured global supply chains, is poised to compound this already dire situation, with the international community sounding alarm on the very real possibility of “mega famines.”

The fascist and corrupt puppet of the reactionary regime, Rodrigo Duterte, has made the lives of Filipino peasants unbearable day in and day out. Even prior to the pandemic, even official figures of the the US-Duterte regime cannot gloss over the fact that poverty incidence among farmers and fisherfolk are highest in the country.

Duterte is a virulent pest in the lives of peasants in the country. The 2019 Rice Tariffication Law he foisted on Filipino rice farmers is dragging the domestic rice production into imminent extinction and continues to burden consumers with perennial price hikes as a result of unbridled rice imports. Ambitious programs like the Build, Build, Build program aggressively convert farmlands for infrastructure, real-estate and other commercial purposes. This is on top of the perpetual land-grabbing connivance of the reactionary government and economic interests of the ruling class that encroach on the ancestral domain of Lumad and other indigenous people and displaced peasants from their only means of livelihood. In Davao del Norte alone, research from non-government organizations claims that in the last 30 years, conservative estimates of land area for rice production dwindled by more than 50,000 hectares (from 80,000 to 28,000 hectares), while the land area for corn production slid by more than 141,000 hectares (from 158,000 to 16,000 hectares). More productive lands are set to be converted into infrastructure projects such as the Mindanao Railway Project under BBB.

Food production in the country is enmeshed in sordid self-contradiction– the people who produce food for the nation cannot afford to put food on their tables. In many parts in Southern Mindanao, rice farmers, for instance, are saddled by rising costs of production while farmgate prices continue to dwindle. In North Cotabato, local traders buy palay at a measly P9 to P13 per kilo, pushing farmers in the trap of usurious debt in order to make both ends meet.

The US-Duterte regime has also surpassed all post-Marcos reactionary governments in its fetid corruption and ferocious fascism, especially against Filipino peasants. Amid the onslaught of the pandemic, he and his insatiable ilk in Congress shortchanged peasants and food production, with the agriculture sector set to receive a measly 1.5% of the Filipino taxpayers’ money, all the while allocating a lion share for their bureaucratic loot in preparation for the 2022 elections and ensuring massive fund for the fascist AFP and PNP to buy off the armed mercenaries’ loyalty.

This beefed-up budget of the state’s armed minions serves no other purpose but to enable state terrorism against the Filipino masses, especially the peasantry in the countryside. The recently released Implementing Rules and Regulations of Duterte’s Anti-Terror Law targets the most vulnerable sectors of society, especially the peasants and the Lumad, who are at the mercy of a draconian law that has vilified the peasants and Lumad and their struggle for their democratic rights.

Under the fascist US-Duterte regime, at least 250 peasants have already been killed. In combat operations, Tokhang-style executions, summarily killings by state-sponsored paramilitaries, Duterte’s impunity killed at least one peasant every week for the past 4 years. Indeed, Duterte’s priority is in killing the Filipino peasants, if not with torturous and prolonged hunger, then with bullets paid for by Filipino taxpayers’ money.

In spite of and in most cases because of these, Filipino peasants continue to ensure the growth of the national democratic revolution. They remain the base in which the people’s war and the agrarian revolution are being waged and won. In Southern Mindanao, peasants and Lumad comprise majority of the revolutionary mass base where organs of political power are being built. In some areas, they are still able to creatively undertake the minimum program of the agrarian revolution despite the forward deployment of troops in their barangays and towns. While the US-Duterte regime’s counter-insurgency attacks have changed how organizing and mobilizing are being undertaken, peasants in the region, with the leadership of their mass organizations, Party branches and the NPA, have adapted to ensure that revolutionary tasks are carried out.

More importantly, the peasant masses continues to be the fertile soil of armed revolutionary resistance in the countryside. In the region, peasants have always accounted for the bulk of the New People’s Army’s local membership, hailing from middle to poor peasants, landless farm-workers, fisherfolk, Lumad, women, and in some guerilla fronts, even rich peasants. In Party branches and mass organizations, peasants hold leadership positions in getting organized and continuing to resist the fascist attacks of the AFP’s focused military operations. They entrust their best sons and daughters to the people’s army, who go on to become Red commanders, political officers, or medical officers, fulfilling their potential which would have otherwise been left unrealized in the limited opportunities and anti-poor predisposition of the semicolonial and semifeudal society.

Even the seemingly bottomless resources poured into Duterte’s much-favored National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) have not halted the peasant masses’ active involvement and support to the people’s war. With Duterte’s criminal inutility in handling the pandemic, obscene corruption and excessive military spending for more troop deployment and land and aerial bombardment, more and more peasants are emboldened to join the NPA and mount various forms of resistance.

We take pride in our revolutionary struggle not just to reclaim our lands and livelihood but to dismantle the very system of semicolonialism and semifeudalism that enabled our historical oppression. In the midst of this pandemic, we enjoin our fellow peasants to draw up campaigns and programs to address food security and demand support for food production. We must link arms with all exploited sectors of society in defeating the US-Duterte’s tyrannical regime and further the Filipino people’s war.


https://cpp.ph/statements/the-filipino-peasant-class-is-a-formidable-force-in-resisting-the-tyrant-duterte-and-waging-the-peoples-war/