Propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Website (Dec 26, 2024):
December 26, 2024
DOWNLOADHolding high the Red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and ever determined to lead the Filipino people’s national democratic revolution, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines extends its ardent revolutionary greetings to all the Party’s cadres and activists, Red fighters of the New People’s Army, allies in the National Democratic Front and the broad masses of the Filipino people, on the occasion of the Party’s 56th founding anniversary.
On this occasion, we call on the entire Party and all revolutionary forces to:
Deepen and broaden the rectification movement! Further strengthen the Party! Strike deeper roots among the masses and firmly lead their struggle against the US-Marcos fascist and bureaucrat capitalist regime! Persevere in advancing the people’s democratic revolution!
Today, we honor Ka Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the Central Committee, whose Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theoretical writings continue to illuminate the revolutionary path of the Filipino people. The new generation of Party cadres and fighters will forever remember and draw inspiration from Ka Joma’s lifelong communist dedication to the proletariat and all oppressed and exploited classes.
We pay tribute to all the heroes and martyrs of the Filipino people who led selfless lives for the Filipino people’s national democratic cause. We give special recognition to all Party leaders and Red fighters of the New People’s Army who fell in the course of waging people’s war and fighting the US-Marcos fascist regime during the past year. Their names are forever etched in the annals of the Philippine revolution.
On the occasion of the Party’s anniversary, we also extend militant revolutionary greetings to all anti-imperialist, progressive and democratic parties, organizations and movements around the world resisting US imperialism and fighting imperialist wars and threats of war. We extend fraternal greetings to all communist revolutionary forces who are studying, promoting and applying Marxism-Leninism in their countries, and leading the workers and people in the struggle for national liberation and socialism.
We mark the Party’s 56th anniversary acutely aware how the rapidly worsening international and domestic economic and political crisis is generating conditions favorable for waging revolutionary struggle.
The global capitalist system continues to be marked by economic slowdowns, widespread unemployment, and growing threats of stagflation and recessions. The US imperialists are fueling and stoking armed conflicts in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Workers and peoples are resisting imperialist wars, proxy wars, fascist oppression, public spending cuts, rising prices, and are raising their voices for higher wages and other urgent democratic demands.
The ruling system in the Philippines is mired in economic and political crisis. The socioeconomic conditions of tens of millions of Filipinos are sharply deteriorating from the relentless decline of the import-dependent and export-oriented local economy. The constant weakening of local agricultural and industrial production results in rising unemployment and widespread economic displacement. On the other hand, foreign capitalist profits and domestic oligarch wealth continue to soar from the exploitation of workers and natural resources and from debt-financed public spending and subsidies. Corruption and political repression has worsened under Marcos’ bureaucrat capitalist and fascist regime. The ruling system is mired in an increasingly virulent political crisis. The Marcos regime’s subservience to US geopolitical interests is pulling the country into the vortex of inter-imperialist war.
The worsening economic and political crisis of the ruling system under the Marcos regime continues to rouse the Filipino people to take action and wage collective resistance to fight for their urgent demands. This is generating ever favorable conditions for the Party to strike deeper and wider roots among the masses in order to lead them in the struggle against the US-Marcos regime.
I. Amid capitalist stagnation, imperialism fuels wars and incites resistance
The capitalist world is wracked by conflicts arising from contradictions between the monopoly bourgeoisie and proletariat, between imperialism and peoples in oppressed nations, between imperialism and countries asserting national sovereignty, and between rival imperialist powers. Presently, the rapidly intensifying inter-imperialist conflicts form the principal contradiction defining the current world situation, as US imperialism stokes and fuels wars in different parts of the world.
The capitalist system continues to be wobbled by the overproduction of major commodities, with persistent overcapacity and the piling up of unsold inventories of manufactured goods (including consumer electronics, household items, cars, machinery, steel and construction materials) and agricultural products (soy beans, wheat, corn and others). This is resulting in intense capitalist competition to wrest control of markets, as well as sources of raw materials to produce more for less. Resulting bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions lead to further concentration of capital in the hands of a few monopolists.
Global capitalism remains mired in economic and financial crisis. It has been in a state of stagnation of slow growth for more than one decade and a half, with many leading capitalist countries constantly teetering on the brink of a recession. The post-pandemic “rebound” failed to attain previous production levels. Global economic growth is not expected to go beyond 3% this year and the next. There is rapid destruction and deterioration of productive forces amid closures and layoffs. Workers and toiling people suffer declining socioeconomic conditions while the biggest capitalist billionaires continue to accumulate wealth. The deepening constraints on the purchasing power of the working class creates the bottleneck in consumption relative to production. Growing protectionism and geopolitical tensions disrupt trade flows and create market barriers which only exacerbate overproduction.
As ever, aggregate demand is propped up by debt rather than increasing the wages and purchasing power of the working classes. Global debt has ballooned to $322.9 trillion, rising by $12 trillion in the first three quarters of 2024. This is equivalent to 326% of global gross domestic product (GDP). A large chunk of foreign debt in 2024 went to fund infrastructure projects that facilitate the entry of multinational companies, including those that are now being packaged under so-called “green economy” (solar, nuclear power projects). In 2023, a total of $1.4 trillion went to servicing foreign debt. More than 35 countries are burdened by debt and are on the brink of defaulting on payments. Bloating financial sectors are creating speculative bubbles in stocks, real estate and even cryptocurrencies.
The US economy remains in the rut of stagnation with growth expected to reach only 2.7% this year. It is burdened with a $35.5 trillion debt, which is 123% of the total size of its economy. Official statistics claim around 16 million American workers are either unemployed or underemployed, but independent estimates put the number at 110 million functionally unemployed. While the 20 American billionaires worth $2.7 trillion continue to amass wealth, an estimated 43 million Americans live in poverty, suffering from deteriorating socioeconomic conditions amid rising inflation, growing household debt, low wages, increase in the number of homelessness, and lack of access to public health care. The financial and stock market boom in the US from global money seeking safe haven momentarily support the US economy but is a critical financial flashpoint.
The biggest European economies are also facing stagnation. After sliding into a recession last year, the UK economy is not expected to grow beyond 1% this year. The German economy is expected to contract by 0.2% this year from a decline of 0.3% last year, following weak demand for manufactured goods. Facing record-high public deficits, the economy of France is not expected to grow beyond 1.1% this year, and 0.9% next year. Workers and people in Europe face job insecurity, worsening living conditions, terms of employment, austerity measures resulting in reduced access to social services, and insufficient wages that are not able to cope with the rising cost of living.
The Japanese economy remains in a prolonged state of stagnation. It is estimated to grow by less than 1% this year. It is being crippled by an $8.6 trillion debt that exceeds the size of its economy by 250%. The economy of China is expected to grow not more than 5% in 2024, slower than last year and slowest since the 1990s. It is wobbled by a real estate crisis amid excess residential housing, reduced investments and unpaid debts by real estate developers, rising household debt and slowdown in domestic consumer spending. Amid the generalized weakening of the global economy, China is looking for ways to boost its economy amid the overproduction inherent in the capitalist path where productive forces exceed the market’s ability to absorb goods. It is already facing the contradictions inherent in the capitalist trajectory of development.
The overwhelming majority of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America remain backward and agrarian, and serve as exporters of raw materials, or as providers of cheap labor for multinational corporations. Global capitalist stagnation has resulted in lower demand for cheap exports, and has slowed down foreign investments in assembly-line manufacturing. They are overburdened by rising trade deficits and levels of debt. Majority of people suffer from worsening socioeconomic conditions, marked by poverty, hunger, illiteracy, malnutrition, and disease, and the severe impact of climate disasters, resulting from years of imperialist plunder of their land.
The global capitalist stagnation is intensifying economic and political conflicts between the major imperialist powers. While the US continues to push neoliberal policies to open the economies of its semicolonies and its capitalist rivals, it has implemented increasingly protectionist measures over the course of the past decade and a half, in an attempt to revive domestic industrial production.
The US government under Biden poured close to $40 billion to support semiconductor production with the aim of controlling 30% of global supply, putting it in the direct path of Taiwan and Japan. It increased tariff rates on various types of commodities imported from China. In addition, it has imposed economic and financial sanctions on Russia, with the specific aim of cutting Russian exports of oil and natural gas to Europe. Incoming US president Trump has declared plans to further increase tariffs against China, as well as against imported commodities from Mexico and Canada.
The US push for protectionist measures has been met with countermeasures by its imperialist rivals. On the initiative of Russia and China, the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) was recently expanded to include four more countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates), aside from declaring plans to add 13 other “partner” countries. Efforts are also being pushed to develop an alternative financial system such as the BRICS cross-border payment initiative, central bank digital currencies, and other systems to promote trade independent of the US dollar, making these less vulnerable to US sanctions.
Increasingly hostile economic competition arising from the attempt of the US monopoly bourgeoisie to counter its strategic decline has led to intensifying military conflicts. The imperialist US is the most bellicose among the imperialist powers as it tries to push back against its rivals in the hope of re-establishing itself as the sole superpower. It is currently the principal purveyor of war around the world. It is actively stoking and fueling the wars with the objective of wresting strategic resources from the control of its rivals. The return of Donald Trump as US president has emboldened the rise of neofascist groups in the US. His more aggressive push for American protectionist policies is set to further fuel inter-imperialist conflicts, both with China and Russia, as well as with traditional US allies.
By arming Ukraine and positioning its weapons near the country’s eastern border with Russia, the US succeeded in provoking Russia’s 2022 assault. It has since provided Ukraine with more than $115 billion in aid, more than half of which is in the form of weapons to cause the prolongation of the war with the aim of wearing down Russia. The Further escalating the war, the US recently “authorized” Ukraine to fire mid-range missiles into Russia, which Russia responded to with the first-time use of hypersonic missiles.
The US continues to support the genocidal war of Zionist Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza which has killed more than 45,000, including 17,000 children, and injured close to 110,000 people. It has given Israel close to $18 billion in military aid, including the bombs and missiles used by Israel in the bombardment and shelling of Gaza. The US also gave tacit approval and support for Israel’s airstrikes against Iran in October, and against Lebanon last November which killed 3,800 people and caused injuries to close to 16,000. The US colluded with Israel, Turkey, the UK and NATO forces to cause the ouster of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (who had allowed Russia to maintain a military base) and collapse of the Syrian government. The US imperialists have since supported Israel in occupying the Golan Heights, launching airstrikes and pushing deeper into Syria, while it pushes for greater control and influence in the formation of a new government.
While fueling the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, US overseas military forces are thrusting mainly in what it calls the Indo-Pacific region, in line with its “pivot to Asia,” with the principal aim of encircling and containing China and targeting the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). It continues to reinforce its military bases in Japan and South Korea, as well as those in the Philippines. It has pushed Japan to increase its military spending and expand its military forces to augment US military forces. It is using the Philippines as a base for operations in the South China Sea that aims to raise the temperature of conflict with China.
The US also continues to carry out political and military intervention against countries asserting national sovereignty. It has staged all forms of subversion against the governments in Venezuela, Cuba and other countries in Latin America. It is also targeting Iran, which has stood firmly against US intervention in the Middle East.
Imperialist crisis and wars are generating mass struggles and all forms of resistance. Broad alliances are being established between anti-imperialist people’s movements, as well as governments opposed to US interventionism. Venezuela has taken the initiative of establishing an anti-fascist united front against US imperialism.
Major workers struggles have erupted in the US and other major capitalist countries to demand higher wages and better working conditions, including the strike by 50,000 American port workers last October, and by 33,000 workers at Boeing company. Hundreds of thousands of workers went on strike in France protesting budget cuts to public services. German workers went on nationwide strike last October to demand higher wages. Major workers’ strikes were also staged in Belgium, Finland, Italy, Spain, The Netherlands, Cyprus and other countries. Massive workers protests were held in South Korea demanding the ouster of the sitting president. Major protest actions also continue to be staged across the world demanding the US to stop exporting arms to Israel and calling for an end to the Zionist genocide of Palestinians. Amid widespread workers struggles, conditions have become fertile, especially in capitalist countries, for militant workers alliances and councils to emerge to serve as broad united front in their fight for economic and political demands.
In the majority of countries around the world where semicolonial and semifeudal conditions persist, the broad masses of workers and peasants, semiproletariat and petty-bourgeois and other oppressed classes and sectors are waging militant struggles to fight for their economic and political rights, against puppet and corrupt governments. They are waging all forms of resistance to advance their cause for national liberation, particularly from US imperialist domination.
International people to people solidarity movements and organizations continue to expand. They have chalked major achievements in implementing the resolutions of the International People’s Tribunal on international humanitarian law, including that on the situation in Palestine. This is shown by successive global assemblies which were all unprecedented in size and breadth.
The struggles for national liberation of the oppressed classes and people in semicolonial and semifeudal countries are in parallel to the struggles of governments defending their national sovereignty and fighting US imperialist aggression, intervention and subversion.
Armed resistance also continues to be waged by peoples around the world, fighting for national liberation. The revolutionary forces of Palestine remain steadfast in their armed struggle against Israeli occupation of their land. The Kurdish people are also waging armed resistance to establish an independent country. Ethnic minority groups and their armies continue to fight the fascist Tatmadaw regime in Myanmar. Revolutionary armed struggle continues to be waged in India as they fight the brutal war of the fascist Modi regime. Communist parties also continue to lead armed resistance in Turkey, Colombia, the Philippines and other countries.
II. Aggravation of economic conditions, further erosion of national sovereignty and heightening fascist suppression under the US-Marcos regime
The chronic crisis in the Philippines continues to worsen, aggravating the socioeconomic conditions of the broad masses of the Filipino people. The moribund state of the semicolonial and semifeudal mode of production is marked by the destruction of productive forces and the worsening of its worst features.
There is widespread destruction of local productive forces leading to a slowdown in production (both manufacturing and agriculture). This is resulting in widespread unemployment, further dependence on imported commodities for consumption, and spiraling prices.
Local production remains backward and agrarian. There are no basic industries to sustain the growth and expansion of the economy. Decades of import liberalization and land-use conversion have destroyed local productive forces, especially local agricultural production. Agricultural productivity has even been falling for the last three years resulting in record agricultural trade deficits, worsening food import-dependence, and deteriorating livelihoods of the peasant masses. The manufacturing industry sector has dropped to its smallest share of the economy since 1949. Yet Marcos continues to assiduously implement neoliberal policies that exacerbate the country’s dependence on imports, expand privileges and incentives to multinational corporations, and further weaken local production.
These have led to high prices, low wages and the economic displacement of millions of toiling people. The country’s chronic trade deficits are at record highs. Lacking Filipino industrial export capacity to earn foreign exchange, the economy is heavily dependent on overseas remittances and foreign debt to finance imports. The country’s total foreign debt has grown to $139.6 billion as of September 2024 – equivalent to 31% of gross domestic product (GDP) which is the highest in almost 15 years—of which US$86.9 billion is public foreign debt.
Under Marcos, the national government debt continues to rise sharply, reaching over ₱16 trillion by October 2024, or a huge ₱3.2 trillion or 25% increase not even halfway into Marcos’ six-year term. The increase mainly serves the expansion of operations of big bourgeois compradors and the servicing of foreign and domestic debt. The Marcos government’s gross borrowing of ₱204 billion monthly is more than the combined monthly borrowing under the Duterte (₱131 billion) and Aquino (₱61.5 billion) regimes. Automatic debt servicing is constantly rising. For interest payments alone, this rose by 22% from ₱628.3 billion in 2023 to ₱763.4 billion in 2024. This is set to rise by another 11% to ₱848 billion by 2025. Interest and principal amortization combined is much higher and bloated from ₱1.57 trillion in 2023, to ₱2.03 trillion in 2024 and a projected ₱2.05 trillion in 2025.
The global economic stagnation resulted in a slowdown in the local economy, particularly in assembly and semi-processing. Amid the global glut, semiconductor exports are expected to contract by at least 10%, resulting in closures or retrenchments of local assembly plants. There are similar layoffs in firms producing garments, wiring and other commodities for exports.
The number of unemployed Filipinos remain at historic highs. This is being obscured only through statistical manipulation by state agencies. They over-stretch categories of “employed” to include even nearly three million unpaid family workers as well as tens of millions of waste-pickers, vendors, small transport operators, corner-store owners, domestic helpers, Youtubers and Tiktokers and other informal odd-jobs. In fact, many are essentially jobless people merely struggling to eke out a living wherever they can with very low, uncertain, poverty-level earnings and no benefits or social protection. To gloss over the severity of unemployment, state statisticians also pull down the “labor force participation rate” to remove millions of people from being counted as jobless.
Unemployment is particularly acute among the youth, including graduates who cannot find jobs in their field of education. The national capital and other major cities are overcrowded with the bloated reserve army of labor. Rural unemployment continues to rise amid land grabbing and economic displacement of millions of peasants. As a result, over 7,500 workers left the country daily to seek work overseas in just the first nine months of 2024, due to lack of available jobs in the country. There are reportedly close to 11 million overseas Filipinos, including some six million documented and undocumented migrants abroad.
The standards of living of the broad masses of the people are rapidly deteriorating under the Marcos regime amid the constant increase in the prices of food, fuel, electricity, water and other public services and utilities. Food inflation, in particular, is persistently high driven by rice prices controlled by bourgeois comprador cartels and smugglers in connivance with government officials. The gap between wages and salaries of workers and rank-and-file employees and the daily cost of living of a family of five continues to widen. In the desperation to “attract” foreign capital, the Marcos regime implements a policy of wage suppression.
Marcos officials churn out grossly underestimated figures of poverty by using unrealistically low poverty threshold. The regime gloats about economic growth supposedly among the fastest in the region and about soon achieving upper middle-income country status. In fact, it is the number of poor and hungry Filipinos that has most rapidly grown. Since Marcos assumed power, the number of poor Filipino families increased by 50% (around four million) from 8 to over 12 million. The number of hungry families rose by almost 120% (3.4 million) from 2.9 million to over six million. With prices skyrocketing and their purchasing power plummeting, the number of households without savings rose by 1.5 million from 18.7 million to over 20 million. More than 75% of Filipinos are poor and distressed, as confirmed even by studies of the central bank.
While the large majority of the Filipino people suffer from worsening living conditions, unemployment and loss of livelihood, the Marcoses and the ruling classes indulge in wealth and privilege. Marcos uses public money to go on frequent trips abroad, flies on official helicopters for personal trips to avoid heavy traffic, hold parties and private concerts in the presidential palace, and pamper himself and his family with a resort-like residence in the Malacañang grounds.
The Marcos regime is brazenly using its political privilege to recover the billions of pesos of wealth illegally accumulated under the 14-year Marcos dictatorship (1972-1986) which were sequestered under previous regimes. Since Marcos assumed power in 2022, local courts have successively dismissed at least eight cases of corruption and stolen wealth against the Marcos family, which involve at least ₱352 billion. These cases include the coco levy funds, which Marcos, Juan Ponce Enrile and Eduardo Cojuangco took away from farmers to acquire stocks, companies, banks and grant behest loans to cronies.
Marcos controls a targeted ₱500 billion in public money under the Maharlika Fund, ₱75 billion of which has already been transferred, which he is free to award to favored private businesses and government-guaranteed infrastructure projects. In the Marcos 2025 budget, at least ₱1.5 trillion is allocated to the construction or expansion of roads and bridges that are notorious for corruption. Allocations for education, health and other public services were cut in favor of pork barrel, in the form of purported subsidies and aid money. Marcos allotted ₱4.5 billion in confidential and intelligence funds for himself.
The worsening crisis of the ruling system continues to sharpen the political crisis under the Marcos regime. The shrinking pie of economic resources that can be shared by the ruling classes make the ruling bureaucrat capitalists even more insatiable and covetous of each other’s privilege and wealth. They compete against each other for government contracts to collect their share of bribe money. They use government power and privilege to serve their business cronies and political loyalists.
The conflict between the Marcoses and Dutertes, representing the two main factions of the current ruling clique vying for economic privilege and political power, has sharpened with the approach of the 2025 midterm elections, which are seen as crucial preparations for the 2028 presidential elections. The Marcos-dominated House of Representatives has indicted Duterte for crimes against humanity, charges similar to those filed by victims of extrajudicial killings before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Also, at least three impeachment complaints were filed against Duterte daughter, Sara, vice president and former education secretary, over anomalous use of more than ₱500 million “confidential funds” among many other issues. Unsure of the full loyalty of the armed forces and the extent of the Dutertes remaining influence in the military, Marcos is stalling the impeachment of Sara Duterte, and the ICC’s move to arrest and prosecute Rodrigo Duterte.
The puppet Marcos regime continues to display outright subservience to his US imperialist masters. It allows the US to strengthen its military foothold in the Philippines, serving the purposes of projecting and expanding US military power in the Asia-Pacific region. Together with US defense and military officials, the Marcos regime signed the Bilateral Security Guidelines and the Security Sector Assistance Roadmap, which further binds the Philippines to US geopolitical military interests. It also signed a declaration with the US and Japan for forging a trilateral alliance that clearly serves the Pentagon’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy.”
Under Marcos, the number of US military bases and facilities increased from four to around 20, including those officially acknowledged under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), as well as sites kept from the public. The US scheme is to use the country as springboard for launching military and naval operations in the region aimed against China and the DPRK. It also maintains large contingents of military forces in Japan, South Korea, and Australia, while at least three carrier strike groups constantly sweep the seas around China. The US conducts almost daily war exercises in the country. The Balikatan exercises last April was the largest in history involving more than 11,000 American soldiers.
The US military maintains its command center in Palawan, as well as in the main headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), to lead and coordinate the naval and coast guard operations of Philippine and US forces including “supply missions” at the Ayungin Shoal, “freedom of navigation” and other operations around the South China Sea with the aim of projecting US military power. These operations provoke and heighten tensions with China, and are carried out along with a campaign to whip up Sinophobia among Filipinos. China has responded to these with increasingly aggressive naval and maritime operations that impinge on Philippine exclusive economic rights in the West Philippine Sea, make peaceful dialogue and resolution of maritime disputes between the Philippines and China more difficult.
Directed by the US, the Marcos regime continues to carry out the “modernization” of the AFP to turn it into an “interoperable” auxiliary force of the US. Under the US “foreign military financing” (FMF), second-hand war matériel are “transferred” to the Philippine military. Under its FMF, the US committed $500 million to the Philippines in 2024, and has proposed a $2.5 billion package for 2025-2029.
With US military and financial support, the Marcos regime has heightened political repression and its war of suppression, targeting the Filipino people and their organized patriotic and democratic forces. At the same time, it is waging an all-out disinformation campaign and psychological warfare, with repeated declarations that provinces around the country are “insurgency-free,” a veil obscuring wanton violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
The AFP has repeatedly declared plans of shifting from “internal defense” to “external defense” and of adopting the “integrated territorial defense system,” which involves expanding and strengthening its paramilitary units (CAFGU). These public declarations also serve to assure Marcos’ imperialist master that his government is ready to commit more military forces to augment US military forces in its operations in the South China Sea in the event of heightened inter-imperialist armed conflict or open war.
Obsessed with crushing the people’s armed and non-armed resistance to eliminate all challenges to his bureaucrat capitalist, fascist and puppet regime, Marcos has employed the most brutal and ruthless methods of suppression against the people. He has ordered the AFP to impose martial law in thousands of villages and communities in the countryside, reviving the bloody tactics of fascist suppression during the detested dictatorial rule of his tyrant father.
In the guise of “community support programs,” the AFP has deployed teams of combat soldiers to build their barracks and detachments inside communities within the proximity of civilian homes, in violation of international humanitarian law. They impose their power and terrorize people. Communities are held under garrison- or hamlet-like control. The fascists restrict the people’s rights to free movement or travel through checkpoints and logbooks, food and commercial blockades, curfews and all sorts of arbitrary policies. These also include prohibiting peasants from tending their farms at certain hours, which disrupt their livelihood. These soldiers act as judge, jury and executioner, in tagging civilians as “supporters” or “rebels” and compelling them to have their names “cleared” or for them to “surrender” to the military, outside legal processes specified under its own laws, accompanied by threats of extrajudicial killing and torture.
These fascists are utterly detested by the people. They promote the use of illicit drugs, pornography, prostitution and other antisocial vices among the youth in an attempt to kill their aspirations for social justice. They disturb the peace in the community with their nightly drinking sessions and indiscriminate firing of their weapons by drunk soldiers. These soldiers are involved in growing number of cases of sexual harassment, molestation and rape against women.
The number of massacres, extrajudicial killings, torture, abductions, illegal arrests and other crimes perpetrated by soldiers continues to rise. To justify these crimes, units of the AFP issue false statements claiming that their victims are Red fighters who were killed in an encounter, even if these are outrightly disputed by local residents. There are cases of killing of elderly people, entire families, pregnant women and children. Political repression, violations of human rights and crimes against humanitarian law are worst in areas where the military is being used to drive people away from their lands or suppress their resistance to the entry of big mining and plantation companies, energy and ecotourism projects, and others.
Similar tactics of political repression are employed by military and police forces to suppress the people’s struggles in the cities. They deploy teams of armed soldiers and agents to urban poor communities to subject the people to surveillance, harassment, “surrender” and “conversion” operations, arrests, abductions and killings. In collusion with capitalists, military agents identify union leaders and organizers and “visit” them in their homes to intimidate them and their families with the aim of forcing them to stop their organizing activities. Military forces and intelligence agents also target students, women, church people, health workers and other sectors. On the pretext of “countering violent extremism,” the AFP, along with the National Task Force (NTF)-Elcac and other reactionary state agencies, have waged a campaign of anti-communist witchhunting in violation of the rights of people to organize and voice their grievances.
In the face of worsening forms of oppression and exploitation and fascist attacks, the Filipino people are unfazed. The broad masses of the people are determined to fight for their rights, urgent demands and long-term aspirations. They continue to get organized and carry out militant struggle.
Militant protest actions were carried out by jeepney drivers and operators against the Marcos regime’s plan to phaseout jeeps, that would take away the source of livelihood of tens of thousands of people. We can observe a conspicuous rise in workers activity as they form unions and raise their demands for wage increases. A number of local peasant struggles continue to be carried out against attempts by big landlords and big bourgeois compradors to grab their land. Mass organizations have raised their voices demanding lower prices of rice, fuel, electricity and others. Filipino migrant workers, from Europe to Middle East, from seafarers to domestic helpers, are actively strengthening their organizations and militantly advancing their demands.
There were protest actions against the US war exercises in the Philippines, against US military bases, and military intervention in the South China Sea. Protests were also staged in solidarity with the Palestinian people against the US-Israeli genocide in Gaza.
The demand for compensation over the state’s failure to guarantee the people’s safety have been raised by victims of recent calamities. They denounce the policy promoting mining and other environmentally destructive activities.
The call for the release of political prisoners, the surfacing of victims of enforced disappearances, and justice for all victims of human rights continues to grow strong.There is also the rising demanding for the Marcos regime to cooperate with the International Criminal Court to carry out the arrest and prosecution of Rodrigo Duterte for crimes against humanity. There are also calls for the impeachment of Sara Duterte as vice president, even as they denounce the Marcos regime for corruption.
Even as they carry out protest actions against the Marcos regime’s puppetry, corruption, fascism and anti-people policies, legal national democratic mass organizations, alliances and political parties have put forward an 11-man senatorial slate, in addition to several party-list groups running for congressional seats. They are actively promoting the national democratic program along with a program for urgent reforms, which seek to alleviate the masses suffering from widespread unemployment and deep poverty. They are exposing and challenging the reactionary elections that are dominated by the dynastic ruling class parties. They are actively taking part in the elections to rouse even greater numbers of people, to enjoin them to vote for their candidates, and more importantly to build new chapters and recruit new members, for even greater mass struggles ahead.
Persevering efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize the people are bound to result in the steady forward march of the democratic mass movement in the coming year. The people are determined to build, strengthen and expand their unions and all types of mass organizations in order that they could more effectively fight for their economic and political interests, and advance the cause of national democracy.
The deepening class contradictions and intensifying economic and political crisis of the ruling system are generating conditions favorable to further expand and strengthen the Communist Party of the Philippines. It is up to the Party’s cadres and members to exert the utmost effort to strike ever deeper and wider roots among the masses, in order to rouse and lead them onto the path of the people’s democratic revolution.
III. The rectification movement is firmly taking root, but much work remains to be done
The Communist Party of the Philippines, is the advanced detachment of the Filipino proletariat. It applies the universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the working class ideology, on the concrete conditions of Philippines society, dominated by US imperialism, and under the class rule of the big bourgeois compradors and big landlord class. The Party has put forward the program for a people’s democratic revolution as the solution to the chronic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system, to unite the patriotic and democratic classes of workers, peasants, the semiproletariat, the petty-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie.
The Party was established on December 26, 1968, and has since been at the forefront of the Filipino people in waging the national democratic revolution. It is a highly-disciplined organization that follows the principles of democratic centralism. It is composed of proletarian cadres and activists who are deeply and widely rooted among the masses. It leads the revolutionary organizations and mass struggles of workers, peasants and other democratic classes and sectors. It leads the New People’s Army in waging protracted people’s war in accordance with the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. It established and leads the National Democratic Front as the most consolidated core of the united front.
The Party exercises criticism and self-criticism to ensure that its revolutionary practice keeps in line with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and with its basic principles and policies. It is constantly engaged in a struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas, which assert its influence both externally and internally. The Party must periodically conduct rectification campaigns, either general or particular, as a way of correcting errors in policy and practice.
Exactly a year ago, the Central Committee called on the entire membership of the Party to carry out a rectification movement, in order to sharply identify, criticize and repudiate all types of petty-bourgeois subjectivism, a malady which permeated the Party to various levels and degrees, and weakened it from within. Over the course of the past decade or so, advancing the revolutionary mass movement was hindered by Right opportunist tendencies of conservatism, tailism, legalism, economism, reformism, and NGOism; while the revolutionary armed struggle was impaired by self-constriction leading to military conservatism and loss of guerrilla initiative.
We are happy to report that the internal campaign of study and self-criticism is firmly taking root and is steadily gaining ground. But much more work remains to be done. We are still at the very early stages. Past errors, weaknesses and shortcomings continue to assert their maleficent influence. The rectification movement must be further deepened to decisively pull out the subjectivist roots of our errors, weaknesses and shortcomings, to reinforce and strengthen the Party, decisively overcome the long-standing problems of stagnation, and bring about a revolutionary resurgence.
The rectification movement is a study movement that aims to raise the capability of the Party’s cadres and activists to wield scientific theory and the proletarian method of thinking as instruments to guide and raise the level of the practical revolutionary work. It is a reaffirmation of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, as well as of the Party’s basic principles, analyses and policies, and program for waging a national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective.
The current rectification movement primarily aims to correct and overcome the weaknesses, shortcomings and errors resulting from empiricism. Empiricism is a form of subjectivism that arises from the lack of rigorous study and application of theory to guide, sum-up and raise the level of practice. We seek to address the long standing problems of stagnation in the different fields of revolutionary work over the course of close to past two decades, and reversals and losses since 2017-2018. This is being done through summing-up of experiences, criticism and self-criticism, in line with the Party’s basic principles, policies and programs, and through a campaign of social investigation and class analysis at different levels of Party work.
The rectification movement is being carried out in the face of the enemy’s relentless and brutal campaign of suppression, both in the cities and countryside. By overcoming errors, weaknesses and shortcomings of the past years, we are determined to frustrate the enemy’s all-out war, recover from our losses, gain new victories and advance the Filipino people’s revolutionary resistance.
The initiation of the rectification movement last year was welcomed by all leading committees of the Party. It has roused and inspired the Party’s cadres and activists, as well as the revolutionary masses. It imbued the Party’s leaders and members with the spirit of self-criticism. They are determined to rectify and overcome their errors, weaknesses and shortcomings, in order to strengthen the Party and help rouse the people to fight more militantly, wage revolution and frustrate the enemy’s brutal war of suppression.
The rectification movement seeks to strengthen the ideological and political mettle of our cadres. Due to lack of constant ideological study and reaffirmation of commitment to the proletarian cause, and in the face of the enemy’s brutal war of suppression and incessant attacks, some cadres are bound to be paralyzed by mortal fear or by their overwhelming desire for comfort. But the overwhelming majority of our cadres, motivated by the revolutionary cause that is much greater than themselves, are determined to make the necessary sacrifices to ensure their security and the success of the Party and its rectification movement.
In line with the call of the Central Committee, Party committees and revolutionary mass organizations initiated plans to carry out study campaigns throughout the year. These have been implemented to various degrees of success. Some have adjusted their methods in accordance with objective conditions (including staggered discussions and smaller groups to adapt to highly mobile guerrilla maneuvers, short night classes to adapt to the busy workday of the peasant masses, one-on-one discussions with new recruits, and so on). Some have taken the initiative to establish a formal structure of study under the Jose Maria Sison School where students enrol in formal and regular classes. Marxist-Leninist-Maoist books and articles are being made available in both paper and digital form. Others, however, have not been as militant and creative resulting in lower levels of success.
Our Party has recently produced articles studying some important questions including the current imperialist crisis and threats of war, the current wage struggle, the “BPO industry” and the phenomenon of the “gig workers,” and outstanding questions of tactics in waging guerrilla warfare to overcome the enemy’s ruthless war of suppression and gradual constriction. There is need need to come up with even more theoretical studies and articles on important issues which the Party face day to day.
Regional Party committees and other leading committees, including those overseas, are working hard to complete or review their summing-up documents in line with the rectification movement. Some committees have already completed their summing-up papers, even before the rectification movement. Some are in the process of revisiting these summing-up papers in light of the rectification movement, in order to pinpoint particular manifestations of petty-bourgeois subjectivism in their own ideological, political and organizational work, as basis for self-criticism. Majority of our leading committees, however, are still at various stages of completion. Some committees face problems of missing documents or non-documentation of the work of their committee in previous years, making it difficult for the current leaders, especially the younger cadres, to complete a chronicle of their work.
Since the start of the year, Party committees, cadres and activists initiated SICA (social investigation and class analysis) campaigns in line with the program and instructions set by the Central Committee. The campaign seeks to correct past weaknesses of failing to come up with tactics for organizing and mobilizing the people in accordance with changed conditions, resulting in mechanical work and muddling through “mass work” in the past. This campaign has involved training, re-training or upgrading of knowledge of cadres and activists in the scientific method of investigation of collecting and collating information from the masses and other sources. Initial efforts have resulted in significant progress in drawing up a strategy and program for mass work, and in issuing timely calls to organize and mobilize the masses. However, majority of our committees are still at the initial stages.
Amid the severe economic crisis, the broad masses of the people are ever receptive to national democratic propaganda and organizing. They are ever determined to oppose the corruption, oppression and burdensome policies of the US-Marcos fascist regime, and fight for their social, economic and political interests, especially in the face of worsening bureaucrat capitalism and fascism. To effectively fight, their mass organizations must be established, expanded and strengthened.
Party cadres and activists are being mobilized to undertake comprehensive mass work to arouse the masses, build their organizations of various types, and mobilize them in an all-round way. Mass work teams or propaganda and organizing teams are being dispatched to factories, urban poor communities, campuses, as well as to rural communities. However, many remain hobbled by inertia, old practices of sweeping, office-based and activity-driven work, lack of full-time revolutionary organizers, lack of social investigation, inability to downlink the burning issues of the day with the concrete local problems, failure to uplink local problems to general mass campaigns, and other shortcomings. We also observe “Left” sectarian problems of mobilizing only the relatively active elements of the masses, and failing to galvanize the middle elements to win over the relatively backward. There are committed efforts by Party committees and cadres to overcome and resolve these problems by going back to basic principles of mass line and leadership.
There are steady efforts to rebuild the underground revolutionary organizations allied with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, such as those among the youth, workers, peasants, women, teachers, health workers, and others. This comes from the almost complete neglect of building the underground revolutionary movement arising from the error of legalism and reformism. There are plans and target for recruitment, building new chapters, promoting and supporting the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside. Efforts are being exerted to reinvigorate enlistment campaigns for Red fighters and political officers for the New People’s Army. However, a lot more has to be done in order to respond to the urgent need for more recruits, especially from among young workers and intellectuals.
In launching the rectification movement last year, the Party leadership took notice of the particular problem of self-constriction of NPA units, which resulted in a reduction of the mass base to a few reliable areas. Extended periods of mountain-basing of company and platoon formations, limiting areas of operation in “favorite barrios” and other similar manifestations of self-constriction resulted in a loss of initiative, civilianization and military conservatism. When the enemy launched its strategic offensives in 2017-18, not a few units of the NPA became detached from the political support of the masses and were forced into a purely military situation, while the peasant mass base was subjected by the enemy to gross brutalities. Due to these errors and shortcomings, the NPA suffered grave losses and reversals in some regions and guerrilla fronts.
In some guerrilla fronts, NPA platoons and squads were able to quickly reorganize and redeploy in line with the rectification movement and along the principle of extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on an ever widening and deepening mass base. Platoons of the NPA are creatively and wisely exercising flexibility in dispersal, concentration and shifting and are re-mastering quick movements to move at lightning speed. The Party’s rectification movement has inspired the Red fighters of the New People’s Army to persevere along the arduous path of the protracted people’s war to rebuild and expand the mass base, defend the people against state terrorism, preserve and strengthen the NPA, and frustrate the enemy’s strategic offensives.
The Party continues to build international relations on the basis of anti-imperialism and proletarian internationalism. The Party has made important contributions to the three theoretical conferences organized by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Since October 2023, these conferences have tackled the questions of imperialism and wars, the global imperialist economic crisis, and the struggle for national liberation from imperialism. These conferences serve as fora for building closer relations and understanding between revolutionary communist and workers parties and groups.
Through the Party’s initiative, activities in proletarian solidarity relationships have increased in the past year. There have been more bilateral exchanges and joint study sessions between the Party and other proletarian parties and groups. We have participated in congresses of other parties and made contributions to different fora.
The international representatives of the Party and the NDFP continue to actively promote the Philippine revolution, forge solidarity with anti-imperialist parties, and develop protodiplomatic relations with governments on the basis of common aspirations for national and social liberation.
Leading committees of the Party at all levels are being infused with new blood through the active promotion of younger cadres based on their meritorious record and performance of duties. By combining the young with the old-timers, we ensure that the Party’s leadership is capable, energetic and vibrant, and can perform the arduous tasks of the proletarian vanguard for a long time to come. The rise of young cadres to positions of leadership at different levels underscore the urgency of summing-up experiences in order to transfer the skills and accumulated knowledge to incoming generation of Party leaders.
Territorial committees are being established to build and develop the mass movement outside the scope and reach of the people’s army. Doing so ensures that the Party is capable of arousing, organizing and mobilizing workers, peasants, semiproletariat, students, and other sectors outside or on the outskirts of guerrilla fronts, and is not constrained by the scope or area of operation of the NPA’s guerrilla units. These committees work closely with guerrilla front committees to ensure the steady political, material and organizational support for the people’s army and the antifeudal and antifascist struggles of the peasant masses.
With the rectification movement, Party committees are now more conscientious in guarding against liberalism, ultra-democracy and bureaucratism. These weaknesses have undermined democratic centralism, and the capability of the Party to march as one body.
In some parts of the Party and revolutionary movement, we have seen violations of various organizational policies and Party discipline, some of which were allowed to go unchecked for long periods, eroding unity, endangering the security of cadres, and undermining the Party’s prestige. To rectify this situation, we have reissued and clarified our policies. These violations have been decisively criticized, analyzed and repudiated in some parts.
We continue to strengthen our system of reporting to correct the situation where Party centers were not kept abreast of the situation and progress of revolutionary work of lower committees. Our leading organs are now relatively better informed of developments on the ground, enabling them to issue timely policies, guidelines, advisories and plans. However, some lower committees have yet to improve their practice and have failed to submit regular reports.
Liberalism and ultra-democracy are diseases that weaken Party discipline. Despite the rectification movement, these continue to afflict some parts of the Party in different forms, including turfism, small-group mentality, endless debates and unresolved bickerings. On the other hand, we also continue to face problems of bureaucratism, where Party cadres in leading positions fail to give painstaking attention to the conditions facing collectives and members in the lower committees, to help them resolve problems and advance.
Petty-bourgeois liberalism continues to erode the militance and dedication of some cadres. Some cadres remain distracted by too much individual concerns and could not give full attention to revolutionary work. Many remain afflicted with an employee mentality, are tied down to their offices and homes, and could not devote full-time to organizing work among the masses. Some leading cadres have yet to step outside their comfort zones.
While much work remains to be done, the Party remains ever resolute in its commitment to comprehensively carry forward the rectification movement. Through the tireless efforts of all our proletarian cadres and revolutionary activists, we can declare with certainty that the roots of the rectification movement will continue to deepen and expand. It will allow the Party to grow sturdier and stronger as it leads the people with unwavering revolutionary spirit.
IV. Fulfill the tasks of the rectification movement and advance the revolution!
The objective conditions are ever favorable for advancing the people’s democratic revolution amid the continuing global capitalist crisis and sharp deterioration of semicolonial and semifeudal conditions in the country. It is up to the subjective forces to take full advantage of the situation to advance the people’s cause for national and social liberation.
The current situation urgently entails exerting utmost efforts to increase the ideological, political and organizational strength of the Party and all revolutionary forces. We must heighten our determination and comprehensively raise our capability to shoulder the tasks of arousing, organizing and mobilizing the broad masses along the path of the people’s democratic revolution and its socialist future.
Deepen and broaden the rectification movement! Further strengthen the Party!
The rectification movement, launched last year by the Central Committee, is an internal movement of study and self-criticism that aims to rectify errors and overcome weaknesses and shortcomings. These have arisen principally from petty-bourgeois subjectivism, mainly in the form of empiricism, in the Party’s ideological, political and organizational work.
The rectification movement must be deepened and broadened. We saw during the past year that it is not enough to proclaim the rectification movement and declare support for it. All Party committees, from the center to all branches, must carry out self-criticism and rectification of past errors, fully imbibe Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to revolutionize their thinking and methods of work, and move forward with full ardor. We will measure the success of the rectification movement with concrete numbers indicating both quantitative increase and qualitative growth of the Party, the revolutionary armed struggle, the revolutionary mass movement and the organized mass base.
We reaffirm the 8-point components of the rectification movement as we outlined in the statement last year. These component are, namely: a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist study campaign, a campaign to reaffirm the Party’s constitution and program, a campaign to study the documents of the First and Second Great Rectification Movement, a summing-up campaign, a SICA (social investigation and class analysis) campaign, a campaign of criticism and self-criticism at all levels, a campaign of evaluation and promotion of cadres, and a continuing campaign to ensure implementation of the Party’s three-level education course.
In deepening the rectification movement, we must implement our study campaigns plans in a sustained and vigorous manner, make timely assessments to ensure that problems are quickly resolved. Let us develop a militant style of combining theoretical study with practice, like having petty-bourgeois intellectuals partner with workers in studying wages or Marxist political economy.
All cadres of the Party must study Marxism-Leninism-Maoism even more assiduously. We will republish and circulate the text of the Philippine Selections of key articles by Mao Zedong to serve as reading and study requirement for all Party cadres. Cadres must pay even greater attention to theoretical study which become even more crucial as they shoulder bigger tasks in practical revolutionary work.
We must more sharply discern, differentiate and criticize pseudo-socialism, anarchism, gender radicalism, and other types of petty-bourgeois revolutionism which have permeated parts of the Party. These cause confusion and weaken one’s revolutionary handle on outstanding questions. We must expose these bourgeois and petty-bourgeois reformist trends among the workers, peasants, intellectuals, and other sectors and movements, who try to draw the masses of the Filipino people away from the path of revolutionary struggle, especially armed struggle.
The Central Committee’s summing-up of major events and decisions of the previous period must be decisively completed, to serve as overall guide in the work of summing-up of all committees. At the same time, previously written summing-up documents by leading committees (those covering the period around 2010 onwards) must be reviewed from the lens of the current rectification movement.
In addition to completing the chronicle of past events and decisions, and identifying our strengths and weaknesses, we must also pinpoint the petty-bourgeois class nature of our errors and shortcomings, so that we can strengthen proletarian leadership of the different fields of revolutionary work. There must be clear criticism and self-criticism by our cadres and committees. Summing-up documents should be immediately studied by members within the territory or line of work.
In broadening the rectification movement, we seek to ensure that it covers all parts of the Party and all aspects of revolutionary work. The eight components of the rectification movement must be comprehensively implemented. Efforts must be sustained. We must guard against slacking, overcome inertia and resist regressing to previous practices.
Let us continually revolutionize the Party through proletarian class remoulding of our cadres’ methods of work and leadership, as well as lifestyle. We can do so by making sure that our cadres and committees are closely linked to the masses at all times. We call on all Party cadres and activists to break out of their “comfort zones” and dedicate themselves fully to fulfilling the revolutionary tasks assigned to them. We must decisively criticize and repudiate violations of the Party’s policies and ensure that discipline is kept constantly high.
The Party must continue to put forward its critical analysis of the outstanding national and international issues and events to help raise the people’s awareness and political consciousness. We must continue to regularly publish and distribute printed copies of Ang Bayan and make sure that it is widely disseminated among members of all Party branches, as well as members of the revolutionary mass organizations.
We must continue to increase the Party’s membership following the principle of boldly expanding without letting a single undesirable in. We must strengthen democratic centralism and the committee system, ensuring regular meetings and collective decision-making. All committees must establish regular communication lines with their higher committee and submit regular and timely reports.
We must raise the capability of Party sections and branches to carry out revolutionary work within the scope of their responsibility and leadership. Territorial committees of the Party from the district up, both in and outside the guerrilla fronts, must dutifully guide and train local Party cadres in the performance of their work.
We must sustain efforts at timely evaluation and promotion of Party cadres to positions of responsibility and leadership. This must be accomplished during regular conferences, or by executive committees, between conferences.
Strike deeper and wider roots among the masses and firmly lead their struggle against the puppet, bureaucrat capitalist, and fascist Marcos regime!
The US-Marcos regime is the most concentrated expression of the basic problems of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. We are seeing under Marcos unprecedented scale of corruption, fascism, and subservience to US imperialist. In the face of worsening forms of oppression and exploitation, the Filipino people are ever determined to rise and resist, and wage major antifascist, anti-imperialist and antifeudal mass struggles and campaigns in the coming years.
They are determined to fight their utmost to shatter the reign of fascist terror in the countryside, demand an end to martial law rule in rural communities, and resist the Marcos policy of political repression and state violence. The struggle against martial law in the countrysides must be waged both in the villages and cities. A campaign to expose fascist terrorism in the countryside and support the peasant masses’ resistance must be waged determinedly in the cities and overseas. Conditions favor the rise of a broad anti-fascist united front among the various democratic sectors.
Deteriorating socioeconomic conditions push the people to rise in protest against relentless increases in the price of food, fuel and other basic commodities, as well as against bureaucrat capitalist corruption under the Marcos regime. Workers are pressed to more forcefully struggle for wage increases to provide their families with decent living standards, better working conditions and an end to labor contractualization and other exploitative schemes of flexible employment. Their clamor for a ₱1,200 national minimum wage must be amplified, to rouse workers to build their unions, and wage collective struggles in their factories and communities.
The peasant masses are pushed to intensify their struggle against further import liberalization of rice and other agricultural commodities. At the same time, they are compelled to fight vigorously the entry of mining, plantations and other land grabbing and environmentally destructive operations (especially amid push to give foreign capitalists the right to lease land up to 99 years), and fight against the militarization of their communities. Climate disasters compel the Filipino masses to demand economic compensation over the loss of their property and livelihood. The peasant masses must strengthen their organizations and associations and courageously rise to defend their lives and livelihood.
The Filipino people are faced with the need to intensify their campaign against US military bases and US military intervention, and to fight the subservience of the Marcos regime to US imperialism, which puts the country at increasing risk of getting entangled in an inter-imperialist war. We must launch a sustained campaign to expose the schemes of the US to impose its military might in the Philippines, and how this are linked to rising inter-imperialist conflicts, and to US schemes to establish its hegemony in different parts of the world. We must rouse the Filipino people’s patriotism and link their struggles with the anti-imperialist struggles of peoples around the world.
It is the duty of the Party to lead the broad masses of the Filipino people in their economic and political struggles by striking deeper and wider roots among the masses. To do so, we must raise the Party’s capability to arouse, organize and mobilize the broad masses in their numbers. We must to heighten their social and political consciousness by linking the burning issues of the day with their local problems, and raising their local issues and struggles to an understanding of the fundamental problems of the Filipino people and the need to wage collective struggle.
We must provide the conditions for the masses to participate democratically in discussions and decision-making, in order to rouse them to take action. We must earnestly combine sweeping propaganda and organizing, with solid and persevering mass work. We must overcome past shortcomings of one-sided sweeping, activity-driven, issue-centered and office-based work. We must produce more and more full-time mass work cadres, who will combine with an even bigger number of activists in propaganda and organizing teams. Social investigation and class analysis must be conducted with the clear aim of forging a plan for organizing and mobilizing the masses on the basis of their urgent social and economic demands.
Build and strengthen the various types of national democratic mass organizations to consolidate the relatively active or advanced elements among the masses. These must be combined with building even broader issue-based networks or loose-type organizations in order to reach and activate the middle elements, who in turn can help win over the relatively backward elements. Creative organizing tactics must also be adopted in order to evade and defeat the reactionaries’ surveillance and repressive policies.
We must conscientiously build or rebuild the underground movement and the revolutionary mass organizations both in the cities and countryside. The mass organizations allied with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consolidates the most advanced section of the masses. They are the ready pool of Party recruits. The underground movement must be expanded in order to help conceal and secure the leading Party cadres and organizers. At the same time, it must carry out widespread revolutionary propaganda to broadcast the call for people’s war to rouse the people to support and join the New People’s Army.
The New People’s Army must effectively deploy its squads and teams to conduct mass work to ensure the steady expansion of its mass base. To deepen its ties with the masses, mass work units of the NPA must be able to render economic, health and education services to the peasant masses, while guiding them in waging anti-feudal struggles.
Persevere in advancing the people’s democratic revolution!
The Filipino people must realize that the only way out of the crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system is by waging a people’s democratic revolution, to overthrow US imperialism and the class domination of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords, through their bureaucrat capitalist and fascist state.
The Party, the vanguard of the Filipino proletariat, reaffirms its commitment to lead the Filipino people in carrying forward the people’s democratic revolution by waging protracted people’s war along the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. To advance the revolution, we must continue to strengthen the Party, the New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front.
While leading the economic and political mass struggles against the US-Marcos regime, we must wage revolutionary armed struggle, as the principal form of struggle.
Through rectification of past errors, weaknesses and shortcomings, we aim to strengthen the New People’s Army, recover from losses, and frustrate the enemy’s strategic offensive. All Party cadres and Red commanders and fighters of the NPA must have a clear grasp of the dialectics of the protracted people’s war, and how it develops through the probable stages of strategic defensive, strategic stalemate and strategic offensive.
By waging guerrilla warfare over a protracted period, the New People’s Army can grow from small and weak to big and strong, by defeating the enemy’s superior force part by part. Errors and shortcomings such as premature regularization and military adventurism, and self-constriction and military conservatism, however, can force back the NPA to previous levels. All throughout the period of strategic defensive, the NPA must wage extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on an ever widening and deepening mass base.
With a clear grasp of the current balance of forces and the level of the people’s war, units of the NPA have been reorganized and redeployed to more effectively undertake mass work to recover and expand the mass base and wage guerrilla warfare against the enemy. Red fighters of the NPA must continue to master guerrilla tactics of concentration, dispersal and shifting to defeat the enemy’s strategy of gradual constriction and focused and sustained military operations.
All guerrilla platoons and squads of the NPA, along with the militia units and the self-defense corps of mass organizations, must take the initiative to mount tactical offensives, selecting targets that it can defeat. At every opportunity, they must strike at the numerous weak points of the enemy. There is no dearth of weapons to use, from high-powered rifles or improvised guns, bombs, hand-grenades, molotovs, arrows, spears, traps, or slingshots. They must aim to take away the enemy’s weapons to arm new Red fighters of the NPA.
In mounting big or small tactical offensives based on their capability, every NPA guerrilla unit makes an invaluable contribution to the Filipino people’s struggle against the Marcos puppet and fascist regime. It emboldens the Filipino people as they wage all forms of resistance, and inspires them to take the path of revolutionary armed struggle.
They inspire as well all the oppressed classes and people around the world, who are similarly fighting for national and social liberation. Advancing the national democratic revolutionary struggle in the Philippines is the Filipino people’s biggest contribution to the global struggle against imperialism and resistance to imperialist wars.
We are confident that by deepening and broadening the rectification movement, we shall be able to forge a stronger and powerful Communist Party of the Philippines and lead the people’s democratic revolution to even greater victories in the coming years.
Carry forward the rectification movement!
Hold high the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Long live the Filipino people!
Long live the international proletariat!
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!
https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/strengthen-utmost-the-party-on-its-56th-anniversary-lead-the-peoples-struggles-against-the-us-marcos-regime-and-advance-the-revolution/
