Response to the anti-peasant CARP: Agrarian revolution!

The US-Arroyo regime’s move to extend the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) for another five years is violative of the class interest of the peasant masses who have long been desirous of genuine land reform. The US-Arroyo regime has no other objective but to continue deceiving and oppressing the peasantry and keep on pocketing huge funds meant for CARP. In previous years, fund allocations for CARP served as one of the biggest milch cows of bureaucrat capitalists.

Like all the previous land reform programs of the reactionary state, CARP is bogus and has no real relation to agrarian reform. The fake land reform program merely served to further intensify land monopoly in the country, and allow foreigners to own land pursuant to imperialist “globalization” policies. Claims by the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) that 80% of agricultural lands have been distributed to the farmers is a big lie. The vast majority of peasants remain landless or land-starved and continue to be victims of feudal and semifeudal exploitation.

To evade the genuine distribution of land to the tillers, landlords devised numerous schemes in CARP’s name, including the division of vast tracts of land into small parcels and so-called land redistribution to bogus beneficiaries through the Voluntary Land Transfer/Direct Payment Scheme, Leaseback/Buy- back Scheme, Crop Conversion/Land Conversion Scheme, Contract-growing Scheme, Joint Venture Scheme, Cooperative Scheme, Corporative Scheme, Stock Distribution Option Scheme and related schemes.

CARP worsened the rampant land grabbing of farmers’ lands in different parts of the country. Concentration of lands in the hands of old and new landlords intensified, swelling the number of landless farmers. Landlords now control over 80% of the 13 million hectares of agricultural lands in the country, while more than 80% of peasants in the country do not have their own land to till.

Malacañang and its cabal only utilized CARP to enrich themselves. A big portion of over a hundred billion pesos allocated for CARP since 1988 merely went to the thieves in Malacañang and its so-called chief implementors.

Moreover, Arroyo and her cohorts feasted on the P27-billion fund sourced from the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth sequestered in 2004. The sequestered funds were intended for CARP as mandated by law. The insatiable Arroyo camp is now eyeing with gusto the more than P100 billion budget for CARP’s five-year extension.

The cry to end CARP is attendant to the farmers’ clamor for genuine land reform. It is advocated by all revolutionary forces and democratic sectors of society.

As contribution to the democratic struggles for genuine land reform, progressive solons in Congress are pushing for the passage into law of the Genuine Agrarian Reform Program (GARP). The bill is expected to meet with stiff opposition by the Arroyo regime in connivance with the big landlords who dominate Congress.

Agrarian revolution is the revolutionary movement’s key solution to widespread landlessness and land starvation in the country. Learning from the rich history of peasant struggles in the Philippines, genuine land reform will only be realized through agrarian revolution. Agrarian revolution aims to liberate the peasant masses from feudal and semifeudal exploitation and oppression.

Agrarian revolution is the principal feature of the national democratic struggle currently being waged by the armed revolutionary forces across the archipelago. Through this, the peasant majority are enjoined to take part as the main revolutionary force and in the formation of the basic alliance of the proletariat and peasantry.

In guerrilla zones and fronts across the archipelago, the revolutionary peasant masses implement various levels of the revolutionary land reform program. The minimum program being implemented on a wide scale involves the gradual reduction of land rent, the elimination of usury, wage increases for agricultural workers, attainment of just farmgate prices for agricultural products, improvement of different forms and levels of cooperation and various socio-economic, educational and cultural programs for the benefit and welfare of the peasant majority.

In areas where the armed revolutionary forces are relatively strong and the enemy forces are weak, certain components of the maximum program for land reform are already being implemented. In these areas, farmers are given rights to till for free lands that have been confiscated from despotic landlords and land grabbers, or idle or abandoned lands. This they do under the direct supervision of their agricultural cooperatives and organs of political power. This program proves to be effective and exceedingly gainful for the beneficiaries. There will be more of these cases as the revolutionary movement expands and advances and total victory becomes imminent.

As a result of advancing genuine land reform and the victories achieved therein, millions of peasants are joining revolutionary organizations and becoming active participants in revolutionary struggles. Thousands of the more advanced elements from their ranks are taking up arms and joining the people’s army. With the revolutionary movement’s continuous advance, agrarian revolution will spread like wildfire, gradually defeating feudal and semifeudal power in the countryside and fuelling the advance of people’s war across the land.

Orissa raid fetched Maoists about 500 weapons

The number of weapons procured during the Maoist raid on Nayagarh town of Orissa in February last could be around 500, considering the fact that 175 Maoists had participated in the raids and that each of them carried away two or three weapons each, according to a ¡®Maoist Information Bulletin¡¯ issued by the Maoist Central Committee. .

Neither the Orissa government nor the Centre had disclosed the exact number of weapons looted during the raid. The bulletin sent to media institutions in Hyderabad on Friday night is again a new initiative by the rebels to open a channel of communication with the media.

The chief of central military commission (CMC) Basavaraj, who is quoted in the bulletin, disclosed that the Maoist raid teams had hoped to seize some 400-500 weapons, but they found many more. ¡°We had ourselves burnt a large quantity of arms and ammunition as it was difficult for us to carry all of them. Since the place was far away from our stronghold areas, it was impossible to carry the entire load. So we burnt around 400 inferior arms, which the police claimed they recovered¡±.

The rebels made good with sophisticated weapons like AK-47s, Insas rifles, SLRs, LMGs and scores of short weapons. They left behind mostly the .303 bolt action rifles, which were seized by the police later.

Basavaraj also made light of the Orissa government claims that 20 naxals were shot dead when police pursued the fleeing rebels in Gosama forest area. He is quoted as saying that only two rebels, Rambathi and Iqbal from 7th and 9th companies of the PLGA were killed in the exchange of fire. Three policemen were also killed by rebels. The CMC chief said that they had christened the Nayagarh raid as ¡°Ropeway Operation¡± where the strategy was to descend on the enemy forces like commandoes descending from a ropeway, ¡®take them by surprise and swiftly complete the task¡±. Basavaraj claimed that 52 rebels took control of the Police Training School which had a presence of 400 policemen.

Press release from Communist party of Bhutan.

I got my hands on one press release from the Communist Party of Bhutan – Maoist. It is dated February 02, 2008.

Here’s what it says in general, with “raktim abhivadan” (red salute, I reckon)

“In the changing political scenario of Bhutan, the Communist Party of Bhutan – Maoists has also changed its strategies. CPB – Maoist, which considers all the parties against the monarchy as cohorts, has decided to take brutal actions against those parties that try to harm this party.”

Then it lists out the “Present Targets for Physical Action” that are –

Block Chiefs (Gup) and their allies living on the land of refugees (in Bhutan) and ruling over the people.
Government officials and Indian traders that have alliance with the state and are engaged in commission-ism.

The press release also states “the CPB Maoists has decided to take a vicious physical action against one unidentified Moto Rai of Beldangi 3 for attempting to disrupt the party’s people’s revolution.”

I suppose that Beldang 3 means the Bhutanese refugee camp in Nepal and the party is taking in a lot of inspiration from what CPN Maoists did during the insurgency in Nepal.

recieved via mail by bhutan kranthikari.

Barefaced Lies Fail to Erase the Legitimacy of New People’s Army Tactical Offensive (A Statement on the Death of 4 Phil. Army Soldiers)

Rigoberto F. Sanchez
Spokesperson
Merardo Arce Command
Southern Mindanao Regional Operational Command
New People’s Army
June 19, 2008

 

The 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has again concocted a barefaced lie and presented it as a very untenable excuse in regard to the death of four 73rd Infantry Battalion soldiers in Sitio Lower Bintuin, Brgy. Fatima, Paquibato, Davao City last June 14, 2008. But for its clear dubiousness, nobody is biting.

 

The narrative about their 4 casualties being “unarmed” and doing “community service” when ambushed by a unit of the 1st Pulang Bagani Company of the New People’s Army is a fabricated story that only shows the AFP’s deceit. Many, including people from the mass media, are quick in questioning how in the world has the AFP – in the thick of massive and sustained ground and aerial combat operations to defeat the revolutionary forces by 2010, and in an area which they very well know was inside a guerrilla zone – suddenly become unarmed?

 

Since when has 73rd IB-AFP combat and intelligence operations – with the 73rd IB-AFP long leading the charge against Ka Parago, the 1st PBC and the Guerrilla Front 52 been considered as “community service”? And last time we checked, the Geneva Convention and its Protocols that set the Rules of War still provided that combat units of warring parties, except for their medical personnel and chaplains and those who are considered hor’s de combat, are legitimate military targets. Again, their patent ignorance of International Humanitarian Law is revealed. They are so quick in fabricating lies when their troops are hit by NPA tactical offensives but celebrate in silence when they are able to kill unarmed civilians and non-combatants, as in the case of Danilo Pitao, Ka Parago’s brother.

 

The following are the basic facts denied and hidden by the 10th Infantry Division-AFP:

 

 

1. The four 73rd IB-AFP men were armed. Two of them who were wounded, able to run but died later were armed. The other two who died on the spot were armed with short firearms (one .45 caliber handgun and one 9mm pistol) and an apple-type hand grenade which were seized after the ambush. 

    

2. The 73rd IB-AFP is conducting Oplan Bantay Laya II military offensive operations against the NPA in its area of responsibility.

 

Having a cheek for lies and deception is trademark of the AFP. But no matter how hell-bent they are in twisting the truth, two obvious facts stand out: First, that they are disgraced and publicly embarrassed by this successful tactical offensive in the outskirts of Davao City by an NPA unit which they claim to be supposedly “weakened and on the run”; and second, that the US-directed Oplan Bantay Laya II counter-revolutiona ry campaign of Gloria Arroyo is one big frustration for the AFP.

 

 

(Sgd) Rigoberto F. Sanchez
Spokesperson
Merardo Arce Command
Southern Mindanao Regional Operations Command
New People’s Army

Heighten the struggle to end the people’s sufferings under the US-Arroyo regime

Communist Party of the Philippines
June 16, 2008

 

The Filipino people have long been suffering under a regime of intransigent puppetry, deceptions, corruption, anti-people socio-economic policies and repression.

 

The people’s conditions have critically worsened especially in the recent years under the Arroyo regime. Its mendicant neoliberal, deregulatory and other pro-imperialist “globalization” policies and sellout of national and people’s interests in collusion with big foreign, comprador and bureaucratic plunderers have resulted in the current series of rapid and sharp increases in the prices of fuel, power, food and other basic commodities and the ensuing increase in government tax collections.

 

Oil prices in particular have risen more than 250% since the start of the regime in 2001. Since the start of the year, these have risen 15 times, escalating to weekly hikes at record levels the past few weeks. Rice prices have more than doubled in Metro Manila (and more than tripled in other areas like Mindanao) since the start of the regime, with the most rapid and steepest hikes during the past three months. Inflation of basic commodity prices are presently at a record high since 2001.

 

The ruling regime has done nothing to alleviate the plight of the people amid the upwardly spiralling prices. Worse, it has stubbornly continued to block the demand of workers for a P125 legislated increase in the daily minimum wage. It rejects price controls and obstinately defends the oil price deregulation policy. It refuses to remove the 12% Value Added Tax (VAT), especially on oil and electricity, that imposes a tremendous burden on the people.

 

The Arroyo regime is even now taking advantage of the people’s plight and deceiving them by showcasing “subsidies” for “lifeline” power users, farmers and students as cover for Arroyo and her ilks’ self-indulgence with the increased VAT collections. Just as they did with the previous “subsidies” like the Ginintuang Masagang Ani, the bulk of these new and bigger “subsidies” worth tens of billions of pesos will only be used to line the pockets of Gloria Arroyo and her clique and grease their electoral and political malevolence. Malacañang has yet to account for scores of billions of unaccounted juggled public funds.

 

As head of the reactionary puppet regime, Gloria Arroyo is criminally culpable for collusion with foreign oil monopolies and big bourgeois comprador and bureaucrat capitalists and for the escalation of the prices of fuel, power, food and other basic commodities and services. The US-Arroyo regime is principally responsible for the worsening backwardness and destruction of the country’s industry and agriculture, massive unemployment and underemployment and the intensifying and unprecedented poverty and hunger of the mass of the Filipino people.

 

It is criminally culpable for stealing billions of pesos from public funds. Arroyo and her cohorts have engaged in pocketing and splurging billions even as they deprive the people of much-needed support for education, health, low-cost housing and other urgently needed social services.

 

The Arroyo regime has wrought even worse cruelty and brutalities upon the people with its relentless “all-out war,” extrajudicial killings, abductions, illegal arrests and detention, torture, ruthless bombings, mass destruction and evacuations of communities and widespread repression and terrorism.

 

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) champions the unity and struggle of the Filipino people against the US-Arroyo regime’s sellout of national and people’s interests and plunderous collusion with big foreign companies, comprador capitalists and bureaucrats. The CPP supports the people’s demand for the scrapping of the Oil Industry Deregulation Law and other deregulation laws, for the nationalization of the oil industry and other basic and strategic industries, for the imposition of state control on the prices of fuel and food and other basic commodities and services, and for the guaranteed delivery of much-needed public social services.

 

Amid the rapidly worsening socio-economic and political crisis of the ruling regime and system, the CPP encourages the people to go to the streets and other public venues to express their outrage and wage their struggles. Rallies, marches, protest concerts, public video showings and other cultural presentations, fora and community meetings, alternative classes, school and office walkouts, factory protests, transport strikes, noise barrages, boycotts and other forms of collective protest action are bound to spiral towards a generalized and nationwide protest movement as the Arroyo regime remains intransigent and continues to ignore the people’s legitimate and just demands.

 

In the face of intensifying fascist repression by the regime and its armed forces, security forces and police, activists have to work hard, exercise creativity and redouble their efforts in agitating, organizing and mobilizing the people in factories, communities, schools and all other places of their work and residence. They must immerse themselves among the people, address their day-to-day problems at the grassroots, link these with the basic problems and key issues facing the whole country, and raise the level of the people’s determination and militancy in struggle. With the people’s help, they must learn how to deal with enemy spies and efforts of government forces to intimidate, harass and suppress them and the people and to overcome the regime and its armed forces and police’s fascist counter-organizing and counter-rally measures.

 

For its part, the New People’s Army (NPA) under the guidance and command of the CPP is accelerating its recruitment and training of new Red fighters and commanders and acquisition of arms in order to carry out more tactical offensives against the armed forces of the puppet reactionary state. The revolutionary masses are expanding the revolutionary mass organizations, building their local organs of political power, stepping up agrarian and other mass struggles in guerrilla bases, fronts and zones and other areas, and participating actively in the armed struggle.

 

The CPP calls on the Filipino people to rise and intensify the revolutionary struggle and all other forms of struggle to bring down the rotten reactionary puppet ruling regime and the entire underlying semicolonial and semifeudal system. From the rubbles of the rotten system, the people’s revolution will build a people’s democratic government and a revolutionary system to finally achieve genuine national freedom and democracy and continuing socio-economic progress in the country