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Communist Party of the Philippines denounces US-led war against Libya

Posted by ajadhind on April 1, 2011

PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

CPP denounces US-led war against LibyaMarch 20, 2011

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today denounced the US-led coalition of imperialist forces for launching missile attacks against the people and government of Libya, calling it “a barefaced act of armed intervention against a sovereign nation.”

Following a resolution by the UN Security Council to enforce a “no-fly zone” over Libyan airspace, imperialist countries such as the United Kingdom, France and the US launched rockets into Libya with the aim of crippling the military strength of the Libyan government of Mohamar Gadaffi. The attacks were carried out against the Libyan government in an effort to help the US-supported armed rebels which launched armed uprisings in the last weeks of February.

“The imperialists are arrogantly imposing their will against a government that has stood for their people’s right to self-determination,” said the CPP.

“The Gadaffi government has long been a target of US attacks since the early 1980s,” the CPP pointed out. In 1982, the US imposed an economic embargo against Libya in an effort to force the overthrow of the government. This was followed by an assassination attampt against Gadaffi in 1984 and the aerial bombing of the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986. Economic sanctions were further imposed by the UN in 1992 and were eased only around 2004 after Libya complied with UN conditions regarding arms control and the surrender of suspects in the 1997 bombing of a commercial plane over Scotland.

“The US imperialists have long wanted to overthrow the Gadaffi government since it carried out the nationalization of banks and the oil industry,” said the CPP. “The Gadaffi government has steadfastly stood against the imperialist policy of neoliberal globalization and has carried out populist policies ensuring the welfare of the Libyan people.”

The CPP denounced the “hypocrisy” of US President Obama “who is now launching a large-scale war following mere declarations of ‘no-mercy’ by the anti-US Gadaffi. Yet, Obama and his imperialist coterie never lifted a finger in January even after their Egyptian puppet Mubarrak attacked peaceful demonstrators with armed thugs and state police personnel.”

“The armed attacks against Libya are bound to blow up in the face of the US-led imperialists forces,” said the CPP. “The US-led bombing of Libya can only succeed in inflaming the patriotic aspirations of the Libyan people and will militate them into uniting to defend their country’s right to self-determination.”

“Majority of the American people will not accept another interventionist war,” said the CPP. “Like their wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, the US-led imperialists are risking involvement in another protracted war of intervention that they can never win.”

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Message for the New Year 2011

Posted by ajadhind on December 31, 2010

Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal
National Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
December 31, 2010
Other versions: Pilipino

To all the revolutionary forces and the Filipino people: I would like to extend my most ardent greetings on the occasion of the coming New Year. We approach 2011 in the face of intensifying crisis, poverty and suffering. As we have witnessed these past few months under the new Aquino government, we cannot expect any changes that would bring any good or relief to the toiling masses and the people.

With the New Year, let us renew our resolve to achieve revolutionary change. Revolution is the only light that bursts through the cloudy sky and gives hope to the people. Let us achieve many more of the brilliant revolutionary victories we have attained in the past years. In 2011, let us achieve new and bigger victories in all fields of struggle. Despite the hardship and pain, let us devote all our strength and abilities to the advancement and victory of the revolution.

More firmness, courage and perseverance in the year 2011!

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No treachery, truce violation in NPA ambush of operating Philippine Army troops in Samar–CPPDecember 17, 2010

Posted by ajadhind on December 29, 2010

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today declared that “there was neither treachery nor a violation of the 19-day ceasefire declared by the CPP and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP),” when the New People’s Army (NPA) successfully carried out on December 14 an ambush against the operating troops of the Philippine Army’s 803rd Brigade in Las Navas, Northern Samar. According to initial reports, the Red fighters were able to seize at least 10 high-powered firearms from the defeated Philippine Army unit.

“The CPP, NPA, NDFP and all revolutionary forces fully support the peace negotiations and faithfully abide by their declarations and commitments, including their December 16 to January 3 ceasefire declaration, simultaneous with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) ceasefire.”

As far as the CPP, NPA, NDFP and revolutionary forces are concerned, the Samar ambush last Tuesday should not in any way affect the progress of the peace negotiations. It was a legitimate act of war, carried-out in self-defense in response to an active enemy offensive operation,” the CPP said.

“On the other hand, the AFP spokesman, Brig. Gen. Mabanta’s claim of NPA treachery is hypocritical and turns on its head. In fact, it was the AFP forces that had treacherous intent in carrying out offensive operations against the NPA and the revolutionary mass base in the area just two days before the start of the simultaneous ceasefire.”

“They dispatched their troops to scour the area and conduct offensive military operations based on a report they received about the presence of an NPA unit in the area, knowing full well that the area is an NPA operational base,” the CPP pointed out.

The CPP said further that “The 803rd Brigade deployed troops in the area precisely to give battle to the NPA. But the people’s army was monitoring the movements of the offensive enemy forces and engage them in gunbattle. With the support of the people, mastery of the terrain and superior knowledge of guerrilla tactics, the NPA unit was easily able to subdue the operating enemy troops.”

“The NPA ambush was carried out according to international rules of war,” added the CPP. “The NPA unit legitimately and responsibly employed command-detonated explosives, as opposed to pressure-triggered land mines, to subjugate the AFP unit, in consonance with the Ottawa Treaty and other international treaties concerning the conduct of war.”

Reference:

Marco Valbuena
Media Officer
Cellphone Numbers: 09156596802 :: 09282242061
E-mail: cppmedia@gmail.com   

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Philippines: Underground youth group ‘accelerate the revolutionary upsurge’

Posted by ajadhind on December 14, 2010

Posted on Philippine Revolution.

Philippines:
Underground youth group holds daring lightning rally,
calls on youth to accelerate the revolutionary upsurge and
join the New People’s Army

by Information Bureau,
Communist Party of the Philippines,
December 2, 2010

In celebration of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM, Patriotic Youth) 46th anniversary, hundreds of KM members joined today’s lightning rally near Malacañang, calling for support to the revolutionary movement’s objective to advance the peoples’war.

Masked students and youth joined the lightning rally bearing placards “KABATAAN, TUMUNGO SA KANAYUNAN, SUMAPI SA NPA!”, “REHIMENG US-AQUINO IBAGSAK!”, (“Go to the countryside, join the New People’s Army!”, “Down with the US-Aquino regime!”) “FILIPINO YOUTH, AWAKEN, JOIN THE NPA!”, “DOWN WITH US IMPERIALISM!”

“The revolutionary youth under KM declares its full commitment to advance the call of the Communist Party of the Philippines of fulfilling the strategic stalemate position vis-a-vis the rotten reactionary US-Aquino regime and its mercenary state security forces within five years,” states Ma. Laya Guerrero, KM spokesperson.

The participants of the lightning rally assembled at around 12:30 noon at the R. Papa St., barely a kilometer away from Malacañang palace, marched towards Morayta and Recto and dispersed near Avenida St. At the corner of Morayta and Recto, the group held a program that lasted for 10 minutes exorting the youth to join the New People’s Army (NPA).

“Under the aegis of imperialism particularly the United States of America, the Aquino regime has quickly shown its true colors of being anti-youth and anti-people. It has not departed from the hated polices of Arroyo regime that has bled the economy and push further impoverishment to our people. The Filipino youth has seen the monster in Aquino this early and we vow to make every day in his term a nightmare of protests.”

“As long as the rotten semi-feudal and semi-colonial system persists, the Filipino people and most especially the youth will rise up and heed to the calls of the times. There is no other solution but for the masses to tread the path of revolutionary struggle and join the NPA to ensure genuine change and brighter future for the Filipino youth and the next generation.”

KM, the underground organization of youth and part of the revolutionary left umbrella National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) was founded in 1964 by then young professor Jose Maria Sison and peers which led the resurgence of the protest movement in the country after the 1950′s. The KM has been at the forefront of the historic First Quarter Storm of 1970′s that paved the way for the radicalization of the youth and students. Many of them become the first guerilla fighters of the New People’s Army (NPA) that went underground during Marcos dictatorship.

“We are resolved to carry forward our historic role to echo the revolutionary aspiration to win the struggle of the oppressed Filipino people against the tyranny of imperialism, bureaucrat-capitalism, and feudalism. We vow to intensify protests and vow for upsurge of the militant youth movement in the coming days and months,” Guerrero said.

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Successful NPA ambush in Samar, a legitimate act of war

Posted by ajadhind on August 26, 2010

PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today hailed the successful tactical offensive launched by the New People’s Army in Catarman, Northern Samar last August 21 and at the same time assailed Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita Deles for saying that the Samar ambush “will make the way forward (to peace) more difficult.”

The CPP replied that “the Aquino government should stop making excuses not to resume formal peace negotiations.”

“The Samar ambush, as well as other tactical offensives of the New People’s Army (NPA), have all been carried out with the objective of advancing the struggle for national liberation and social justice, especially in the interest of the oppressed masses,” said the CPP. “All these are being conducted in accordance with international humanitarian law and war conventions.”

“Secretary Deles’ claim that the police unit was just doing law enforcement work is pure hogwash,” said the CPP. “The ambushed police unit was dispatched to a revolutionary base, heavily armed and fully aware of the presence there of the NPA and with the primary objective of attacking the revolutionary forces,” the CPP pointed out.

“The police unit, however, proved to be of no match to their target NPA forces with their revolutionary dedication, full support of the masses, advantage of guerrilla tactics and mastery of terrain,” said the CPP. According to reports issued by the Efren Martirez Command of the New People’s Army (NPA-EMC), its unit in Catarman was able to wipe out the attacking eight-man police unit.

The CPP dismissed claims by the military and police officials that the police personnel were shot one by one “execution style.” “The police unit was immediately crippled with the use of a legitimate command-detonated explosive. The police personnel were called upon to surrender. However, as they insisted on firing their weapons against the NPA fighters, a close quarter battle ensued.”

The NPA unit seized at least seven pistols and four M16 rifles. Reports that personal effects of the police were also taken by the NPA unit are being looked into. “If there were any taken for safekeeping, these items will be accounted for, secured and properly returned to the concerned families,” added the CPP.

The CPP disputed claims by military and security officials of the Aquino regime that the use of command-detonated explosives is prohibited under international rules of war. “Their use is perfectly legitimate under the Geneva Conventions, that serves as the frame for international rules on warfare.”

“The sterling military victory in Samar shows how the people’s war that is raging throughout the country is vibrant, advancing in strides with more and more victories, and bound to win in the end,” The CPP declared.

The revolutionary forces under the leadership of the CPP are presently pursuing a program to achieve, in five years, a leap of the people’s war it is waging, from the present stage of strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate.

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New People’s Army seize weapons for the people’s war

Posted by ajadhind on April 4, 2010

Macario Dilaab
Mt Alip Command
Front 72 Operational Command
New Peoples Armt – Far South Mindanao Region
March 29, 2010

The Red fighters of F72 under the Mt.Alip Front Operational Command launched a tactical offensive on the Cafgu detachment of Brgy Luz Village, Mlang, North Cotabato on March 26, 2010. A total of thirty five (35) high powered rifles were seized from the enemy comprising of fifteen (15) M14 rifles, two (2) M16 rifles, seventeen (17) garand rifles and one carbine. Under the pretext of campaigning for the Piñols, the Red fighters who were on board two trucks and dressed as rubber tappers, easily overrun the detachment. The attack lasted for about 14 minutes. The Cafgu who fought back was killed, the rest who surrendered were left in peace

We are happy and honored to have made this little contribution to the people’s war in time for our celebration of the NPA’s 41st anniversary. Indeed, with the people’s help, the people’s war has grown ever stronger and bigger. Nothing is impossible for the people’s army which derives its strength and inspiration from the masses.

We are also quite concerned for the innocent individuals, the drivers and helpers of the trucks who are now presently detained at the Mlang police station. Roland Reston, Lanie Caballero, Along Enriquez — all residents of Makilala North Cotabato are preswently at the Mlang PNP and are accused of arson and illegal possession of firearms. They have nothing at all to do with the tactical offensive. They are just simple workers who are trying to eke out a susbsistence for themselves and their families. They should be released immediately and unconditionally. Their detention is pure state harrassment designed to sow fear among the people and impose the Piñols brand of fascism and terrorism.

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The revolutionary movement led by the CPP-MLM will continue fighting till victory

Posted by ajadhind on January 25, 2010

“Failure is what the Oplan Bantay Laya 2 achieved thru the implementation of the 61st IB PA in southern Negros,” a statement from the Ka Roger Mahinay Command (RMC) said.

“The repeated statement of victory against the revolutionary movement by the military especially from the notorious 61st IB is an old broken record that even their shadows laugh over their wildest dreams thru recycled surender, intrigues, psywar activities and lies,” the RMC added in the statement.

According to the RMC they have preserve their forces and have initiated an ambush on fascist troops of the 61st IB PA in Sitio Indangawan, Brgy Manlocahoc, Sipalay City last December 9, 2009. The said ambush resulted in the deaths of three elements of the military in the first volume of fire by the Red fighters and the wounding of another who later died in the hospital. The bodies of the dead soldiers were hidden from public view by concealing it under the seats at the back of the Rio-truck used by the military in responding to the ambush in the area. These were brought to the Barasbarasan HQ, Brgy Manlocahoc, Sipalay City while a civilian woman was wounded by rock splinters far from the ambush site.

The RMC also pointed out primary gains like raising the levels of its mass organizations, increase membership of revolutionary mass organizations of peasants, women, youth and cultural activists, boosting prices of peasants products, wage increase for the farm workers, defending the peasants against landgrabbing and opposition against destructive foreign owned mining companies and also promoting anti-fascist mass movements in the area. They also serve punishments handed down by the revolutionary peoples’ court against criminal and bad elements in the area.

“Despite military operations, the RMC was able to accomplish the holding of the 41st anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines- Marxism-Leninism- Maoism (MLM) ceremonies inside a guerrila camp attended by more than 200 guests from the cities and the interior areas,” added the RMC.

“This 2010, the RMC will do it’s best in contributing to the national call of elevating the armed struggle to the strategisc stalemate in five years and victory in the next ten years,” concluded the RMC statement.

Reference :
Ka Roger Mahinay Command statement
Southwest Guerilla Front
Negros Island

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Communist Party of the Philippines Calls for Advance to Strategic Stalemate in Five Years

Posted by ajadhind on January 9, 2010

In this statement, the CPP leadership lays out an ambitious plan to increase the number of NPA guerilla fronts from 120 to 180, expand party membership from tens of thousands to 200,000, and move from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate within five years.

Strive to Make a Great Advance in the People’s War for New Democracy

Communist Party of the Philippines, Central Committee, December 26, 2009

We celebrate today with utmost joy the 41st anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines as the revolutionary advanced detachment of the Filipino proletariat under the theoretical guidance of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism.

We are deeply gratified by the long-accumulated as well as recent victories won by the Filipino proletariat and people under the leadership of the Party in the course of the new democratic revolution through protracted people’s war. We salute and congratulate all our cadres and members and we pay the highest respects to our revolutionary martyrs and heroes for making our victories possible.

We have long proven that, by pursuing the strategic line of protracted peoples war, we can build in stages the strength of the revolutionary forces of the people and overcome the brutal campaigns of suppression unleashed by US imperialism and the local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords. In the process, we have so far built the largest and strongest revolutionary movement of the Filipino people in the entire history of the Philippines since the revolution of 1896.

We have grown in strength and advanced precisely through resolute and fierce revolutionary armed struggle against every regime of counterrevolutionar y violence directed and supported by US imperialism. We have prevailed over the 14-year Marcos fascist dictatorship and all the succeeding regimes that have pretended to be liberal democratic but have been so brutally antinational and anti-democratic.

The current Arroyo regime is going down in history in complete ignominy for its grave crimes against the people. It has utterly failed to realize its pipe dream of destroying or reducing the armed revolutionary movement of the people to inconsequentiality. Not only have we prevailed and preserved our forces against the enemy campaigns of suppression, we have also gained strength and scored resounding victories.

After more than 40 years of successful peoples war, we consider it of highest importance today to declare our determination to strive within the next five years to make the great advance from the stage of the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate, fulfilling all the requirements and without skipping any necessary phase. We can look forward to still greater revolutionary possibilities within the next ten years if we carry out successfully the tasks and plans for the next five years.

Our revolutionary optimism is based on three factors. First is the ever worsening crisis of the world capitalist system, which is now in the throes of its worst crisis since the Great Depression. Second is the accelerated worsening crisis and rotting of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. Third is the revolutionary forces of the people led by the Party that have far more strength now than at the start of our people’s war in 1969 and have the sufficient strength and critical mass to carry out the tasks and plans for advancing from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate of the people’s war within the next five years.

World capitalist system in the throes of depression

The world capitalist system is in a state of economic depression. The economic and financial crisis has spread throughout the world like a plague from the imperialist countries. The most devastated economically and socially are the underdeveloped countries. But the imperialist powers and their followers keep on euphemistically calling the situation a mere recession and keep on referring to any spike in the financial market as a sign of recovery.

The crisis of overproduction runs unabated and continues to be aggravated by the financial crisis. Factories continue to scale down production or to close down. The toiling masses of workers and peasants and even the middle social strata continue to suffer the loss of jobs and homes, the reduction of income, the soaring prices of basic commodities and social services and the deterioration of the social infrastructure. The level of exploitation and oppression is escalating on a global scale.

The US and other imperialist states are using public money in the trillions of dollars to bail out the big banks and corporations in the military-industrial complex and in the service sector. New and bigger financial bubbles are being generated with the use of state funds for lending and subsidy to the monopoly bourgeoisie, especially the financial oligarchy. The money is being used merely to raise profits in the balance sheets of big financial and industrial corporations and has not resulted in real economic recovery in terms of generating employment and increasing production and consumption.

The current economic and financial crisis of the world capitalist system has been the outcome of the recurrent, accelerated and cumulative crises since the monopoly bourgeoisie and its economic policymakers were confronted by the phenomenon of concurrent stagnation and inflation as a result of the reconstruction of the imperialist countries ruined by World War II, intensified inter-imperialist competition, rising costs of the cold war and wars of aggression and the growing severity of the crisis of overproduction in the world capitalist system.

Since then, the imperialist states headed by the US have blamed the working people for having caused the stagflation due to what they have termed as wage inflation and excessive social spending by government. At the same time, they have obscured the costs of the Cold War, especially those of military production, overseas deployment of military forces and wars of aggression.

In the succeeding decades, they adopted and implemented the policy of freezing wages, reducing social spending, privatizing public assets, liberalizing investments and trade, doing away with regulations and denationalizing the economies of underdeveloped countries. They let loose the unbridled greed of the imperialist banks and firms to prey on the people of the world. Thus, they undercut and constrict the global market far beyond what debt financing can cover and conceal.

Having run for several decades, the policy of neoliberal or free market globalization is deepgoing and has caused widespread social ruin on a global scale. It continues to dominate the thinking of policymakers of the imperialist states. It serves first of all the big banks and corporations against the demand of the people for economic recovery, employment, social relief and rehabilitation. Thus, the current grave crisis of the world capitalist system continues to worsen and is bound to persist for a long while.

The monopoly bourgeoisie seeks to pass on the burden of the crisis to the working people in the homegrounds of imperialism but much more to those in the underdeveloped countries. The imperialist powers and their puppets continue to extract further superprofits from those already laid low by the crisis. We therefore witness today the initial manifestations of the peoples’ resistance in both the imperialist and the underdeveloped countries.

In the imperialist countries, the monopoly bourgeoisie wages a ferocious class struggle against the proletariat and is pushing the proletariat to fight back by waging the just side of the class struggle. It seeks ever more to divide and confuse the working people by whipping up anti-terrorist hysteria, chauvinism, racism, fascism and religious bigotry and pitting the host people against the migrants. However, revolutionary parties and movements are arising to expose the roots of the crisis in monopoly capitalism and rouse the working people to wage class struggle.

The peoples subjected to ever rising levels of exploitation and oppression are waging various forms of resistance against the imperialist powers and their local puppets. Those who are victimized by imperialist aggression are waging armed resistance for national liberation, as in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine and Lebanon. National liberation movements led by Maoist and other revolutionary parties are gaining strength and are advancing as in India, the Philippines, Nepal, Turkey, Peru and Colombia.

Some governments as those of North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia have taken anti-imperialist positions and invoked national independence in response to the clamor of the people for resistance to imperialism and its worst reactionary agents. Such governments as those of China and Russia try to collaborate with the US-led alliance of imperialist powers while at same time cooperate with Iran and other governments that are subjected to sanctions and embargoes by the US and its imperialist allies.

The imperialist powers are still united in oppressing peoples and nations of the world and in passing on the burden of crisis to them. But they are also driven by imperialist greed and by the crisis to compete and contend with each other in a struggle to redivide the world for sources of raw materials and cheap labor, markets, fields of investment, spheres of influence and strategic points of control.

The complete restoration of capitalism in countries previously ruled by revisionist regimes has added Russia and China to the ranks of big capitalist powers and has made the world ever more cramped for inter-imperialist competition. The US has pushed the NATO to expand to the borders of Russia and threaten and seek control of this huge source of oil, gas and other strategic raw materials. Although China is acknowledged as the biggest partner of the US under the policy of “free market” globalization, contradictions between them over major issues are growing.

The betrayal of socialism brought about by the rise of modern revisionism and the full restoration of capitalism in the former revisionist- ruled countries have contributed in a big way to intensifying inter-imperialist contradictions and generating the conditions for wars of aggression and the use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The threats posed by imperialism to the very existence of humankind seems unstoppable. But they can be effectively countered by the people’s revolutionary mass movement, revolutionary civil wars and people’s wars for national liberation.

The US and the NATO are so aggressive that China and Russia consider themselves threatened and are thus developing the Shanghai Cooperation Organization into a potent security bloc. Almost all global regions, such as the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, East Asia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa are fraught with the danger of war.

The intensification of inter-imperialist contradictions has already resulted in wars of aggression and military intervention, such as those in the Balkans, Africa, Central and South Asia and the Middle East. These have been carried out under the initiative of the US, its NATO allies and its major partners in the UN Security Council. The insatiable drive of the US and its closest NATO allies to monopolize the sources of oil and other raw materials and to subordinate Russia and China is upsetting the balance of forces among the imperialist powers.

The imperialist powers are frenziedly engaged in wars of aggression and plunder of natural resources, causing both social and environmental disasters. The wars of aggression have resulted in heavy casualties among the people, in the destruction of the social infrastructure and pollution of the environment from the use, among others, of radioactive and toxic weapons of mass destruction. The wanton plunder of natural resources by the profit-driven monopolies has been a major factor in ecological destruction that has caused ever more destructive typhoons, floods, droughts and other disasters.

The imperialist powers are the biggest destroyers and polluters of the environment as they wantonly plunder and misuse the world’s natural resources. They pretend to be concerned about environmental destruction and the problem of global warming in order to deflect attention from the problems of social exploitation, manufacture of weapons of mass destruction and wars of aggression. They manipulate the issue of environment and global warming in order to justify further imperialist control and exploitation of the world’s resources.

Greater social turmoil and political disorder in all continents and in nearly all countries are in the offing. From year to year, the US will continue to be afflicted by economic crisis and will be sucked into new quagmires of military aggression and intervention. These are conditions favorable to the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people in advancing the people’s war for new democracy from the stage of strategic defensive to that of strategic stalemate.

Accelerated rotting of the domestic ruling system

Under the weight of the crisis of the world capitalist system and due to its own internal weaknesses, the rotting of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system is accelerated in economic, social, political and cultural terms. The rotten unjust ruling system in chronic crisis is overripe for overthrow and replacement by the people’s democratic system.

The imperialist policy of free market globalization has grossly distorted and made the Philippine economy more lopsided than ever. The economy is mainly agrarian and semifeudal and yet does not produce sufficient food for the people. This is the result of the dumping of agricultural surpluses by the imperialist countries and some neighboring countries. It is compelled to reduce food production to make way for the production of certain commercial crops for export and to serve the purposes of imperialist control.

The agricultural, mineral, forest and marine resources of our country are being exploited for export at a rapid pace and at lower prices. There is no economic development through national industrialization and land reform. The unequal exchange of raw material exports and manufactured imports persists. The natural resources of the country are plundered even as the imperialists and the local reactionaries shed crocodile tears over the lack of development and the destruction of the environment.

Incomes from the reexport of low-value added semi-manufactures and the export of cheap labor have not been enough to cover the growing balance of payments deficits. Thus, the foreign debt continues to mount. The reduced demand for raw materials, semi-manufactures and overseas contract workers is inflicting economic ruin and social devastation on the Philippines.

The toiling masses of workers and peasants and even the middle social strata are suffering from a rising rate of unemployment, drastic fall of incomes and the soaring prices of basic commodities and social services. The tax burden is mounting, even as the economy is depressed and the social infrastructure and social services are deteriorating. Debt service (interest payments and amortization of the principal) and military expenditures gobble up most of the government budget. Social misery and discontent are fueling legal mass protests and the people’s war against exploitation and oppression.

The US-directed Arroyo regime has followed the US policy of global war of terror and carried out Oplan Bantay Laya since 2001 in order to intimidate and attack the broad masses of the people, especially the legal opposition forces and the revolutionary forces. It has perpetrated gross and systematic human rights violations, victimizing workers and peasants as well as social activists from the ranks of the women and youth, the professionals and religious. As a consequence, the regime is isolated domestically and globally by its own crimes and by the outrage and resistance of the people.

US-supported state terrorism has been unleashed with a combination of the military, paramilitary and police agencies and the private armies and security agencies in order to bust labor unions and strikes and to displace millions of peasants and national minorities from their homes and farms. The Ampatuan massacre of 58 persons in less than an hour is emblematic of the crimes committed with impunity on a large scale by the combination of military, police and paramilitary forces in the service of the violent and corrupt regime and is indicative of the growing violence of political rivalries among reactionary politicians at the national and local levels.

The broad masses of the people and a broad united front of opposition forces are ranged against the Arroyo regime. The outcry for the ouster of the Arroyo ruling clique has been going on for years against its puppetry, corruption, brutality and mendacity. But the clique has increasingly used the coercive apparatuses of the state to suppress its critics and the people’s resistance. Many of its opponents can only hope to obtain justice after the clique is removed from power.

However, in trying to preempt prosecution for its grievous crimes against the people, the Arroyo clique is desperately using the resources of the state to engage in electoral fraud and terrorism. Fears are widespread that it intends to declare martial law nationwide or in a number of key regions by claiming a failure of elections and thereby perpetuate itself in power. It can only inflame the peoples resistance by treading the Marcos path of fascist dictatorship.

At any rate, the political crisis of the ruling system is worsening as a consequence of the economic and social crisis. The contradictions among the reactionaries are becoming ever more bitter and violent. Whichever reactionary clique gains power would tend to monopolize the bureaucratic loot and use the instruments of state violence in suppressing the intrasystemic opposition and the revolutionary movement of the people.

The major political parties and coalitions vying for offices in the 2010 elections, except Makabayan, avoid or even oppose the people’s demand for national indpendence and genuine democracy and do not criticize and repudiate free market globalization and the US-instigated policy of terror against the people. The Lakas-Kampi party of the ruling clique clings to its discredited antinational and antidemocratic policies. The major opposition parties, like the Liberal Party and the Partido ng Masang Pilipino concentrate on pretending to be for good governance to dissociate themselves from the scandalous corruption of the Arroyo regime.

Whichever reactionary clique takes power through the electoral process is predisposed to follow the same path being trod by the Arroyo regime. It will keep power under the dictates of the US and the local exploiting classes and will use its power to enrich itself and deploy the coercive apparatuses of the state to suppress opposition.

Among the four major presidential candidates, former Senate president Villar seems to be the most patriotic and progressive insofar as he advocates the interests of Filipino businessmen, expresses sympathy for the workers and peasants and condemns human rights violations. However, it remains to be seen whether he can win and prove himself any better than his major political rivals who have bloodstained records of opposing the demands of the workers and peasants, like Aquino of Hacienda Luisita notoriety, Teodoro of being the mad dog defense secretary of Arroyo and Estrada of having a bellicose record during his failed presidency.

So far, in the history of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system, every president has kowtowed to the power of US imperialism and has sought to amass wealth and power for self-aggrandizement against the rights and interests of the people. No president ever has had the political will to undertake significant reforms that respond to the people’s demand for national independence and genuine democracy nor has used peace negotiations in order to forge agreements with the revolutionary movement on social, economic and political reforms as basis for a just peace.

We can anticipate that whichever new reactionary ruling clique arises from the 2010 elections, it would continue to apply draconian measures by legally misrepresenting revolutionary acts as common crimes, as acts of terrorism or as rebellion punishable by reclusion perpetua and therefore nonbailable. It would carry out campaigns of military suppression against the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people including those of the Bangsamoro. It would merely pretend at being for peace negotiations and try to use these not to arrive at agreements on basic reforms with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines but merely to deceive and confuse the people and destroy the revolutionary movement.

A new ruling clique is bound to continue allowing the US to deploy military troops in the Philippines under the US-RP Mutual Defense Pact and the Visiting Forces Agreement and under various pretexts, including so-called anti-terrorism, anti-drugs, humanitarian intervention, civic action, disaster relief, medical mission and the like. The ground is being laid for ever increasing military intervention and outright aggression, mainly under the pretext of combating terrorism as they label the Filipino and Bangsamoro revolutionaries as “terrorists. ”

The worsening crisis of the ruling system would compel the prospective ruling clique either to escalate counterrevolutionar y violence or to seek truce and alliance with the revolutionary forces against the US and the worst of the local reactionaries if in the first place the armed revolutionary movement grows in strength, delivers lethal blows on the weak points of the ruling system and advances to a new and higher stage of development.

We can take full advantage of the socio-economic and political crisis of the ruling system in order to strengthen ourselves, wage all forms of revolutionary struggle and make great advances in our people’s war. We can hope for national and social liberation only if the people gain the power for its realization. The people’s power can arise only through revolutionary struggle against US imperialism and the local exploitating classes.

Current basis and tasks for the great advance

At its founding in 1968, the Communist Party of the Philippines had only a few score cadres and members and a few thousands of activists in various types of mass organizations. But since then we, as a Party, have been able to lead the revolutionary mass movement and make it grow in stages from small and weak to big and strong because we have availed of the favorable objective conditions for making revolution and have adopted and implemented the correct line in ideology, politics and organization.

We have pursued the ideological line of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism, the political line of new democratic revolution through protracted people’s war and the organizational line of democratic centralism. We have accumulated rich experience and reliable knowledge, gained ideological, political and organizational strength and won great victories in the course of waging all forms of revolutionary struggle.

Our current all-round strength as a Party is our basis for carrying out our tasks and plans for advancing the new democratic revolution and the people’s war from the stage of strategic defensive to that of strategic stalemate within the next five years.

We have thousands of Party cadres and members with the capability to do work in theoretical and political education. They can propagate the theory of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism and our works on Philippine history and current circumstances. They can run the basic, intermediate and advanced levels of Party education everywhere possible in the urban and the rural areas. They can ensure that our Party members grasp the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint and method. They can develop cadres to lead work at various levels of our Party organization and in various fields of our work.

We must put forward and carry out an educational plan to produce sufficient Party cadres and members who can lead the work from grassroots level and upwards and who have the determination to establish and develop the Party and the mass organizations where these do not yet exist. The multiplication of our Party cadres and members who are schooled and steeped in Marxism-Leninism- Maoism makes our Party ever indestructible and victorious.

We must have a comprehensive political plan for expanding and consolidating the revolutionary mass movement in both urban and rural areas. For this purpose, we have tens of thousands of Party cadres and members to lead mass work. Their duty is to arouse, organize and mobilize the toiling masses of workers and peasants and the rest of the people along the line of the new democratic revolution through protracted people’s war. We have a wide and deepgoing mass base running in the millions of the people nationwide.

We can advance wave upon wave from our existing mass base. The local branches and leading committees of the Party lead the mass organizations. These can be built much ahead of the expansion of the NPA. They prepare the way for the NPA and the establishment of the temporary and then the regular organs of political power. At any rate, the Party within the NPA can deploy teams of Red fighters for mass work.

Our Party has the New People’s Army as its main organization for fighting the enemy, building the mass movement in the countryside, establishing the organs of political power and strengthening the basic alliance of the working class and the peasantry. We have thousands of Red commanders and fighters capable of achieving immensely far more than could the original 60 Red fighters we had in 1969.

Our Party is at the head and the core of the NPA. It grows with the expansion of the NPA and ensures the consolidation of the NPA. We draw our Party recruits from the ranks of the Red fighters and from the mass activists. We must intensify the recruitment and the politico-military training of the Red fighters under the leadership of our Party.

We must have a plan to increase the number of Red commanders and fighters, units of the NPA and guerrilla fronts from around 120 to 180 in order to cover the rural congressional districts and gain the ability to deploy armed city partisan units in the urban congressional districts. The increase in guerrilla fronts can be made in a manner and at a pace at which the seed units of the NPA (be these teams, squads or platoons) can draw strength from the mass base in the areas of expansion.

The process of expanding towards the goal of 180 guerrilla fronts will result in strengthening the Party and the NPA command at the levels of the guerrilla front (district), province and region. Relatively stable base areas will arise on varying territorial scales, depending on the growth of the Party, the NPA, the mass base and the organs of political power and of course on the actual destruction and disintegration of enemy political power in the localities.

We must continue to carry out extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. We must intensify our tactical offensives as we widen and deepen our mass base. As a matter of course, the enemy forces will react to our offensives by concentrating on those guerrilla fronts where we are estimated as being strong and by unleashing vicious campaigns of suppression. But as the enemy forces are extremely limited on the national and regional scale, we can maintain our initiative by employing flexible tactics of concentration to go on an offensive, shifting to evade a superior enemy force and dispersal to conduct mass work.

The Military Commission of the Central Committee is responsible for deciding and issuing the most strategic guidelines and plans. Every level of operational command must provide the necessary information and recommendations as well as feedbacks to their respective higher organs. Within their respective territorial scopes, they can formulate and issue specific guidelines and operational plans for tactical offensives aimed at attacking the weakest points of the enemy and seizing weapons in the process.

The weapons for arming new units of the NPA at the levels of the district, province and region must be obtained mainly from the enemy through ambuscades, raids and other operations. The seizure of weapons from the enemy would accelerate upon the increase of initiative, coordination and cooperation of NPA units at the provincial and regional levels.

To enable the NPA to engage in offensive campaigns with short rest periods from battles, there must be an ever expanding mass base in which the mass organizations and local organs of political power can engage in campaigns and specific activities to improve the people’s social, economic, health and cultural concerns.

The campaign for land reform must be carried out well in order to win the steadfast support of the poor peasants, farm workers and lower middle peasants. The minimum land reform program can be raised higher towards the level of the maximum, depending on the strength of the NPA and the peasant movement. The campaign of mass organizing, public education, raising production, health care, defense, cultural work and settling disputes among the people must be pursued well.

The people’s militia must perform police duties and the mass organizations must train units in charge of self-defense. The NPA can strengthen itself only by having a far bigger number of people in the militia and self-defense units that can serve as auxiliaries and as reserve forces. The front, provincial and regional units of the NPA, which serve as centers of gravity and/or as strike forces, can move faster and become more effective with the assistance of the organs of political power, the mass organizations and the local guerrilla units, the people’s militias and the self-defense units within their respective areas of responsibility.

As well exposed in the implementation of Oplan Bantay Laya and previous national operational plans of the enemy, the number of enemy forces available for campaigns of suppression against the NPA in the countryside is limited relative to the population and the entire country. It cannot cover more than 10% of the terrain at every given time. Conversely, the NPA can move freely in more than 90% of Philippine territory. The number of enemy combat effectives can be further limited by the growing militancy of the urban mass movement and by the internecine fighting among the reactionaries in the form of coup and counter-coup threats against each other.

The NPA can take the initiative of developing armed city partisan warfare and launching special operations against enemy facilities and antipeople enterprises in order to force the enemy forces to go on guard duty and put more of its troops on the defensive. The movement of enemy units can be hampered by sapper operations, mine warfare, sniping and other small team operations. These appear to be mere pinpricks but have far reaching demoralizing effects on enemy troops.

The NPA must target for arrest and trial violators of human rights and international humanitarian law and the penal code of the people’s democratic government. It must move to dismantle extremely exploitative plantations, logging-for- export enterprises, mining and other operations that grab land from the people and destroy the environment. The dismantling can be accomplished by disabling equipment, discouraging management personnel and launching tactical offensives against the armed guards. More land must be made available for land reform and food production.

In our first decade of Party expansion from 1968 to 1977, our Central Committee created and used the regional Party committees as the key instrument for organizing the Party, the NPA and the armed revolutionary mass movement nationwide. The current regional Party committees must strengthen themselves and the provincial committees directly under them. In turn, the district committees must strengthen the municipal or section committees directly under them. We must keep in mind that when a higher level of Party leadership works hard to strengthen the next lower level, the base of the Party is ultimately strengthened.

We must have an organizational plan for increasing the number of Party cadres and members for the purpose of achieving the great advance from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate. We need at least 200,000 Party members for this.

We need to be at the core of the peoples army and to lead the work in the localities from the barrio level upwards and in the mass organizations, economic enterprises and cultural institutions. The organizational strength that we wish to develop for the great advance in the next five years will be the foundation for still greater advances in the next five years after.

We have a wide range of sources for our Party recruits. This includes the people’s army and the mass organizations. From these sources, our Party must put emphasis on recruiting the advanced mass activists of the working class, peasantry and urban petty bourgeoisie. In wave upon wave of advances, we must ensure that we have the mass strength and various types of cadre capabilities necessary for winning the revolution.

We must remould and temper all our Party cadres and members through revolutionary education, hard work and arduous struggle in both rural and urban areas. We must encourage the workers and the educated youth to serve in the people’s army and in the countryside. We need the most conscious and competent proletarian revolutionaries in the countryside in order to advance the people’s war and at the same time prepare for the ultimate seizure of political power.

We are confident of fulfilling the ideological, political and organizational requirements for our Party to achieve the great advance from the strategic defensive to the strategic stalemate in the next five years. We must seize every minute, every day and every week for carrying out plans and the tasks assigned to us.

The crisis of the world capitalist system and the domestic ruling system, and the people’s suffering and outcry for advancing the new democratic revolution in the direction of socialism and communism are urging us to do our best and achieve our utmost at every phase and stage of the struggle.

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LAND AND JUSTICE FOR THE PEASANTS AND FARM WORKERS OF HACIENDA LUISITA

Posted by ajadhind on November 21, 2009

Issued by the Office of the Chairperson

International League of Peoples’ Struggle

16 November2009

Today, the working people of the world are launching various forms of
protest actions to mark the International Day of Action against Trade
Union Repression. This provides a meaningful context for commemorating
and protesting the massacre of striking peasants and farm workers in
Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac province in the Philippines in 2004. The
working people of Hacienda Luisita exemplify the plight and struggle of
the working people of semicolonial and semifeudal countries, who still
comprise the majority of the world’s population.

Hacienda Luisita is the vast 6,000-hectare tract of land in Central
Luzon owned by the wealthy and powerful Cojuangco family to which former
Pres. Corazon “Cory” Aquino belonged . It stands as a bulwark of feudal
and semi-feudal exploitation and oppression within the context of the
world capitalist system. It demonstrates how the big comprador-landlords
exploit the working people and wield state power to oppress them. It
exposes as a sham the so-called “comprehensive agrarian reform program”
that the Aquino ruling clique had launched since the 1980s.

Earlier the Cojuangco family bought Hacienda Luisita from the Spanish
Tabacalera corporation with a loan from the government in the 1950s..
The loan was granted with the provision that a major portion of the land
(2000 hectares) would be distributed later on to the peasants, within
the frame of the government’s “land reform” program.

The Cojuangco family not only failed to distribute the designated
portion of the land, it maneuvered to keep it and used violence to
suppress those who demanded land reform. In 1985, a trial court ruled
that the lands be distributed to the peasants, but 1986 saw the ascent
to the presidency of Aquino. The Aquino regime crafted an agrarian
reform program which was riddled with so many exemptions, including one
called the Stock Distribution Option (SDO) that was used to exempt
Luisita from land distribution.

In this context, we can fully appreciate the significance of the strike
launched by Luisita peasants and farm workers in November 2004. They
were protesting the P9.50 take-home pay per day at the hacienda – a
result of the Stock Distribution Option scheme hatched by the Cojuangcos
and the landlord class to gain legal exemption from the fake agrarian
reform program being implemented by the government. They were also
protesting the dismissal of 300 workers from the hacienda’s sugar
refinery, an act intended to bust the local union which was then
becoming militant.

Before and during their strike, the peasants and farm workers of Luisita
– with the active support of patriotic and progressive mass
organizations and alliances throughout the country, and with the help of
alternative media – won the attention and sympathy of the working people
of the country and the world. Many among the urban petty-bourgeoisie in
the Philippines were shocked to learn about concrete forms of feudal
exploitation and oppression that were persisting in the countryside. The
working people of the Philippines and the world applauded and encouraged
the working people of Luisita .

The Cojuangcos, the big comprador-landlord classes, and the reactionary
state were all shamed by the justness of the calls of the Luisita
peasants and farm workers. They reacted swiftly and viciously to the
strike. Patricia Sto. Tomas, then-labor secretary of the US-backed
regime of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, issued an Assumption of
Jurisdiction order on the issue, ordering the strikers to go back to
work and authorizing the deployment of military and police forces to
dismantle the strike. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., who was widely
believed to have been promoted to his post for helping Mrs. Arroyo cheat
in the 2004 elections, was the military’s chief of staff.

The military and police forces went to the hacienda, bringing tanks,
tear gas, and high-powered rifles. The Luisita peasants and farm workers
stood their ground. With their unity and militance, they repelled
various attempts at breaking the strike. Thousands upon thousands of
workers, peasants and farm workers, together with their women folk,
locked arms and pushed away with their bodies the military and police
who were armed with shields. After reaching the ground, canisters of
tear gas thrown by the military were immediately covered with soil. A
farmer, speaking to the military, summed up their spirit: “Since you are
already killing us, we might as well die fighting.” These could only
have aroused fear and panic in the hearts of the oppressors..

In the afternoon of November 16, 2004,after the strikers promised in a
negotiation with military and police officials to lay down the pieces of
wood they were holding for defending themselves and to defend the strike
with just their bodies, the military and police forces opened fire. A
few minutes of gunfire left Jhaivie Basilio, Adriano Caballero, Jhune
David, Jesus Laza, Juancho Sanchez, Jaime Pastidio and Jessie Valdez
fatally wounded. Some of them could have been kept alive, but hospitals
in Cojuangco-dominated Tarlac refused to admit patients from the
hacienda. Calling for land to the tillers, they died fighting for the
just cause of the peasants and farm workers of Luisita and the country.

The owners of the hacienda, the reactionary government and the bourgeois
mass media tried to spread the canard that it was the Luisita farmers
and farm workers who started the violence and that it was fighters of
the New People’s Army,.who started the shooting. Their propaganda could
not stand up to the truth of the audio-visual evidence taken by
progressive filmmakers who covered the strike. The bursts of gunfire
came from the ranks of the military and the police. Subsequently, death
squads of the military went on a spree killing strike leaders and
supporters, including a bishop and a city councilor.

While the touters of the reactionary justice system in the Philippines
often cite the adage that “justice delayed is justice denied,” justice
has clearly been delayed and has been denied to the peasants and farm
workers of Hacienda Luisita. Five years after the massacre, no one has
been punished for the crime. There are many victims, but none of the
criminal perpetrators is imprisoned. Investigation of the cases has been
proceeding at snail pace, and the only significant development is that
de facto president Arroyo, her labor secretary Sto. Tomas and the
military butcher Esperon have been removed from the list of those
charged. The ones remaining on the sham charge sheet are the police and
military officers who tested positive in paraffin tests. But they are
scot free and biding their time.

The power of the labor secretary to issue Assumption of Jurisdiction
(AJ) orders remains in place – despite the graphic demonstration by what
happened in Luisita of its lethal consequences for working people. After
the massacre, the labor secretary issued AJ orders for numerous
workplaces in Central Luzon, thus facilitating the militarization of
that region. Since it was approved as part of the Labor Code in 1989,
the AJ has been used as license to suppress workers’ actions in
workplaces throughout the country. It is being imposed even before a
strike is initiated – when collective bargaining negotiations end in
deadlock or when notices of strike are filed before the government.

Pressured by the strike and the widespread condemnation of the massacre
locally and internationally, the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council
(PARC), in December 2005, revoked the Stock Distribution Option (SDO)
scheme being implemented in the hacienda and placed the lands previously
under the SDO into the “compulsory coverage” scheme of the government’s
agrarian reform program. The Hacienda Luisita management, losing no
time, filed for a Temporary Restraining Order in January 2006 against
the resolution. In June 2006, the Supreme Court issued a TRO and ordered
the PARC and the Department of Agrarian Reform to implement the
revocation of the SDO.

Seeing the opportunity in this deadlock, and knowing that waiting for
government intervention will get them nowhere, the peasants and farm
workers of the hacienda took the initiative and launched their
“kampanyang bungkal” or campaign to till, which called on all working
people of the hacienda to plant crops that are necessary for everyday
nourishment, such as rice and vegetables, and can be sold for added
income, such as fruits. With the participation of more than a thousand
families, the hacienda land, which used to showcase sugarcane, now
boasts of golden fields of rice. The campaign caused an improvement in
the lives and livelihood of the working people of Luisita.

The Cojuangco family, however, has not given up on the fight to own the
Luisita lands. Last December 2008, emboldened by the passage of a law
extending the government’s anti-peasant agrarian reform program – which
still contained the SDO as one of the (non-)distribution schemes – the
Hacienda Luisita management issued a memorandum to the peasants tilling
the 2,000-hectare portion of the hacienda which ordered them to stop
using the lands for whatever purpose. After a public clamor directed at
Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III – a member of the Cojuangco family
who’s running in the 2010 presidential elections – the Hacienda Luisita
management was forced to backtrack.

Now, the Hacienda Luisita management is carrying out what it calls an
“enlistment” of peasants who would become the “beneficiaries” of
agrarian reform in the hacienda – as if it were the authorized body to
implement agrarian reform in that area and as if it were authorized to
do so despite the TRO. It is complaining of “illegal tillers”
encroaching upon the hacienda, who are actually the working people of
Luisita. It is also undertaking land-use conversion schemes in various
parts of the land. The creation of a vast highway that passes through
the hacienda is being seen as an opportunity to increase the value of
hacienda land and an opening to commercial uses of portions of the
hacienda.

Five years after the massacre, the struggle of the Luisita peasants and
farm workers for justice, including the junking of the Assumption of
Jurisdiction power of the labor secretary, and land continues. They
deserve the full support of the working people of the Philippines and
the whole world. We hope that our International Day of Action against
Trade Union Repression and the fifth anniversary of the Hacienda Luisita
massacre will be an occasion for working people everywhere to discuss
and raise the issues of trade union repression in their work places and
countries. We should not allow trade union repression to weaken our
ranks and spirit. It should goad us to fight back and gain strength
through struggle.

We have to continue and intensify our struggle not just against trade
union repression but also against the forms of feudal and semi-feudal
exploitation which are aligned with the world capitalist system. Let us
keep in mind that monopoly capitalist control of global agriculture and
the food system has now created a global famine afflicting over a
billion people for the first time in world history.

The struggle of the Luisita peasants and farm workers is instructive. It
is only through the militant struggle of working people that they can
gain strength and aim for their national and social liberation. We may
win victories in our struggle for reforms within the present world
capitalist system but these will continue to be at risk until we, the
people of the world, are strong enough to overthrow the exploiters and
oppressors.

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Phillipines: Revolution will put an end to backwardness and poverty

Posted by ajadhind on June 3, 2009

Gloria Arroyo’s vision of the Philippines becoming a First World country by 2020 is a huge delusion. Arroyo deceives the Filipino people by repeatedly telling them that their century-old poverty will be coming to an end in a few years’ time through her efforts and the measures she has taken. No one, of course, actually believes her when she insinuates that she has to stay in power in order to save the Philippines and deliver on her promise of prosperity.
The intensified crisis of the country’s semifeudal economy and the blows inflicted by the current crisis of the world capitalist system have worsened economic backwardness in the Philippines. The same assessment has been made by the imperialist financial agencies.
So long as the Philippine economy remains a mere supplier of cheap raw materials and cheap labor for the imperialists, so long as it remains tied to exporting semi-manufactured goods, and so long as superprofits are extracted from it in exchange for a tiny amount of excess capital invested, the country will forever be condemned to backwardness and will remain agrarian and unindustrialized. It will also be constantly in the throes of permanent crisis and will never prosper under this rotten system.
The Philippine economy and Philippine society on the whole have been at a standstill since US imperialism imposed colonial and neocolonial rule, plunder and oppression. The implementation since the 1980s of the imperialist policies of “neoliberal globalization” and the concomitant policies of liberalization, deregulation, labor flexibilization, privatization and denationalization have worsened this already dismal situation.
The solution to the Filipino people’s poverty and misery does not lie in Arroyo’s empty promises. The US-Arroyo regime is in fact responsible for the continued backwardness of Philippine economy and society. This regime has not done a thing to develop the economy, industry, agriculture and the Filipino people’s quality of life. It has in fact blocked national industrialization, land reform and programs and bills for the people’s betterment.
It is the most rabid implementor of imperialist “globalization” policies that have further condemned the Filipino people to poverty. Imperialist “globalization” destroys productive forces, depletes the country’s natural resources and deprives the poor of the most basic social services.
Revolution will put an end to the country’s backwardness and rottenness. Through the new democratic revolution, we can overthrow the existing semicolonial and semifeudal social order and achieve national liberation, democracy, justice, peace and the prosperity that has been denied the country and the Filipino people for more than a century. Only through revolution can economic development be attained and the people’s quality of life uplifted.
The socialist revolution that will lead to the establishment of a far more developed political and socio-economic system that will mainly benefit the working class and the toiling masses will be advanced as soon as the national democratic revolution is completed.
In advancing the Philippine revolution, we must wage allout resistance against the ruling US-Arroyo regime and all other puppet and reactionary regimes that prop up the ruling system until the entire rotten system is overthrown.

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