The CPP has been waging its revolution for 50 years. This is a repost of their 50th anniversary statement which, if only for its commemorative value, is important to read. Incidentally it looks like the party's official website is being suppressed (according to them by the AFP), and I am not a big fan of censorship, even if it can be argued that a lot of its content is wanting in many respects:
Celebrate the Party’s 50th Anniversary and Lead the Philippine Revolution to Greater Victories Message of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines December 26, 2018
The
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP),
together with the entire membership of the CPP, the Filipino people and
all their revolutionary forces, celebrate today 50 years of great
achievements and revolutionary victories accumulated by the Party
through five decades of leading the people’s democratic revolution since
it was established on December 26, 1968 under the theoretical guidance
of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Let us salute all the revolutionary
heroes and martyrs who gave their all for the people and served the
Party and the revolution to their last breath. It is with their
dedication and sacrifices that made possible the revolutionary victories
of the Filipino people. Let us be inspired by their examples and
emulate their spirit of selfless service.
The Central Committee
gives highest honors to Comrade Jose Ma. Sison, the Party’s founding
chairman, who masterfully applied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the
concrete conditions of the Philippines and set the revolution along the
correct path and steered it from strength to strength. Even during his
prolonged incarceration and exile since 1987, his theoretical,
socio-historical and practical insights continue to illuminate the
Filipino people’s revolutionary path, help guide the Party as well as
rouse the international proletariat and people to wage anti-imperialist
resistance and socialist revolution.
The chronic crisis of the
semicolonial and semifeudal system continues to worsen. It has given
rise to the US-Duterte fascist regime under which the rotten core of the
ruling system is more rapidly being aggravated and fully laid bare.
We
mark the Party’s 50th anniversary as the US-Duterte regime unleashes
full-scale fascist terror and tyranny in the name of crushing the Party,
defeating the armed revolution by mid-2019. In fact, it is focused on
overpowering all forms of resistance to its plan of manipulating and
controlling the mid-term elections and steamrolling charter change for
bogus federalism to impose a full-blown fascist dictatorship. Let us
celebrate the CPP’s 50th anniversary as we wage all-out resistance
against Duterte’s fascist tyranny, corruption and puppetry.
The
Party is keenly aware of the exceedingly favorable revolutionary
conditions in the Philippines. The broad masses of workers and peasants
suffer from ever-worsening forms of oppression and exploitation,
increasingly intolerable poverty and deprivation of the basic needs and
services and ruthless fascist attacks and abuses by state armed
forces. They are driven and roused to rise up in mass struggles and wage
armed resistance.
The national democratic revolution in the
Philippines is one of the beacons of the international anti-imperialist
resistance and proletarian revolution. By leading the Philippine
revolution, the Party has helped keep the embers of proletarian defiance
burning as the flames of socialist revolution were extinguished with
the rise of modern revisionism and restoration of capitalism in the
Soviet Union and China.
Today, as the world capitalist system
suffers from insoluble crisis, the banner of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is
being hoisted high by the revolutionary proletariat, enlightening and
inspiring the working class and oppressed peoples across the world to
wage democratic resistance and class struggles against imperialism and
all reaction. Indeed, we are on the period of transition to a new
international resurgence of national liberation struggles and
proletarian revolution.
Prolonged Depression of International Capitalist System and Intensified Rivalries Among Big Powers
The
world capitalist system continues to muddle through what is
euphemistically called the Great Recession, but which, in fact, is
protracted economic depression and stagnation that has already lasted
for one decade with no end in sight. The biggest capitalist economies
have been unable to fully recover from the 2008 financial crisis despite
massive state bailouts and stimulus packages for giant financial
institutions, investment houses, and monopoly capitalist companies
resulting in record debt and deficit spending. The debt bubble continue
to inflate and is anticipated to burst soon in a financial meltdown far
worse than ever before.
Over the past decade, global debt rose by
more than four times from $57 trillion in 2007, to $164 trillion in 2016
and $247 trillion by the first quarter of 2018. As it stands, global
debt is now at least three times greater than the projected $87.51
trillion world output this year.
The global centers of capitalism
continue to be afflicted by economic crisis and financial troubles. The
US, China, Japan and European capitalist countries remain in economic
doldrums. Governments are reporting low official unemployment statistics
but are merely obscuring the rising number of workers who have lost
interest looking for jobs and who are not being counted as part of the
labor force. Wages remain depressed.
The US economy, described as
“doing very well” by the Trump government, is actually in a state of
stagnation with less than 3% growth over the past several years. Fearing
a further slowdown, the Trump government desperately seeks to boost
investments by cutting interest rates and corporate taxes at the risk of
racking up a US$1 trillion federal deficit in the next years, contrary
to the position of US Federal Bank calling for higher interest rates.
The government hypes up the 3.9% unemployment rate, downplaying its own
7.6% real unemployment rate. The real extent of joblessness is far worse
as major companies in manufacturing and retail are laying-off workers
as they cut down on operations or close shop as a result of intense
competition and rising costs due to higher tariffs.
In an attempt
to contend with the US for larger spheres of influence, sustain
capitalist expansion and unload itself of surplus capital and idle
inventory of steel and cement, China has undertaken the Belt and Road
Initiative, a giant infrastructure program to build a network of roads,
railways, ports and oil pipelines from China through Central and South
Asia to Europe and Africa funded by Chinese high-interest loans and
grants. However, Chinese economic growth of 6.5% this year is at its
slowest since nearly 10 years ago amid state-imposed cuts in steel
production and other commodities in the face of oversupply under the
pretext of curbing pollution. The Chinese economy is increasingly
financialized. Its debt has more than quadrupled since 2007 from $7
trillion to $36 trillion in 2018, with almost half in property
speculation and 30% in shadow banking operations. The Chinese financial
bubble is bound to burst even as the Chinese government vainly attempts
to prevent it.
The Japanese economy contracted earlier this year,
pulling it back to economic crisis, after a mere two successive years of
slow growth, its longest over the past three decades. It is burdened by
debts as much as 235% of its economy. Government reports almost full
employment at only 2.4% unemployment but fail to count millions who have
lost employment and have long given up looking for work, especially
after 2008. Workers’ wages remain depressed and are threatened by
government push for deregulation of entry of foreign workers.
Capitalist
centers in Europe struggle with economic stagnation while smaller
capitalist countries remain overburdened by debt and shackled with
austerity measures imposed by the IMF, World Bank and EU. The rate of
unemployment in Europe stands at 8%, and as high as 18.9% in Greece,
14.8% in Spain and 10.3% in Italy. The Russian economy remains stagnant
and is buoyed merely by the temporary rise in the prices of oil and
natural gas.
Majority of the countries around the world, including
the Philippines, remain as economic adjuncts of the main global
capitalist centers. These countries serve as sources of cheap raw
materials such as minerals and agricultural products. To attract foreign
investments, they compete against each other to bring down the costs of
labor, liberalize trade and investment and sell their country’s
patrimony.
On the other hand, imperialist powers compete to
establish their economic hegemony over these countries to bring them
within their spheres of influence and fields of investments.
Challenging US economic power, China is busy employing soft diplomacy
and economic leverage to compel a growing number of countries to make
excessive amounts of high interest borrowings and corruption-laden
contracts tied to purchases of Chinese steel and other capital goods.
These go to construction of roads, bridges, ports as well as investments
in telecommunications, electricity and key economic infrastructure.
The
global capitalist crisis has severely impacted on the underdeveloped
countries. To attract loans and foreign capital, they are compelled to
carry out further liberalization of trade and investments resulting in
higher trade deficits, capital outflow, greater reliance on debt,
non-productive spending, more rapacious foreign plunder of resources,
worsening corruption, wage depression, heightened suppression of labor
and land rights and overall worsening of socio-economic conditions of
the people.
At the heart of the continuing prolonged depression of
the international capitalist system is the crisis of overproduction in
practically all fields of commodity production. Monopoly capitalists
are burdened by the unsold inventory of surplus oil, electronics and
high-tech articles, rice and other food products, steel, cement and
other construction materials, garments, foot ware, toys and other
low-value added commodities.
Overproduction is the result of the
fundamental contradiction between private ownership of the means of
production (driven by profit-taking and capital accumulation) and the
social character of production pushed to the extreme under neoliberal
and financialized monopoly capitalism. The capitalist drive for profit
leads to incessant competition to accelerate production at lower labor
costs through automation and robotics resulting in accelerated
production amid dwindling demand.
The ever rising organic
composition of capital results in falling rates of profit and
bankruptcies. Capital becomes ever more concentrated and centralized as
bigger and more powerful monopolies devour their competitors in mergers
and acquisitions on a national and international scale.
There is
massive production overcapacity across the board resulting in idle
machines and factories and rust belts in entire workers districts and
cities in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries.
There
is a widespread destruction of productive forces around the world.
Workers suffer from low wages and increasingly worsening forms of
oppression and exploitation under so-called flexible employment schemes.
There is also massive displacement of farmers and farmworkers as a
result of expansion of “economic zones” and export-crop plantations.
The
global capitalist crisis has led to massive unemployment, as a result
of mass layoffs and closure of companies, as well as heightened drive
towards automation. Up to 1.2 billion people are categorized as
unemployed and underemployed (or “vulnerably employed”).
The broad
masses suffer from the erosion or termination of social provisions for
education, health services, affordable housing, unemployment relief and
other social benefits. They are victimized by cuts in social spending,
austerity measures and other neoliberal policies.
Across the
world, more than 70% of the population live on less than $10 a day,
while more than half survive on less than $5.50 which is not sufficient
to provide an average family with decent housing, clothing, daily
nutrition, education and extra funds for emergency medical care.
There
is rising social and economic inequality and increasing concentration
of capital in the hands of the few. In the US, the top 10% of families
own 75% of total household wealth, with the top 0.1% own as much as the
bottom 90%. The share of the richest 1% of the global wealth has risen
from 42.5% in 2008 to 50.1% in 2017, and is projected to reach 64% by
2030.
Economic crises across the globe are leading to the rise of
fascism and racism in capitalist countries targeting immigrants,
minorities and refugees, and blaming them for the crisis to blur the
roots of capitalist exploitation and economic crisis and drive a wedge
among the oppressed people and hinder efforts to build working class
unity.
Leading the fascist pack, US President Trump is espousing
brazen Right-wing ideas and policies under the banner of “Make America
Great Again.” Other ultra-reactionary parties and groups have gained
headway in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the rest of Europe,
Brazil and other countries.
Capitalist crisis and monopoly
competition for domination are more conspicuously leading to open big
power rivalry and conflict in the form of trade wars, arms race,
military forward deployments and scramble to control trade routes,
sources of oil, rare earth and other minerals, oil and natural gas
pipelines, and fields of investments. With the strategic decline of the
US, the era of American unipolarism has given way to the current
multipolar world and to an even more aggressive US effort to defend and
assert its hegemony.
Economically, the US is rivalled primarily by
China which has gone on an international diplomatic and economic
offensive to forge bilateral and multilateral alliances and trade pacts
to expand its market, source of raw materials and spheres of
investments. China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB) to export its surplus capital and rival the World Bank. It has
joined an economic alliance with Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa
(BRICS) and helped fund the BRICS Bank and other financial institutions.
US and China economic rivalry has broken out in an open trade war after
the US imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of China steel, aluminum
and other commodities with the declared aim of protecting American
manufacturers, but risking backlash with manufacturers dependent on
cheap Chinese imports threatening to shut down or move production
outside the US. China responded with tariffs on $34 billion worth of
commodities from the US.
Militarily, the US is rivalled primarily
by Russia whose nuclear arsenal is bigger. Under the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, Russia is also advancing its diplomatic and
military ties with China, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgz, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan as well as with India.
In the face of economic
stagnation, US imperialism increasingly relies on military strength and
arm-twisting to assert power in an effort to counter its strategic
decline. It continues to strategically deploy its overseas troops,
aircraft carriers and ballistic missiles. It maintains military bases
and missiles, and conducts joint military exercises in countries
bordering Russia and China as well as in different parts of the world.
It mounts so-called freedom-of-navigation operations to challenge and
provoke China’s military power in the South China Sea.
Direct
military confrontation among the imperialist powers is becoming more and
more inevitable. US power projection operations are increasingly
incurring the ire of China with some bellicose elements calling for
direct counter action. Some US military experts anticipate the outbreak
of US-China war in around 15 years. Proxy wars between capitalist powers
such as those in Syria, Yemen, Ukraine and elsewhere continue to break
out.
Increased military spending is fuelling military industries
amid heightening arms race, military tensions and war preparations.
Global military spending rose last year to $1.739 trillion to fund
military research and development of new weaponry including smaller
nuclear weapons, lasers, hypersonic missiles, military robots, as well
as weapons for electronic warfare. The Trump government allocated $700
billion for military spending, much more than the combined spending of
China and Russia. China, the second biggest military spender, increased
spending by 5.6% to $228 billion and is expected to spend up to 8% this
year.
There are countries asserting national sovereignty against
US imperialist hegemony including North Korea, Iran, Syria, Venezuela,
Cuba and others. The US continue to employ arm-twisting, economic
sanctions and regime-change intervention against these countries. By
asserting national sovereignty, more countries can take advantage of
imperialist rivalries and contradictions to avail of a myriad of
diplomatic, political and military opportunities to advance their
country’s interests.
Rapid worsening of socio-economic conditions
as a result of imperialist neoliberal policies and austerity measure are
rousing millions of people across the world to wage mass struggles as
well as armed and other forms of resistance.
Several hundred
thousand people participated in widespread month-long mass actions and
workers strikes in France to oppose new oil taxes and austerity
measures, demanding wage increases and call for the ouster of the
government. In addition, workers have also struck in Spain, Germany,
Belgium and other European countries. In the US, giant demonstrations
have been mounted by immigrants, blacks, women, students and workers to
protest Trump’s outright anti-people policies. Workers strikes and
student demonstrations continue to break out in China. There is
widespread social unrest across the world as a result of food shortages,
high prices, loss of income and other maladies caused by neoliberal
policies.
There are revolutionary armed struggles for national
self-determination such as that being waged by the Kurdish people.
Revolutionary armed struggles along the new democratic line being led by
communist parties such as those in India and the Philippines continue
to inspire other peoples in the world’s vast countryside to launch their
own people’s war. Preparations for people’s war are being carried out
in several countries.
The global capitalist crisis and
inter-imperialist contradictions create conditions that favor the
emergence or continued growth of revolutionary forces. After more than
three decades of strategic retreat, the proletariat is in a position to
lead a resurgence of new-democratic and socialist revolutions.
Proletarian
revolutionary forces in all countries must provide leadership to the
struggle against imperialism by strengthening themselves ideologically
politically and organizationally. They must assiduously study the
universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and critically and
creatively apply it to the concrete conditions of the people by
analyzing and identifying the specific characteristics of the
revolutionary struggle in their countries.
In leading the people’s
democratic revolution in the Philippines, the Filipino proletariat
contributes to the worldwide resistance against imperialism and all
reaction. It is in solidarity with and extends all kinds of support to
the proletariat and working class parties and cadres across the globe in
their efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize the people to rise up
against their oppressors and exploiters.
Duterte’s Reign of Terror and Tyranny Amid Worsening Semicolonial and Semifeudal Conditions in the Philippines
The
rise of the US-Duterte fascist regime and its reign of terror and
tyranny is, symptomatic of, and aggravates the grave conditions of the
semicolonial and semifeudal system in the Philippines. It manifests the
increasing inability of the ruling classes to rely on old methods of
political rule and their resort to the use of overt force to counter the
growing resistance of the people and to compete with other power groups
for power and bureaucratic loot.
The Philippines remains
economically backward, agrarian and non-industrial. Domestic forces of
production are constantly deteriorating under the weight of foreign
monopoly capitalist and big comprador operations. The country’s natural
wealth and labor resources are being plundered by multinational
corporations and their partnership with big bourgeois compradors and big
landlords.
Under neoliberal policies of trade and investment
liberalization, deregulation and privatization, the country is condemned
to being an exporter of cheap raw materials, a source of cheap labor
and importer of capital goods and commodities for consumption.
Local
agricultural production is mostly small-scale using hand-tools, farm
animals and small hand tractors. Rice production is backward with
irrigation limited to less than 30%. Use of large farm machineries is
highly limited. Wide swathes of agricultural land are held by big
corporations and operated as plantations for large-scale production of
bananas, pineapple, oil palm, rubber and other export crops with very
little integration with the local economy.
Large-scale
manufacturing is limited to so-called economic zones where
semiprocessing for exports is done by big foreign-owned enterprises
which operate their so-called “global value chains” network of factories
taking advantage of cheap labor in different countries. Big foreign
capitalists dominate the local extractive industries which plunder the
country’s mineral resources and ravage the environment. There is very
minimal local processing of mineral extracts, which are mostly shipped
overseas, taking away large volumes of raw materials that should be used
for the country’s industrial development.
There is chronic mass
unemployment in the Philippines in the absence of industrialization.
There is practically no manufacturing sector in majority of the
Philippine towns that could productively absorb millions being displaced
from the rural areas. Mass unemployment in the Philippines is only
being masked through statistical sleight of hand where the labor force
is artificially reduced by not counting those who have already lost
interest in looking for work and by counting as employed or
underemployed those who are actually unemployed.
Acute joblessness
is also being obscured by the large-scale deployment of overseas
contract workers over the past three decades resulting in the diaspora
of at least one tenth of the Philippine population or more than one
fourth of the labor force. Dollar remittances from abroad has grown so
large (projected to reach $33.7 billion this year) that the Philippine
government relies on it to maintain steady foreign reserves levels.
Foreign remittances, however, do not translate to local productivity as
most of it merely sustain high costs of living and consumption of
imported goods.
The Philippines suffer perennial and constantly
growing trade deficits as a result of the unequal exchange between raw
materials and low value-added commodities exports and imported finished
commodities. It remains dependent on foreign debt which finance mostly
corruption-laden infrastructure projects and which at best provide
temporary employment.
Foreign investments mostly go to the stock
market and other non-productive financial instruments, while some take
the form of direct investments in export-oriented semi-processing in
economic zones where they enjoy tax-free operations. In recent years, a
large chunk of foreign investments go into business outsourcing (or call
centers) which despite its size has failed to contribute anything
productive to the local economy, except for the meager wages of its
employees.
Under Duterte, the worst facets of the semicolonial and
semifeudal system have grown even more grotesque in the face of the
prolonged depression of the global capitalist system.
Amid economic
crisis, the Philippine government continues to wallow in fiscal deficits
and debts. Last September, the budget deficit widened by almost 80% to
P378 billion from P213.1 billion during the same period last year. To
finance its programs and operations, the Philippine government plan to
borrow as much as P624.4 billion next year. Duterte is seeking an
excessive amount of loans from China, as well as from the Asian
Development Bank and other financial institutions in order to spend for
his Build, Build, Build Program.
Under Duterte, Philippine public
debt rose by more than 17% to P7.167 trillion from P6.09 trillion in
2016. Over the past 15 years, the Philippines alloted P10.741 trillion
in debt payments and services. The dollar-dominated foreign debts that
are US dollar denominated will become more onerous if the US Federal
Bank succeeds in raising interest rates.
The country’s trade
deficit has risen sharply to $33.9 billion in the first 10 months,
surpassing the $27.4 billion trade gap last year, and is expected to
reach $40 billion by the end of 2018. This is the result of large
increases in importation of capital goods to supply semi-processing and
China-funded infrastructure binge. There is a slow growth of exports in
the face of the global economic slowdown.
The rise in the trade
deficit has resulted in the sharp increase in the country’s balance of
payments deficit which is set to reach to $5.1 billion from $860 million
last year or an increase of almost 500%. This is anticipated to further
rise to $8.4 billion next year. The peso is set to further devalue
against the dollar.
The Duterte regime has expanded the worse of
the neoliberal policies. It completely liberalized rice importation on
the pretext of bringing down domestic prices, but without a plan to
subsidize and help raise local rice production. This is set to cause a
grave impact on local rice production and the income of Filipino rice
farmers as local farm gate prices are set to dip with the influx of
cheap imported rice.
To get the stamp of credit rating agencies
and assure lenders, the Duterte regime imposed early this year
additional taxes through the TRAIN law pushed by the US-funded
Partnership for Growth. The slew of burdensome taxes on goods, which
alongside incessant oil price increases, resulted in months of
skyrocketing prices of food and other basic commodities and rising cost
of living.
The deterioration of the people’s socio-economic
conditions is made worse by the Duterte regime’s policy of social
spending cuts and privatization of public services. Next year, it plans
to cut the budget for education by P54.9 billion and health by P36
billion. Despite the promise of providing free college education, the
budget of 63 of 113 state colleges and universities were further
reduced. It also reduced the budget alloted to agriculture by P5.9
billion, housing by P2.9 billion and agrarian reform by P1.7 billion. No
new public housing nor new classrooms for 2019 is planned.
Bureaucrat
capitalism has hypertrophied to monstrous proportions under the Duterte
regime. Corruption is all over the Duterte regime and can no longer be
concealed by Duterte’s fake “I hate corruption” soundbyte. He has been
allied with the Marcoses and Arroyos to mobilize their political support
since the 2016 elections and has acted in favor of the plunderers by
causing their exculpation and release from prison and enabling them to
bounce back in the reactionary political game.
Employing fascist
tyranny and flouting Philippine laws, Duterte succeeded in placing the
entire Philippine government machinery under his absolute control. He
rid the Supreme Court of its critical chief justice through
extra-constitutional methods in order to replace her with his appointee.
He reinforced alliances with the worst of the fascists and plunderers.
To reward his allies in congress and draw support for his charter change
scheme to pave the way for dictatorial rule, he bribed politicians with
at least P75 billion worth of pork barrel insertions in the 2019
budget. Unequal distribution of pork barrel and other bureaucratic perks
has resulted in open rifts among Duterte’s allies in congress.
The
biggest corruption schemes under Duterte involves hundreds of billions
of pesos in planned infrastructure projects. Duterte and his family,
cronies and political allies are set to further enlarge their wealth
through bribes and cuts in loan and constructions contracts and “finders
fees” in overpriced infrastructure projects.
The biggest among
Duterte’s dummies is Dennis Uy who has expanded his business into a
large empire capped by the awarding of telecommunication franchise with
the state-owned China Telco. Duterte also granted large contracts to
other big bourgeois compradors including Eduardo Cojuangco, Ramon Ang,
Lucio Tan, Manny Pangilinan and others. On the other hand, he made use
of his powers to threaten other big businesses with taxes or sanctions
to punish or coerce them to extend financial support.
In exchange
for a few billion dollars of high-interest loans and grants, Duterte
sold out the Filipino people’s sovereign rights and national patrimony
to China in an agreement to “jointly explore and develop” the oil and
gas resources in the West Philippine Sea, estimated at around $60
trillion. In the agreement, Duterte treacherously sets aside the
Philippine’s rightful claim to its territorial sea, exclusive economic
zone and extended continental shelf. The Duterte regime failed to oppose
China building of military facilities in the Spratlys.
Behind the
rhetoric of a foreign independent policy, the Duterte regime has
exhibited utter servility to the US. The US military continues to
dominate the Philippines economically, politically, culturally and
military through unequal treaties, agreements and arrangements and use
the Philippines as a base for its operations to project military
strength in the Asia-Pacific region, including the South China Sea. It
built at least five military facilities within AFP camps under the
Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Civilian ports are
regularly used as military docks to service American nuclear-capable
warships, aircraft carriers and submarines. There are 200-300 US
military advisers permanently stationed in the Philippines. They are
attached to the AFP and actively train the Light Reaction Regiment
(which was deployed to Marawi) and the recently formed 1st Brigade
Combat Team, both based in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija.
Crime and
corruption have melded scandalously under Duterte. He is now overlord of
shabu smuggling and trafficking. In just over a year, at least two tons
of shabu have been smuggled into the country resulting in the drop in
its street prices and worsening state of drug addiction. It has been
long clear that Duterte’s so-called war against drugs is nothing but a
war to control the illegal drug trade in the country by hitting the
operations of other drug syndicates and making all the crime lords bow
to his authority. Duterte is compadre to the notorious drug lord Peter
Lim, while his son and son-in-law were exposed as involved in the
smuggling of more than 600 kilos of shabu.
The reactionary state
of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords has turned to outright
fascism under Duterte. It is increasingly shedding its trappings of
democracy and bourgeois rights. Having been thoroughly exposed for his
anti-people policies, Duterte can no longer persuade the people to
support his regime. By employing state terrorism to keep himself in
Malacañang and monopolize power, Duterte exposes the rotten core of the
ruling system.
Duterte has given the military vast powers under
his regime. The ceaseless all-out war policy under Oplan Kapayapaan, the
extension of Mindanao martial law up to the end of 2019, declaration of
the state of national emergency and deployment of a large number of
Army battalions to Bicol, Samar and Negros, continuing threats to impose
nationwide martial law, Red-tagging and threats of illegalization
against democratic mass organizations and mass arrests of their leaders
and members are all tantamount to nationwide martial law. The Armed
Forces of the Philippines (AFP) now has absolute powers covering
practically half the country.
He has bribed military and police
officials with salary increases, cash rewards for death squad operations
and billions of unaudited intelligence funds and appointments in
government offices. The budget for the Department of National Defense
will be increased by 35% to P183.4 billion, P25 billion of which will go
to corruption-laden purchases under the AFP Modernization Program. He
also raised the budget of the Department of Interior and Local
Government (now under former AFP chief Eduardo Año) by 31% to P225
billion next year.
His government is now dominated by former
military officials who were appointed to various key agencies including
the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Department
of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Office of the Presidential
Peace Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) where they will be in
control of several hundred billion pesos of funds for so-called
intelligence operations, “integration programs” for “rebel
surrenderees,” local peace talks, reward for “balik-baril” program, and
others.
With absolute powers, the military is set on meddling in
the upcoming 2019 midterm elections, if these are held, in order to
manipulate the results to favor pro-Duterte and pro-AFP politicians.
This is in line with his plan of perpetuating himself in power by
installing himself as a dictator through charter change which would
allow for reelections and a bogus kind of federal system in which powers
are centralized in his hand and he handpicks his regional and
provincial agents among the warlords and political dynasties.
Duterte
and the AFP have repeatedly boasted of crushing the NPA. Their claim
last year that the NPA will be defeated before the end of 2018 has been
frustrated and proven a big lie. This year, they proclaim that the NPA
will be completely finished by mid-2019. As in all previous regimes,
they keep on moving their impossible deadline.
Under the National
Internal Security Plan (NISP) 2018, Duterte and the AFP are mounting a
major strategic offensive against the revolutionary forces in the hope
of stopping its nationwide growth amid the worsening socio-economic
conditions. It released Executive Order No. 70 forming the “National
Task Force (NTF) to End Local Communist Armed Conflict” and proclaiming
the so-called whole-of-nation approach, a doctrine first espoused by the
AFP in Oplan Bayanihan and derived from the 2009 US Counterinsurgency
Guide of the US State Department.
Duterte has taken pains to
portray his Oplan Kapayapaan counterinsurgency plan as “civilian-led,”
when, on the contrary, the entire civilian bureaucracy is now
militarized by being placed under the operational control of the AFP.
Under the NTF and its so-called 12 Operational Pillars, various
government agencies are being clustered with the AFP and PNP to ensure
that its programs will fit in with the plans of the military and police.
Duterte wants to weaponize the entire government against the
revolutionary movement, the legal democratic forces and all opposition.
Under
the NISP 2018, Duterte and the AFP aim to suppress the legal democratic
forces through surveillance, intimidation and harassment, abductions,
restrictions against democratic rights and through a legal offensive of
slapping patently trumped-up charges against activists, mass leaders and
political oppositionists. There are more than 500 political prisoners
suffering prolonged detention, 200 of whom were arrested under the
Duterte regime. There are fears of a rise in the number of extrajudicial
killings after he outrightly announced his plan to murder “potential
members” of the NPA with the use of “Duterte Death Squads”. Taken aback
by the blatantly criminal announcement of their commander-in-chief,
Defense Secretary Lorenzana dissembled by declaring that the AFP will
use “intelligence units” rather than blatant death squads.
Incited
and emboldened by Duterte’s bellicosity, the military and police have
perpetrated grave abuses and gross violations of human rights and
international humanitarian law. Fascist troops have laid siege and
occupied hundreds of rural villages and subjected the peasant masses to
untold sufferings. Extrajudicial killings and massacres against peasant
leaders and activists are on the rise. There are rampant cases of
abductions, torture, illegal detention, and other forms of abuses.
Military forces are being deployed to suppress workers’ strikes,
especially in plantations and mines.
The military has imposed food
and economic blockades and other restrictions, subjecting people to
endless harassments, accusing them without proof of being “rebels” to
force them to “clear their names” and “surrender” to the military,
conscripting them to the Army’s CAFGU units and paramilitary groups and
forcing them to render labor to construct military detachments. The
presence of fascist troops in the peasant villages are unwelcome as they
disrupt the livelihood and family life of the people and cause undue
distress with their drinking sprees, sporadic firing of weapons, and
promotion of pornography, drug use, gambling and other vices. In the
Mindanao regions, the military has closed community and church-supported
Lumad schools for supposedly being run by the NPA, causing trauma among
the children.
Across the country, the AFP and PNP have
relentlessly mounted successive focused military operations against the
NPA, involving several hundred troops and supported by artillery
shelling and aerial bombardment using attack helicopters. These are
being carried out primarily in resource-rich areas of the peasants and
national minorities, including those in the Bangsamoro areas, with the
strategic aim of suppressing the masses’ defense of their farm land and
ancestral domain in order to pave the way for the entry of mining
companies, logging, energy and tourism projects, oil palm and other
export crop plantations, commercial reforestation and other big
bourgeois comprador and foreign-owned enterprises.
Duterte has
completely shut the doors to peace talks with the NDFP since issuing
Proclamation 360 and Proclamation 374 last year. Peace consultants of
the NDFP have been treacherously arrested with planted evidence of
firearms and explosives and charged with trumped-up criminal cases in
violation of their guaranteed rights. The AFP is pushing for so-called
localized peace talks, not to address the roots of the armed conflict in
a comprehensive way between authorized negotiating panels at the
national level, but as a divide-and-rule tactic and an additional
corruption racket.
The US-Duterte regime’s fascism and puppetry
are engendering the rapid growth of revolutionary armed struggle and
mass movement while accelerating its isolation and heightening the
people’s determination to cause its overthrow.
Even with US
military advice and support, Duterte’s pipedream of crushing by mid-2019
the people’s armed revolution and other forms of resistance will fail.
First
of all, he does not have the support of the people. In fact, he is
utterly despised by the people for causing grave hardships and trampling
on their democratic rights. His regime is a tyrannical, treasonous,
brutal, corrupt and mendacious instrument of foreign domination and the
local exploiting classes. The AFP’s Oplan Kapayapaan and the NISP 2018
are being fully exposed and discredited for serving the needs of big
business, big landlords, mining and plantation companies to the
detriment of the peasant masses and minority peoples. Duterte is
defending an oppressive and exploitative system that is rotten to the
core.
Bereft of political and moral highground, Duterte relies on
military superiority, both in terms of number and weaponry, to advance
his anti-national, antipeople and anti-democratic aims. His armed forces
cannot but act in a brutal and despicable way, despite all pretenses
and lies. With the nationwide spread and growth of the NPA, it is
practically impossible for Duterte to achieve superiority on all fronts
at any given time. The NPA enjoys such widespread and deep support among
the masses rendering the AFP incapable of encircling or constricting
every guerrilla unit without rousing widespread resistance.
The
drive to arm the AFP with more artillery, attack and utility helicopters
and surveillance drones are indications of the growing limitations of
its ground troops. Spending for big-ticket military hardware, however,
burden the people as these exhaust state funds and eat up allocations
for social spending. Large military spending is unsustainable in the
long run for Duterte’s bankrupt regime even with US support, especially
as it becomes domestically untenable for the US to extend all-out
support to Duterte and the AFP’s counterrevolutionary war because of
American public opposition to gross military abuses and human rights
violations.
Duterte’s all-out war and complete disregard for human
rights, international humanitarian law and the civilized conduct of war
are inciting the people’s antifascist resistance. Rousing widespread
hatred for all the rottenness he perpetrates and perpetuates, Duterte is
bound to end up like Marcos and Estrada who where overthrown in 1986
and 2001 respectively. By giving the military cabal vast powers, Duterte
is setting himself up for a coup or withdrawal of military and police
support by those with whom he has partnered with, or by those who have
been disenfranchised by his favoritism. This can combine with a popular
uprising by a united front of democratic forces which will put an end to
his tyrannical regime.
The Party Steadily Grows in Strength as People’s Resistance Intensifies
The
Filipino people’s resistance against the US-Duterte fascist regime
continues to intensify amid worsening socio-economic conditions and
political crisis of the ruling system.
Duterte’s reign of terror
and tyranny, attacks against democratic rights, subservience to the US,
sellout of the country’s national sovereignty and patrimony, bureaucrat
capitalist corruption and narcopolitics and antipeople neoliberal
policies exposes the rotten core of the ruling system and rouses the
Filipino people to wage democratic mass struggles and revolutionary
armed resistance.
Across the country, there is widespread rural
unrest as the peasant masses raise their demand for genuine land reform
and struggle for land rent reduction, elimination of usury, fair farm
gate prices and higher wages for farm workers. Victims of land grabbing
and land title holders who have been deprived of their ownership through
so-called agricultural venture agreements, “conversions” and
“leasebacks” and various schemes are fighting to wrest back their rights
to the land. Peasants and national minority peoples are firmly
defending their lands and opposing the schemes of big landlords, real
estate speculators, big mining firms, energy and tourism projects and
oil palm plantations.
There is a steady rise in workers strikes
and protest actions demanding job regularization, wage increases and
other democratic demands in Southern Tagalog, Central Luzon, the
National Capital Region, Northeastern and Southern Mindanao regions.
Workers are steadfastly building their unions despite all-out
suppression by police and military forces.
Students are being
stirred to take action by the Duterte regime’s fascist attacks, the
political restoration of the Marcoses, as well as by the regime’s
failure to carry out the promised free public college education program
and by rising costs of education. They continue to show solidarity with
the peasants and national minorities against fascist suppression in the
countryside, as well as with workers in factory strikes and protests.
Student protests against the regime’s subservience to foreign
imperialist interests and growing foreign domination are also on the
rise.
The united front of democratic forces and broad range of
anti-Duterte opposition forces continue to gain strength. There is
widespread clamor to make Duterte accountable for all his crimes in the
“drug war,” the destruction of Marawi, martial law in Mindanao and Oplan
Kapayapaan.
There is rising demand for justice amid the growing
list of crimes perpetrated against the people by the Duterte fascist
regime. There is demand for justice over the recent Sagay Massacre in
Negros Occidental perpetrated by the Army-controlled and landlord-funded
SCAA forces, as well as other massacres and extrajudicial killings.
There is broad support in the struggle against Duterte’s closure of
Lumad community schools. There is rising demand to end artillery
shelling and aerial bombardment as these endanger the lives of civilians
and cause widespread trauma. There is resounding call to withdraw all
military troops (doing so-called “peace and development” operations)
from rural villages, dismantle Army and paramilitary detachments near
civilian communities and end the coercion of civilians to pose as “rebel
surrenderees.”
The legal democratic forces and the broad
anti-fascist united front mounted big multisectoral mass actions in the
past months. These are poised to grow even bigger in the coming months
as intensified attacks on democratic rights and electoral fraud stoke
protests. These will be further bolstered by strikes and other mass
protests by workers and other oppressed sectors against new taxes, the
soaring prices of basic commodities, the practice of short-term
contractualization (endo) and other burdensome neoliberal policies which
aggravate their living conditions.
The national democratic forces
are one of the strongest pillars of the broad democratic movement
against the Duterte fascist regime. They are resiliently asserting their
legal democratic rights and opposing the Duterte regime’s crackdown,
Red-baiting and legal offensive of slapping trumped-up criminal charges.
They are determined to oppose and frustrate Duterte’s scheme to
manipulate the elections using the AFP and his Comelec appointees.
As
the most consolidated expression of the united front, the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) continues to grow as its
underground revolutionary mass organizations serve as the solid core of
the people’s democratic resistance against the fascist regime. Through
the NDFP and its network, more and more people are drawn to join or
support the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside.
The
revolutionary armed struggle being waged by the New People’s Army is
steadily advancing nationwide. Under the Party’s leadership, the NPA
continues to seize the initiative in waging widespread and intensive
guerrilla warfare based on an ever widening and deepening mass base
across country. It has recently stepped up annihilative tactical
offensives from north to south, wiping out small enemy units and seizing
firearms and other war materiél while carrying out numerous attritive
actions against fascist troops with the help of people’s militias and
self-defense corps of revolutionary mass organizations.
Despite
being focus of enemy offensives, the NPA in Mindanao continues to
persevere and succeed in launching annihilative tactical offensives,
most notable of which is the recent overrunning of a CAFGU detachment
and capture of 24 firearms in Agusan del Sur. Focused and sustained
military operations such the three-week long AFP offensives in the
Bukidnon-Misamis Oriental-Agusan del Sur triboundary with the aim of
driving away the Lumad from their lands have been roundly frustrated.
With
mastery of terrain, superior guerrilla tactics of concentration,
dispersal and shifting, combined with the deep support of the masses,
the NPA this year succeeded to frustrate one enemy focused military
operation after another. The AFP has wasted billions of pesos in mostly
fruitless operations lasting several weeks or more. Units of the NPA
have adeptly mounted counter-encirclement operations to hit the enemy
forces from their rear or flank. Combat units of the AFP have
repeatedly suffered casualties as they are deployed as cannon fodder by
their superiors.
Quick to assess the strengths and weaknesses of
the enemy’s focused and sustained operations and being good at learning
lessons from accumulated and recent experiences, the NPA is more
confident and capable in defeating the enemy’s strategic offensive. The
enemy desperately wants to duplicate its concentrated and sustained
offensives in the Davao region in North Central Mindanao, Samar, Bicol,
Southern Tagalog and Negros. It will, however, be roundly frustrated as
it faces a stronger nationwide force of the NPA that is ever more
capable and determined to mount annihilative attacks on its weak and
vulnerable points, to make it bleed with countless attritive actions
while avoiding its attacks. It will become more isolated from the people
and be driven out of many areas by the mounting outrage of the people.
The
Party and the NPA grasp more firmly the requisites of widespread, at
the same time, intensive character of guerrilla warfare, as to the
building and deployment of its horizontal and vertical formations,
forming guerrilla theaters composed of two to three guerrilla fronts,
employing some elements of regular mobile warfare, mobilizing the masses
for armed struggle, waging agrarian revolution and other mass campaigns
in the countryside while fighting enemy operations, combining legal,
illegal and semilegal forms of organizations and actions of the masses,
and using dual tactics in dealing with the reactionary government’s
processes and institutions.
Whenever the AFP deploys several
battalions in focused military operations against one or several fronts,
it unwittingly gives leeway for NPA units in other guerrilla fronts to
conduct widespread political work among the people and mount tactical
offensives against the isolated and weak points of the enemy in their
areas of operation. On a bigger scale, the deployment of around 75% (now
down to less than 65% after redeployments) of AFP combat troops in
Mindanao provided the NPA in the Luzon and Visayas regions the
opportunity to mount a growing number of tactical offensives. Duterte’s
order to deploy more troops in Bicol, Samar and Negros is an admission
of the growing strength of the NPA in Luzon and Visayas. In doing so,
the AFP is being further overstretched, increasingly exposing thinner
parts to NPA annihilative offensives.
The Communist Party of the
Philippines continues to grow in strength in the course of the struggle
against the US-Duterte regime and waging protracted people’s war to
carry forward the people’s democratic revolution.
By condemning
Duterte’s tyranny and fascist terrorism, calling on the people to resist
the regime’s campaign of mass murder, exposing its fake “drug war,”
crimes and corruption, denouncing the wanton destruction of Marawi,
assailing its subservience to the US, and protesting its neoliberal
policies, excessive loans and sellout of country’s patrimony, the Party
has succeeded in setting the correct line of uniting the Filipino people
under a broad united front to overthrow the US-Duterte fascist regime
through all forms of resistance. The US-Duterte regime is now
increasingly isolated from the people.
In doing so, the Party has
fortified its position to further strengthen the revolutionary mass
movement and lead the NPA in further advancing the people’s war.
Let us celebrate the Party’s 50th anniversary and lead the revolution to greater victories
Today, let us mark and celebrate the great and glorious achievements
and revolutionary victories accumulated by our Party in the past 50
years of waging the people’s democratic revolution. Let us reaffirm our
commitment and determination to lead the revolution to greater victories
in the future.
Let us recall the glorious 50-year history of the
Party and celebrate its achievements and victories in the ideological,
political and organizational fields. The Party’s founding chairman has
authored “Great Achievements of the CPP in 50 Years of Waging
Revolution” which should be studied by all Party cadres and members to
gain a firm grasp of the key lessons drawn from the Party’s history.
The
past 50 years of revolutionary resistance led by the Party form the
latest stage in the Filipino people’s century-long struggle for national
liberation from US imperialist domination. The Party traces its
historical roots to the old national democratic revolution against
Spanish colonialism which broke out in 1896 led by the bourgeois
liberalism-inspired Katipunan, to the anti-imperialist revolutionary
forces who persisted in revolutionary armed resistance during the Fil-Am
War, as well as from the pioneers of working class organizing and
Party-building led by Crisanto Evangelista in the 1930s and their
struggles against the American and Japanese colonial forces.
Inspired
by its achievements of the past 50 years, the Party continues to firmly
uphold the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist stand, viewpoint, and method and the
line of people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war
to end the oppressive and exploitative semicolonial and semifeudal
system and create the conditions for socialist revolution and its
ultimate goal of building a communist future.
The entire
membership of the Party is solidly united by the Program for a People’s
Democratic Revolution, Constitution and other decisions and resolutions
of its 2nd Congress of 2016 and the leadership of the 2nd Central
Committee. It is firmly guided by the three-year program of the Central
Committee as further elaborated and extended to five years, and by the
timely guidance and advice of the Executive Committee.
The Party
continues to strengthen its grasp of the universal theory of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and its particular application in the
Philippines. It raises the theoretical knowledge of its members and
cadres by providing them the basic, intermediate and advanced Party
courses, publication and translation of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist
writings, conducting social investigations, studying and analyzing
current domestic and foreign events and by summing-up and drawing
lessons to enrich and develop theoretical knowledge from the social
practice and practical experiences of the Party, the revolutionary
movement and broad masses of the people.
The Party central
leadership and regional committees aim to complete the 25-year
summing-up of the Party to draw lessons in Party building, waging armed
struggle and united front work since the Second Great Rectification
Movement in order to correct shortcomings and weaknesses and more firmly
carry forward the people’s war to higher stages.
We must raise
the capability of our cadres in mobilizing the masses in their numbers
and unleashing creativity and initiative of the people in waging
revolutionary armed resistance, mass struggles and other forms of mass
undertaking. Party cadres should firmly apply the principle of mass line
in their style of work and methods of leadership.
The Party is
single-minded in the task of uniting and leading the Filipino people in
their resistance to overthrow the US-Duterte fascist regime and the
struggle to end imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
The
Party must lead the New People’s Army in waging guerrilla warfare and
boldly mounting tactical offensives against the enemy. The NPA must
target the worst of the fascist and corrupt units and officials and
sanction the worst plunderers who cause grave damage to the environment
and the people’s livelihood.
The Party must take hold of
the strength of the NPA at the regional, subregional and front levels
and relatively concentrate the necessary force to mount raids and
ambuscades and other tactical offensives against detached units of the
AFP, police stations, paramilitaries and other enemy soft targets as
well as abusive private security guards and agencies and criminal gangs.
The NPA units must always ensure that they launch tactical offensives
that they are capable of winning.
On the basis of information and
complaints of the people, ascertained by the pertinent authorities of
the people’s court, armed teams of the NPA must undertake arrest
operations or punitive actions against individuals in urban or rural
areas who are notorious for serious human rights violations, corruption
and anti-social or criminal activities.
The Party and NPA commands
at all levels and in units must raise the fighting will and capability
of all NPA Red fighters and NPA units through political education,
military training, regular exercises, intelligence and reconnaissance
against enemy positions, assessments, summing-ups and planning through
regular and timely military conferences.
The Party must ensure
that policies with regard to the correct force structure of the NPA are
implemented. It must ensure the proper disposition of NPA units to avoid
overdispersal of small units which are vulnerable to enemy
encirclement. The NPA must combine and balance its work in guerrilla
zones and base areas. It must ensure the development and strengthening
of guerrilla bases determined by the social and political terrain,
typically in front and subregional border areas to serve as rear where
NPA units can be concentrated when necessary both for strategic planning
and tactical coordination. We must ensure that the NPA strictly comply
with security policies, in maintaining the secrecy of sensitive
information and avoiding unnecessary exposures.
The Party must
ensure that NPA commands plan and carry out annihilative tactical
offensives (for the purpose of wiping out enemy units and seizing its
weapons) as the principal form of tactical offensives while carrying out
widespread attrition to harass, weaken, demoralize and disrupt the
enemy’s plans. The primary aim of mounting tactical offensives is to to
disarm the enemy and seize its weapons. We must conduct propaganda and
political work within the ranks of the enemy to cause its
disintegration.
The Party and NPA must strive to have a defense
plan from the regional down to the section level, studying close the
enemy’s plans, deployment, operations and tactics. We must ensure that
NPA commands at every level are able to direct and coordinate all NPA
units within their scope. We must ensure that all NPA units perform
their role, coordinate and cooperate with other NPA units and help each
other overcome problems in supply, logistics, communication,
intelligence and others. Mobilize the masses to perform various tasks in
guerrilla warfare, including joining tactical offensives, carrying out
operations in the enemy’s rear, intelligence and others. Boldly recruit
new Red fighters following basic requirements.
The Party calls on
all revolutionary forces to intensify antifeudal struggles and other
mass struggles in the countryside. Amid worsening conditions and
worsening forms of exploitation and oppression, the broad masses of
peasants must intensify the land reform movement across the country and
raise the demand for free distribution of land to the tiller. Mobilize
the peasant masses in their millions.
In the guerrilla zones, we
must ardently carry out the Party’s minimum land reform program of rent
reduction, elimination of usury and demanding fair prices of farm
products. We must launch campaigns to raise rural income and improve the
lot of the peasant masses, and encourage more support for the NPA. We
must always pay attention to the outstanding problems of the masses and
plan to resolve or address their concerns through mass campaigns and
mobilization. We must launch campaigns and programs for literacy and
education, health and sanitation, peace and order and others. We must
launch cultural and propaganda campaigns to raise the people’s courage
and militancy and rouse them to struggle against fascism.
The
Party urges the peasant masses to intensify their struggle against
fascist abuses by the AFP, its paramilitaries, police forces and other
armed agents of the reactionary state. They must rise in protest against
the entry of so-called “peace and development operations” of the AFP,
and assert the democratic rights and rights as civilians, and oppose the
AFP’s campaign to witchhunt or Red-tag and illegalize them. They must
draw broad support for their cause by uniting with other forces in an
anti-fascist united front.
The Party calls on the broad masses of
workers, students and other democratic sectors in the cities to
intensify their anti-fascist and anti-imperialist struggles and support
for anti-feudal struggles. They must carry out mass struggles to advance
their rights and welfare amid worsening socio-economic conditions as a
result of Duterte’s heavy taxation, inflation, corruption, misuse of
public funds and other anti-people policies.
Boldly expand the
anti-fascist united front to resist the tyranny and terrorism of the
US-Duterte regime. Unite all democratic forces and sectors such as the
academe, church people, journalists, professionals, business and others.
Defend the people’s legal democratic rights and resist Duterte’s de
facto martial law.
At the same time, the revolutionary forces in
the cities must persevere in building their underground organizations
and network to frustrate and defeat the Duterte regime’s surveillance,
arrests, extrajudicial killings and other forms of attack against the
legal democratic forces. Activists and mass leaders who are being
targets of liquidation or abduction can avail of the security of the
guerrilla base areas of the NPA.
The Party enjoins its cadres in
the urban areas, especially among the young workers and young
intellectuals, to go to the countryside to help the peasant antifeudal
struggles or join the New People’s Army in waging revolutionary armed
struggle.
The Party and all revolutionary forces must wage
relentless propaganda to expose the lies of Duterte and the AFP. Reach
out to all rural villages, factories, schools, offices, urban
communities, as well as to Filipino workers overseas.
As the
Filipino people wage all-out resistance against the US-Duterte fascist
regime, the Party continues to grow in strength, drawing thousands of
new members from the ranks of Red fighters and advanced elements and
activists of the revolutionary mass movement of peasants, workers, urban
poor, students and youth, women, professionals, migrant workers and
other oppressed sectors. It has thousands of Party branches which lead
the people in their mass struggles. It aims to breach one hundred
thousand members in the coming years.
The Party continues to
uphold and put into practice the principle of democratic centralism from
the central leadership to the basic Party branches. The Central
Committee decides and sets the principles, policies and line to guide
the entire Party. Lower organs of the Party are subordinate to higher
organs. But all Party organs and organizations must gather and lay the
factual basis for decision-making and decision-making must be
democratic, with the issues fully discussed and differences of views
settled by majority vote. The Party combats bureaucratism and commandism
and ultrademocracy and liberalism.
As we mark and celebrate the
Party’s 50th anniversary, we look forward to accomplishing ever bigger
achievements and revolutionary victories.
The Party and all
revolutionary forces must persevere in carrying out and further
developing extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare based on an ever
widening and deepening mass base in order to bring the people’s war to
the advanced stage of the strategic defensive, and thus lay the ground
for further advancing to the strategic stalemate. In line with the
strategy of protracted people’s war, we continue to wage revolutionary
armed struggle, carry out land reform and build political power in the
countryside, until it is capable of seizing political power in the
cities and national capital.
The Party looks forward to attaining
complete victory in the foreseeable future even as it is prepared to
lead the people in waging revolutionary struggle for as long as it takes
to put an end to the reign of the oppressors and exploiters.
The
Party anticipates further worsening of the crisis of the ruling system
in the Philippines as well as the global crisis of capitalism. This will
create much more favorable conditions for the accelerated advance of
the people’s democratic revolution in the Philippines, anti-imperialist
struggles across the world and the resurgence of the international
communist movement at a higher plane.
All Party cadres at every
level of leadership must perform duties with total proletarian
revolutionary determination and carry out the arduous tasks in line with
the communist spirit of selfless sacrifice.
Long live the Filipino and International Proletariat and All Oppressed and Exploited People!
Laban ng Masa, as a socialist political center, vehemently condemns the recent arrest of Satur Ocampo and 74 other people including teachers and volunteers under the charges of trafficking children. These trumped up and bogus charges are nothing but attempts of the regime to deter and intimidate progressive forces in the country. Laban ng Masa also condemns the arrest of Rey Casambre and his wife two nights ago after visiting the wake of a comrade: they were ridiculously charged for “illegal possession of explosives.” Rey Casambre is a peace talks consultant of the National Democratic Front (NDF).
Laban ng Masa stands in solidarity with our comrades against these efforts to undermine progressive democratic forces. We affirm the belief that in the midst of this reactionary state, the greater enemy to fight resides in the comforts of power and capital. It is today that we uphold the principle that our struggle is one that is shared—especially amidst a looming fascist regime led by this regime.
It is in this sense that we must emphasize that Ka Satur was made to be the first among others: an example to be made if one would cross this regime. Ka Satur’s arrest remains only to be a symptom of a larger, and a more systemic aspect of the Duterte Regime.
This is not the first time that a crackdown on progressives has happened within this regime. However, these attacks on progressives, while pressing, are only parts and fragments of the larger agenda that started earlier on with the landmark campaign promise to end the problem of drugs plaguing our communities. The isolation tactics of the regime were first witnessed through the relentless and blatant use of state-sanctioned violence towards vulnerable groups like the drug dependents. Today, we have seen the effects of the drug war: a nation with a worn-out mass movements and thousands of lives lost in the process. This, we believe and reiterate, is too steep of a price for “change.”
These attacks on progressives are not, in any way, different nor remote. It is merely a display of the extent of control of this regime over its people. We, at all costs, must not be disheartened in the face of attempts at repression. If anything, these efforts of the regime should embolden us to stand together amidst this burgeoning crisis.
We at Laban ng Masa find that the only way to counter these intense repression is to stand against ongoing oppressions of peoples. The people of the Philippines face conditions that are often forgotten and willfully neglected by the government. To this end, we find that the “fruits” and results of the liberal democratic regime as elitist and insufficient. Formal democratic institutions do not and will not suffice for the needs of the people as long as the state continually conspires with the the capitalists. It is a disservice to see the ongoing oppression of peoples while still striving to maintain the current democratic space. The increasing development aggression in the area is indicative that not only more and more communities are being militarized, but that militarization is endorsed and enabled precisely because the interests of the drive for profit trumps all others.
This leads us to recognize that even within the country, there are still existing class struggles that must be confronted. This struggle is not separated from the continuous US imperialist interventions in the Philippines, thus pressuring the fascist Duterte Regime to align with China’s regional external pressures— which still remain neoliberal in scope. We live in an elitist democracy that only seeks to preserve a world order that disenfranchises the majority. We have seen the regime favoring neoliberal economic policies that favor foreign investors over development that is mass movement-led, much like the Build-Build-Build program, which among its projects are funded by China-based loans.
We find ourselves in highly precarious situations in which we are slowly being subsumed under a world order that increases the exploitation of workers, peasants, IPs, women, and other sectors and layers of society. The institutions we have built post-EDSA has enabled the rise of the reactionary state: a state that is repressive, oppressive, and exploitative. That instead of our institutions to be used for the well-being of peoples, it merely facilitates their continued exploitation.
The reactionary state is the character of the fascist Duterte Regime. The orchestrated machinations of the regime are far too contrived to be whims of an unpredictable figurehead. What truly runs this country goes beyond the fascist Duterte—the elites, the oligarchs, the capitalists, who have been given far too many opportunities to reap off the hard work of millions of Filipinos. This fascist Duterte Regime is a dictatorship of the capitalists. Satur Ocampo’s arrest is but the brunt of the ongoing militarization, aggravated by the imposition of Martial law, which has created tensions even within indigenous communities.
Laban ng Masa immediately demands to drop charges against Satur and 74 others. We demand to demilitarize indigenous communities lands, that only bring about conflict and stifle their right to self- determination. We demand the lifting of Martial Law in Mindanao that continues to enable militarization and conflict to foster in these communities. Given this, Laban ng Masa strongly opposes the AFP-PNP joint declaration to extend Martial Law in Mindanao for another year until December 31, 2019. Laban ng Masa immediately calls for the rescindment of Memorandum Order No. 32 (MO 32) because it is a fascist ploy to widen a de facto form of martial law nationwide beyond Mindanao’s de jure Martial Law scope. MO 32 is being justified by the Duterte Regime as a state instrument to repress “all enemies of the state.”
We at Laban ng Masa emphasize the need to unite in the political struggle against fascism. This is the way we envision our way forward. Repression is repression regardless of political lines. We must build a movement that sees unity in the shared struggle. This is the only way to build solidarity among peoples, among groups.
We at Laban ng Masa reaffirm our commitment towards our struggle for socialism. We uphold the belief that at the end of the day, the socialist struggle is the answer to begin reimagining a world beyond a capitalist mode of production. We must strive towards a world where production is not contingent on the exploitation of the working class. We must strive for a world, that through and through, recognizes the multifacetedness of oppression and ends in all forms. We remain true to the promise of building an alternative, for the revolution will not happen overnight. It is a process of becoming, of comings and goings. We remain in solidarity in struggle.
For interviews and other inquiries, please contact Rasti Delizo, Laban ng Masa National Coordinator, at 0921 741 5800.
Workers of a high-end BGC condo at the BGC are on hunger strike. Worker grievances include unfair labor practices and contractualization. Pacific Plaza Towers was developed by Metro Pacific Investments, which owns companies like Meralco (15%) and Makati Medical Center in Ayala. Metro Pacific is headed by Manny Pangilinan. However, there is limited information on the condo's current owners.
Pacific Plaza units have been owned by people like former Comelec chairman Andres Bautista and alleged PDAF scam operator Janet Napoles.
At 52%, this is a record high for the Duterte administration, and last happened in December 2014. The figure means that most (median) of the 12.2 million poorest families in the Philippines are living on less than the national threshold of P10,000 monthly, which in itself is a ridiculous amount to keep even a family of four together.
The data show that it is not uncommon to see a steep rise in self-reported poverty. Steep rises have occurred for all past administrations. However, it also appears that those sharp increases did not go on for more than just a few (possibly three) quarters. Though this is only the second quarterly poverty rate increase under Duterte since Q2, the next quarter is crucial as it appears prices are still expected to rise.
Note, however, that poverty is at a historical low for Metro Manila, the seat of political action in the country. The increase is rather due to sharp increases (12 points) in "Balance Luzon," plus the five points in Mindanao, where poverty has always been intense and is currently at 65%.
Previously in this blog I highlighted that the national poverty rate has been going down. Apparently it's only because of what can be called the "NCR-Luzon effect." This makes sense as most direct investments probably just end up there. Meanwhile, life for those in the Visayas and Mindanao is very hard at best. The economy is clearly not working for all, and is clearly a result of government's failed policies at the national level, or lack of it.
Q1 2018 self-reported poverty is 42%, the same as it was right after Duterte assumed office. The 42%figure is a historical low since SWS started taking the survey in 1983.
However, even as the Duterte administration has hit the figure twice, poverty reduction rate is almost flat during the entire seven quarters of the Duterte regime. But again it is too early to make anything of this. Self-reported poverty was in fact rising during the entire first four years of the Aquino II administration, before plunging down to around 44% in 2016 just before he left and Duterte rode the momentum.
Note that we are still talking about a national median monthly poverty threshold of P13,000 per family. That would mean that 42% of Filipino families were living below that threshold, with a very high number in the Visayas. The threshold is set higher at P20,000 in NCR. However, that's still just over P660 for 30% of families in the NCR that are self-reporting as poor by that low standard.
Although really very slowly, self-reported poverty has been going down for a while now. It is time for the Left to reposition the debate from poverty alone and to focus really on inequality. The thresholds are very low, especially compared with all the good stuff that the middle class can now afford.
Public satisfaction with Rodrigo Duterte is slightly down from December (2 pts), but is still high at +56 this month. The high satisfaction is reflected across classes, despite a curious number of undecided middle class. But that's really insignificant.
Note that this comes with the initial effects of Train, which many in the Left said would be bad for the poor. True enough there was slight movement in the Class E scores. But again, a comfortable majority of them (65%) still approve of Duterte.
The one good news is that Duterte still has opposition in the youth. "Millennials" (ages 18-24) continue to register the highest dissatisfaction with their president at 20%. The bad news is that the same group has been liking him more and more each quarter. (Curiously, yesterday's youth, or those who are now within the 25-34 age bracket, have the highest approval for Digs. Is this what happens when one "grows up"? One becomes older and wiser? Ten thousand kills are just fair game for a dedicated regime, yes?)
Anyway, a friendly reminder to the Left on May 1: Even as Duterte has apparently turned his back on the Anti-Endo pledge, on Red Day they'll be shouting at the effigy of a man who is well-liked by everyone else. I think this means we should work to propagate the cause of labor some more and continue to inspire the ranks up to within the lower middle class -- if they don't fight for better conditions, few others will. And the spiral of social decay continues.
The next data to check are the quarterly self-reported Poverty, which should be in anytime soon.
“We are not sure if we will go to the meeting with the President as we don’t know which version of the Executive Order (EO) Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III is once again peddling,” Nagkaisa Labor Coalition said in a hastily called press conference following reports of a much delayed meeting with President Rodrigo Duterte happening in mid-April.
President Duterte, in a meeting with labor leaders on February 27, promised that he and his legal team will look into the workers’ draft EO submitted jointly by Nagkaisa and Kilusang Mayo Uno with the support of the National Anti-Poverty Commission. He promised to sign the issuance by March 15, to no avail.
“The truth is, the Secretary has been obstructing our efforts these past few years. He has been misleading the president and has been fooling the public by twisting labor’s position and making it appear we are unreasonable,” Nagkaisa said.
“The workers’ draft has moved from total prohibition of contractualization to a framework of prohibition of contractualization that would allow certain exemptions for contracting out of work, but subject to the decision of the National Tripartite Industrial Peace Council.” Nagkaisa added.
“We abhor the abuse and exploitation of workers through contractualization as it has become the convenient excuse of unscrupulous employers and manpower agencies and pseudo cooperatives to pay low wages, disregard social protection, bust unions and fire workers at will. We believed the President share these abhorrence with irresponsible employers,” Nagkaisa added.
Nagkaisa calls on government to decide where its policy on addressing contractualization stands. “Is it for more profits to employers at the expense of workers’ rights and welfare; or adhering to state guarantees of providing full protection to workers’ rights and welfare that would bring about sustainable growth to the economy?”
“Secretary Bello shamelessly foisted that labor is calling for the total prohibition of contractualization and deliberately misled the public and the President that workers are hardlining and demanding the impossible. He obstructed and derailed the democratic processing of an EO,” Nagkaisa added.
“He has acted beyond the pale and has shown to what depths he will unconscionably betray his sworn trust and the public interest. He must now disclose what this purported April 16 EO contains. It is something we have never seen,” said Nagkaisa.
Nagkaisa only learned about a supposed new round of meetings in Malacañang via news reports as no official invitations and meeting agenda have been received by any labor group.
An article from Nextshark reveals the condition of workers at The Landmark, as narrated by an applicant on Facebook. Original article here. The applicant has since made some of her personal posts private, apparently due to intimidation from some.
Landmark is quite a sneaky entity. It functions as the department store section of other malls like Ayala, which only has "boutique" sections. It is far from "high end" as the article suggests, but it sits just close to places like Greenbelt. For Ayala malls, it also functions as the "food court" section.
Ayala apparently "outsources" all the dirty work to a provider like Landmark, to cut costs and pass on operational risks. It's no wonder their employees are neglected -- it appears to be their owners' exact business model. But Landmark is not the only culprit here.
Retail trade accounts for around P2 trillion in value in the Philippine economy, or some 13% of the GDP, but their workers get low pay. "Contractualization" is probably still rampant. And as seen here, they also get very bad treatment.
All of this is just a reflection of the trajectory that was designed by our economic managers who bought into the "globalization" hype -- neglect your own agriculture and manufacturing/industrial sector, turn your vast lands into malls, force the displaced farmers and industrial workers to become sales personnel, import the food and goods you no longer make at home, and sell them in the malls you built. If you really want out, you can leave your family and become an OFW, and your government will only be too happy to export you instead in return for the dollars. Note that this is the exact same policy that Rodrigo Duterte continues to uphold.
Meanwhile, the mall owners -- the Ayalas, Sys and Gokongweis -- are cream of the crop of the Philippine upper class elites. It is wealth that is founded on their own country's lack of an independent economic policy, deceit and workers' despair.
There may be several ways to address this whole problem. (The only real solution, really, is to rethink humanity's love affair with Capitalism, but since that probably won't happen anytime soon, let's look at more immediate options.)
In the very near term, if the retail elites think that the trajectory of global economy is now irreversible, they should at least make an effort to treat their workers decently as human beings. But if they won't do that, it's time we socialized the malls. The workers -- salesladies, food crew, haulers, etc. -- work their assess off for them. Why shouldn't they get a fair share based on what they contribute?
