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Advance International Solidarity for the People’s Struggle

in Mainstream

Developing international solidarity relations with all peoples of the world on behalf of the Filipino people is an integral task of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The NDFP is cognizant that on the basis of friendship, mutual support, and cooperation, the Filipino people and other peoples of the world, and their anti-imperialist and democratic organizations and parties, shall pursue a world that is free from imperialist oppression and exploitation.

Liberation International interviewed NDFP Senior Adviser and former Chief Negotiator Louie Jalandoni on the revolutionary movement’s international work and its significance on the struggle of the Filipino people for nationalism and democracy.

Before he became chairperson of the NDFP negotiating panel in 1995, he was NDFP vice chairperson for international affairs as early as 1980s. In 1987, he and comrade-wife Coni Ledesma opened the NDFP International Office.

Here are some of Ka Louie’s insights on the NDFP’s international solidarity work.

Liberation International (LI)Can you give a short history on the beginnings of the movement’s international work? 

International work of the revolutionary movement started in the 1960s when an official Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) delegation was sent to China. This was after the victory of the Chinese revolution. The CPP delegation developed links and cooperation with various official delegations of other Communist Parties who were also based in China. Chairman Mao led in providing the most powerful solidarity to the Filipino people’s revolutionary struggle. However, this powerful solidarity started to weaken when the influence of Deng Shao Ping increased and limited significantly the solidarity for the Filipino people.

A kasama (comrade) who went to the United States also started organizing Filipinos and building solidarity with the progressive forces in the United States.

In 1977, the movement’s international work in Europe started.

LI: Why is international work important in the national democratic struggle?  

The fact that US imperialism exploits and oppresses the Filipino people, uses all its military might to attack, and uses feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism to enslave the people, make it important for the Filipino people to win international solidarity for its struggle for liberation. The conditions in the Philippines require that the Filipino people must carry out their revolution in a self-reliant way. But it needs international support to advance and win victory, in so many ways from peoples and movements abroad. This could not be one-sided for Filipinos as it also helps the growth and victory of other revolutionary struggles.

LI: What was the situation when you started international work in Europe? Was the situation favorable then?  

When we started in Europe in 1976, there was already a solidarity group in the Netherlands. This was the Filippijnenegroep Nederland (FGN) which started solidarity work in 1975. The group was composed of Dutch persons who had worked in the Philippines as volunteers and missionaries and lived in the Philippines for many years. They became politicalized during their integration with the Filipino masses and wanted to help the resistance against the Marcos dictatorship. For Coni and me, this was a very positive development in carrying out our international work.

The political climate was also very favorable for Europeans to support struggles in different countries.

For example, the victory of the Algerian people against the French was supported by progressives in Europe. An Italian comrade and his wife attended an anti-imperialist conference in Algiers and through their efforts got the conference to support the Filipino people’s struggle, along with the Moro peoples struggle.

Support groups were also active for Vietnam, for Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, who were fighting for their liberation from Portugal.

Algeria then had support from very famous personalities like Lelio Basso, an Italian Senator. Together with other prominent personalities, he founded the Permanent People’s Tribunal.

One of our kasama, Francis Alessi, worked in the office of Senator Lelio Basso. Through Alessi, the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) organized a Session on the Philippines in 1980 that focussed on the concerns of the NDFP and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

LI: What were some of the achievements of our international work? 

The holding of the PPT Session on the Philippines was very significant. The Tribunal’s jury was composed of 10 prestigious legal experts, headed by 1967 Nobel Prize winner for Physiology, George Wald. The Tribunal’s verdict was that the NDFP was the legitimate representative of the Filipino people. It condemned Marcos as unfit to govern, and recognized the status of belligerency of the revolutionary movement of the Filipino people.

After the Tribunal, a Dutch political party (which no longer exists), the Pacifist Socialist Party, recognized the NDFP and introduced it to Parties they were in contact with, including Pasok, the ruling Party in Greece at that time. As a consequence, Pasok invited the NDFP to its Congress.

More achievements had been gained, including invitations from different political Parties in Europe and other countries. During the tours we would meet and hold discussions with members of different Parliaments.

LI: How about organizing work among our overseas Filipinos?

They are very significant. They number some 10-12 million. They serve as a very important mass base for the revolutionary struggle. With their experience, expertise, and capabilities they can help build a progressive Philippines. They can also win over the masses from different countries who also work or live abroad. Our diaspora can win solidarity from the diaspora of other countries.

LI: How markedly important is work among our compatriots abroad

The anti-Marcos Sr. dictatorship solidarity movement in Europe was very strong during that period. Is the solidarity movement for the Philippines at present the same as before? It is even greater now because the Philippine revolutionary movement has grown to more than 70 out of 81 provinces, in 110 guerrilla fronts throughout the country, and a People’s Democratic Government at various levels exists in the countryside. Hence there is stronger basis for solidarity work by compatriots abroad with other nationalities.

LI: Does the message of our people’s war and our socialist perspective continue to draw the same level of support from our foreign friends?  

This depends on our own effective efforts. At this point the basis for expanding and consolidating the level of support from our foreign friends is firmer and stronger. They are very interested in learning more about our revolutionary struggle and joining celebrations of our victories.

LI: How do we relate with parties/organizations/alliances that have different ideological and political viewpoints/standpoints? How were these differences overcome?  

We recognize and respect their different ideological and political viewpoints and standpoints, just as they too respect ours. We recognize the value of their struggle, as they too value our revolutionary struggle. In the process as we advance our solidarity and cooperation, so do we both advance our own struggles. This relationship is reciprocal and mutually beneficial for both sides. (Liberation International) ###

NDFP’s First PrepCom

in Mainstream

A smile formed on the face of the man sitting in front of us, his eyes full of memories. We decided to call him Tony in this interview. He was a member of the original NDF Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) that helped prepare the grounds for the establishment of the NDFP.

According to Tony, there were originally at least eight PrepCom members: journalists Antonio Zumel and Satur Ocampo, student leader Voltaire Garcia, Dumaguete Times publisher Hermie Garcia, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Ma. Sison, a representative of the trade union sector and two oldest members who came from the old CPP, Angel Baking and Sammy Rodriguez. Later, other persons would be added to the group, including Dr. Dante Simbulan, a former teacher at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).

According to Tony, the PrepCom’s first meeting was held in Malabon, at Voltaire’s house. They had several extensive meetings, he said, to discuss the concept of the NDFP and its program. Some of them were held in churches, allies’ houses in Southern Tagalog, as well as in a rented house in Baguio. “I look at it every time I go up there. I couldn’t help myself,” Tony said. “It is along the highway, just before you enter the city proper.”

“Many documents were written in that house, including much of Joma’s PSR (Philippine Society and Revolution),” he said.

The meetings were obviously precious for him, and some of them he could still clearly remember. A regular meeting, he said, would surely consume the whole day. Once, when they were discussing the NDFP draft Program, they met for two days and one night straight.

Tony described Rodriguez, Baking and Hermie Garcia as the serious ones. Rodriguez and Baking (the “oldies”), being the most experienced, would cite lessons from the old Party and debate on issues most of the time. Simbulan, he said, he would always remember for his anecdotes on life as a PMA instructor.

“Syempre pinakamakwento’t matsismis ‘yung si Joma,” Tony said. He recalled how Sison’s punchlines would break the seriousness in the meetings and bring laughter to the group. “Ganoon naman talaga yun. Galawgaw s’ya nung estudyante s’ya. In fact, maraming nagtaka naging very serious s’ya (when he got into the movement),” he said.

Zumel and Ocampo on the other hand had stories about the National Press Club. Zumel in particular had colorful stories about the late Manila Mayor Arsenio Lacson and other personalities he covered.

All PrepCom members brought their particular experiences and knowledge about Philippine society into the group, enriching their discussions and slowly giving texture and voice to the aspirations of their countrymen through the NDFP Program which they drafted.

Before Martial Law was declared, Tony described their mode of operation as “semi-UG.” When Martial Law was declared, they had to be extra careful with their movements since most of them were well-known personalities. The oldies in particular always took the long route. The rest arrived individually from different areas. When traveling as a group, the journalists would usually be the ones to alight and talk when stopped at military checkpoints, presenting their press IDs.

Some of them also tried to disguise themselves. Ocampo applied hair gel, even growing his hair long at one point, prince valiant style. He also once colored it gray and even had it curled.

On how they moved around, Tony smiled and said, “Paikot-ikot ka lang sa ilong ng kaaway.

Soon, need for cadres in other areas due to the fast expanding revolutionary work necessitated the redeployment of some of the PrepCom members. The PrepCom’s composition thus changed, particularly when some of its members fell on enemy hands. This included Voltaire Garcia who died while in detention.

The NDFP and its allied organizations are now present in most of the country’s 73 provinces. They are in the 130 guerrilla fronts scattered all over the country. Here, the people’s democratic power, the embryo of the future government, continues to be enhanced and consolidated. Programs that benefit the masses are carried out, including programs on literacy, health care, cooperatives and livelihood programs.

It had been more than 33 years since Tony and the other members of the first NDFP PrepCom got together. The NDFP Program they drafted was officially approved on April 24, 1973, which became the official founding date of the NDFP. Its growth is testament to the correctness of building a united front organization that would bring together the different sectors of Philippine society, particularly the working class, peasantry and urban petty bourgeoisie, and encourage portions of the middle forces and ruling classes in order to attain genuine national liberation and democracy. (By Toni Hernandez, first published in Liberation in April 2005)###

Pure Joy with the Masses

in Mainstream

The start of the “ber” months signals the most celebrated holiday of the year in the Philippines. Jose Mari Chan’s song, “Christmas in Our Hearts” fills the airwaves. It is the season of hope in everyone’s heart, a season to rejoice. In the cities, malls and parks compete for the highest Christmas tree built. Dancing lights dazzle as people rush to buy gifts and noche buena items to feast on.

But it’s a different story in the countryside. Ka Ponsoy, a member of the NPA, in his account in Mga Kwentong Kasama, described what it’s like in the countryside and in the guerrilla zones:

Only a few communities celebrate Christmas as festive as in the cities. Some hang lanterns and Christmas lights where electric power is available, still full of hope. They also prepare special meals for the children who will come home for the holidays. However, to most people in the barrios, Christmas is just another day as their stomachs grumble no matter how arduous they toil the whole year round. Worst, typhoons usually lash in the last quarter of the year or some other unforeseen bane comes, depriving the farmers and fisherfolk their source of livelihood.

In the guerrilla zone, Ka Ponsoy found no difference. Sometimes they do cook for the occasion or the masses bring them some food. But most of the time, like most of the masses, they just sleep on Christmas’ eve.

A different kind of Christmas

During Ka Ponsoy’s first year in the people’s army, he would miss the “joyous” Christmas he was used to when he was still a civilian. But he would soon find out that December is not entirely cold and gloomy in a guerrilla zone. There was another reason to celebrate. Comrades and the masses are full of excitement over the most awaited day of the year—the commemoration of the founding anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The celebration is remarkable not because of its pomp. In fact, most of the time, it stands out in its simplicity. There are even occasions when the only food is camote (sweet potato) and balinghoy (cassava). Although when situation allows, allies from the town or city centers would send lechon or ham.

Through all these, there is no comparison to the warmth and happiness one will experience in the guerrilla zone. The smiles are real, the laughter profound even amid constant threat of military attacks. Everyone knows that the celebration is a testimony of another year of success and yearning. Another year to frustrate the enemies as the masses secure themselves, their dreams, and their future. This gives Ka Ponsoy a queasy twinge in his heart. They also pledged, that no matter what, they will continue the fight. This is the most exhilarating and memorable experience for Ka Ponsoy. Everyone is confident to face the new year with heaps of challenges to surmount, obstacles to surpass and problems to overcome. Since the anniversary celebration is the culmination of a year-long struggle, all are excited.

Preparing for D-day 

Should the loads of work allow, preparation for the anniversary celebration starts around October or November. Discussions on the composition of the steering committee and the plans for the program commence. What will be the cultural presentations and who will perform? Who are the speakers, including those representing the different organizations? Likewise, who will participate in the military drill?

By December, actual preparations begin. Rehearsals for the cultural presentations and the drill are done. Technical requirements are ensured—flags, the stage, mural or backdrop, sound system, food, invitations. The masses are never left out in the invitation. No matter how simple the celebration is, be it in the dense forest or in a dilapidated structure in the coconut grove, whether there is special food, sound system, mural on stage or none, inviting the masses should not be missed out. Otherwise, they will feel offended and will nag the program organizers to no end.

On the Actual Day 

The early hours of the actual day are already filled with excitement. During the opening salvo, all are jittery as the drill with the accompaniment of the song Internationale pushed on. The speakers and the cultural performers are all agog in the last minute of their practice.

The excitement of the masses are double than that of the comrades. They make sure to come early to the venue. At times, some even spend the night at the NPA camp so they won’t be late for the activities. They come in their best dress, no matter how simple. Even when it rains, and the path becomes muddy and the trek difficult, they would come. They even bring food to share.

During the program speakers are nervous, despite their having delivered the messages for the Party, the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) so many times before a huge crowd and the media. However, upon gaining composure, the intensity of the emotion and agitation they impart is inspiring and inciting. The speakers from the different organizations could not be outdone. In some occasions, comrades seize the opportunity to gather the masses for short discussions on the stand and principles of the revolutionary movement.

The performers in the program are a mix of people from the army, the masses, the elderly, and the children and youth. The lack of gracefulness does not hinder the performances of revolutionary dance. Off key and out of synch singing are not an issue as they render their songs with revolutionary spirit. Volunteers, or those not in the program, are given the chance to speak or perform. Cultural performances to celebrate the Party anniversary live up to what the Great Leader Mao Zedong had said: An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.

It is a delight that the celebration for this occasion is neither bound by time nor form. Even in militarized areas, comrades find unique ways to celebrate: a simple greeting to one another as they walk along, a warm smile or an embrace for the masses they meet.

Realization

In the cities, Jose Mari Chan’s song goes on:

“Let’s light our Christmas trees

For a bright tomorrow

Where nations are at peace”

But how could there be peace, in a screwed up world with its rotten system, where the oppressors and exploiters rule and tyranny and greed persist? The oppressed and exploited will rise. To rebel is right and just.

Through time, Ka Ponsoy came to understand there is no need for a lot of things—fiesta food, Christmas decors, money—to be happy. It is a different joy to know that comrades and the masses are united by one goal: to serve the people. Nothing compares to the jubilation seeing comrades and the masses who had been with through numerous tribulations and life’s storms, alive and smiling. Hope springs eternal where everyone loves the Party and the revolution.

Although at times, Ka Ponsoy still misses the Christmas he used to know, he will never exchange the happiness and the liberating spirit that he feels with every anniversary celebration of the Party, as well as those of the NPA and the NDFP, and other events and celebrations in the revolutionary movement. ### (Pat Gambao, adapted from “Mga Kwentong Kasama“, published by the Gintong Silahis Platung Pangkultura BHB-Bikol, 2022).

 

Duterte Wants to Grab Land Reform from the NPA

in Countercurrent

by PINKY ANG

On the 31st anniversary of the failed Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) last August, President Rodrigo Duterte spewed lies against the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New Peoples’ Army (NPA). Preening before the media while giving out Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA), he boasted he would finish the CPP-NPA-led revolution.

But this put-on picture—Duterte distributing CLOA < click >, Duterte tough-talking on Hacienda Luisita < click >, Duterte feigning concern for the future generation caught in the armed conflict < click >, Duterte promising land reform alongside crushing the 50-year people’s war < click, click >—is phony and old (he isn’t the first president to pose for it). It also defies logic and history.

Save for a fleeting period when he was talking peace with the communists, Duterte has done nothing but the opposite of land reform and national industrialization.

On the verge of signing with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) what would have been a landmark agreement to redistribute land for free all over the country, he scuttled the talks in 2017. Since then, he has made no bones in taking the well-worn path of his most despotic predecessors in Malacañang.

No Philippine president in history has truly implemented land reform nor attempted to jumpstart national industrialization spurred by a genuine land reform program. On the contrary, their so-called land reform programs sought only to placate the masses even as land remained in the hands of a few. From the bitter experiences of peasants, every land reform program by the Government of the Philippines had more loopholes than grounds to actually distribute land. And even when some eventually got distributed, it somehow got back soon enough to landlords.

Duterte merely continued the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program begun under former Corazon Aquino. Despite decades and a succession of presidents and CARP extensions, it is still far from attaining 100-percent distribution of its already narrowed target. Under Duterte, distribution is at the slowest, poorest pace.

DAR records show that the Duterte administration, in its first three years in office, was able to distribute to farmer-beneficiaries only 91,776 hectares of agricultural landholdings. That’s an average of 30,592 hectares a year. His land acquisition and distribution (LAD) pace was only 8% of that of the Fidel Ramos administration in its first three years. Ramos was top performer among the previous presidents.

Here are the comparative LAD accomplishments of Duterte’s predecessors in the first half of their terms:

  • Corazon Cojuangco Aquino: distributed 452,074 hectares from 1988 to 1990, or 150,691 hectares a year;
  • Ramos: distributed 1,113,019 hectares from 1992 t0 1994, an average of 371,006 hectares annually;
  • Joseph Estrada: distributed 379,905 from 1998 to 2000, or 126,635 yearly;
  • Gloria Arroyo: distributed 313,778 hectares from 2001 to 2003, averaging 104,593 hectares per year;
  • B.S. Aquino III: distributed 320,916 hectares from 2010 to 2012, or 106,972 hectares each year.

Data: Dept. of Agrarian Reform land distribution accomplishment in 2016 to June 2019 is 2,920 hectares on average per month under Duterte,

less than the July 2010 to 2015 monthly average of 8,254 has. reported by DAR under Noynoy Aquino;
9,407 has. under Arroyo in January 2001 to June 2010,
and 11,113 has. monthly average under Estrada.

There is a raging armed revolution in the Philippines because peasants and the basic masses, including sections of the middle class and local small capitalists, thirst for land reform. They yearn for the greater prosperity of industrialization that genuine land reform will naturally stimulate, and for the assured just distribution and sustainability of this prosperity because of the socialist perspective of the national democratic revolution being waged by the CPP-NPA-NDFP.

Over the years, the masses especially the poor peasants have been supporting and joining the NPA because they have seen in its programs and its achievements the solutions to feudal and imperialist oppression. This is the movement that truly promises and will deliver thoroughgoing change for the better.

Duterte is striking a very wrong stance with his CLOA distribution and counterrevolutionary war cries. His threat to crush the people’s democratic revolution is a threat to derail developments in actual land reform being implemented by the peasant-based NPA. It’s a threat as well to delay the country’s national industrialization. This is not acceptable to the Filipino masses who continue to suffer a life of misery under the landlord-comprador and imperialist puppet presidents including Duterte.

Another president who posed with CLOAs amid counterrevolutionary war cries was Joseph Estrada. In Bondoc Peninsula, after a series of successful NPA tactical offensives there 20 years ago, he vowed to crush the revolution movement. He became the second president to be ousted through the people’s peaceful direct action.

“WHOLE OF NATION” AS MARTIAL LAW UNDERCOVER?

By this time, as commander-in-chief, Duterte has already issued one too many orders— declaring and thrice extending martial law in the whole of Mindanao; declaring a state of emergency to quell “lawless violence” and issuing Memo 32 to deploy more troops in Samar, Negros island and Bicol; utilizing the so-called “whole-of-nation” approach that harnesses the entire government (national and local) plus civil society organizations in a bid to end the 50-year armed conflict. Clearly though, his actions contradict his boasts against the CPP, which his government shrilly tries to demonize and misrepresent as a puny force being deserted by droves of supposed surrenderers.

But, like the failed land reform program, Duterte’s “whole-of-nation” approach is just another war plan his predecessors have long applied and failed on. It is like the wolf appropriating the voice of the innocent so it can freely enter homes to devour and kill.

Duterte is turning the entire government bureaucracy including civilian sectors into a counter-revolutionary surveillance and black propaganda factory. Its services are being deployed to feed into the coercive military and police troops cracking down on legal democratic mass organizations, and their allies here and abroad. While this government is raining bombs and lies, it is restraining flow of information about the revolutionary movement. It is banning media interviews and coverage of revolutionary groups.

Duterte is trying to revive the monsters of Marcos’s martial law, but not quite succeeding at muzzling the freedom of association and freedom of the press. He goes all-out with K-12 miseducation that’s washing off traces of patriotism and prompts for critical thinking among the youth. All the while he is pushing for military partnership with schools to abet surveillance and intimidation of critical students and teachers.

PR-labeling all these as “whole-of-nation approach,” Duterte dreams about finishing off the CPP-led revolution but only through a one-sided, reality-defying, blood-drenched misrepresentation of life on the ground.

For this brutal fantasy, his office wants to double its intelligence budget to P4.5 billion in 2020, or bloat it to half as big as the total budget of the Office of the President. His minions in Congress seek to add more teeth to the anti-terror law they euphemistically call as Human Security Act. His regime and the US government have agreed to locate a regional training center for combating insurgency and “terrorism” in Cavite. The military consistently receives from the US technical and intelligence support, training and equipment for countering the revolutionary groups.

Yet, amid the Duterte regime’s one-sided diatribes against the CPP-NPA, some truths still inadvertently emerge. Some from his own big mouth. Duterte himself can’t deny the public support for the communist revolutionaries.

After all, he wooed the Filipino voters into electing him president by cultivating appearances of being friendly to the CPP- NPA. His campaign ploy has confirmed that candidates gain popularity by calling themselves “leftist” or “socialist”; by promising peace talks with the communists; and by taking up issues articulated by or identified with the Left. For example, the call to assert Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea vis-à-vis China’s aggressive intrusion into and grabbing of maritime areas within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones.

Past presidents and presidential candidates publicly pretended to ignore the existence of revolutionary mass bases in the countryside, even when they were impelled to engage in peace talks. They fumed whenever “security concerns” delayed their visits to some locales, when candidates can’t simply enter guerrilla zones. They evaded disclosing the fears expressed by multinational corporations over another government operating clandestinely in the Philippines, which, unlike the reactionary government, calls them to task for their plunder and rights violations.

Perhaps Duterte, who claims to know a lot about the revolutionaries, panicked after he realized that the neocolonial institution he leads wouldn’t tolerate his slight deviation from the usual conduct of puppet presidents. Or, perhaps as a true neocolonial leader of landlord and comprador class (albeit with lesser money in his hands?) he panicked at his first-hand confirmation of the depth and breadth of the Left’s mass support.

Whatever, even when he was firmly following the tradition of imperialist puppetry of those who got to become temporary residents of Malacañang, he still inadvertently slips up, revealing in his ramblings the good things the CPP-NPA have been doing. For example, land reform.

But it would be political suicide for Duterte, or for any local government executive and for the AFP, to say outright that he is against land reform. To “win hearts and minds” and bar more people from supporting the revolutionaries, Duterte and his cohorts have to put deceiving masks to their war plans.

NPA: THE TRUE ARMY OF THE PEOPLE PUSHING FOR GENUINE LAND REFORM

The NPA is largely a peasant army. Its support and troops mainly come from the poor peasants who comprise about 70 percent of the Philippine society. As the army of the revolutionary people led by the CPP, the NPA is waging a revolution against the imperialist stranglehold on Philippine society. It aims to end this stranglehold by dismantling the puppet government that orchestrates and secures it to benefit the landlords and compradors. In the process, the NPA, under CPP leadership, is resolving with ever growing number of people the roots of poverty, landlessness, feudal exploitation, agricultural backwardness and the stunting of industrial development.

Ever since the CPP-NPA-NDFP began waging an armed revolutionary war, it has been pushing for genuine land reform. It is deriving greater strength the more it works to organize and help peasant communities undertake land reform.

The NPA is not just a military force. It is arousing, organizing, and mobilizing the masses. It is starting and helping the peasants into organizing and running the Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magsasaka or PKM (National Peasants Association), and other revolutionary mass organizations based in rural communities.

These organizations conduct campaigns for land reform suited to their capacities. The more masses organized into revolutionary groups the more they could undertake land reform and enjoy its fruits. The more they cherish and bolster the NPA underpinning their successes.

A PKM leader correctly said recently, as the national democratic revolution advances, the PKM shall be able to give more lands to poor peasants. Lands confiscated from landlords and agri-business corporations are given to beneficiaries free of amortization. The CPP-NPA also punishes the most despotic landlords.

Contrast this to the misery of intensifying feudal and semi-feudal exploitation, and one sees the futility of discouraging the masses from supporting the NPA. In time, their level of organization and experience approaches the building of bigger and bolder organs of political power in communities. This may start small with humble benefits, but as a PKM leader said, it is enough for PKM chapters to withstand the hardships and tragedies of counterrevolutionary wars.

In revolution they have hope. And having tasted its benefits even from the early stage of strategic defensive of the protracted people’s war, they would not easily be swayed by phony pictures and declarations.

Thanks to the NPA, the country’s peasants have had a taste of what it’s like to be in a truly democratic government—at least, the local underground government they are building up every day, campaigns after campaigns for land reform. What it’s like to govern themselves, to elect tried-and-tested leaders among themselves, to work the farm sustainably, to share and enjoy its fruits among themselves and not let it become the sole entitlement of landlords, to help plan and execute appropriate farming techniques and technology.

The organized peasants are also doing their share in thwarting the imposition of imperialist-led “reforms” and programs.

The NPA has functioned to truly harness the power of the people in working collectively for each other’s economic and political gains.

“The comrades in the NPA are helping us come up with policies and guidelines in the land distribution, especially on who should be prioritized—those landless and those who lack lands to till,” said Ka Iling, a peasant leader who participated in a local agrarian revolution conference in 2017 held at a guerilla front in the north. It was a joint project of local members of the CPP, the NPA, and the various revolutionary mass organizations in the area.

All over the country, PKM and other collectives of revolutionary groups, without fanfare, have tackled problems of landlessness, conducted land occupation, palit-tanim (changing crops) to have something to eat even as they are forced to plant cash crops. They have struggled to reduce land rent and usurious rates. They have formed cooperatives to work the land more efficiently, buy their needs, and sell their produce lessening the dominance of traders-landlords-usurers.

Almost a million PKM members have benefited from the CPP and the NPA’s maximum agrarian reform program: more than 44,000 hectares of land have been confiscated and redistributed all over the country. Millions of others have benefitted from the campaigns for lower land rent, lower borrowing interest rates, just share in proceeds of harvest, increased farm gate prices, and eliminating traders’ trickery when farmers’ produce are weighed and priced.

Their support services include training and workshops on organic farming, construction of mini dams for free irrigation, installation of hydroelectric and solar or wind-powered turbines for post-harvest drying or processing, among others.

All these and its further development are what are at stake in the counter-revolutionary war waged by the Duterte administration.

THE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION ON A WINNING PATH

Farmers call Duterte a hypocrite for pretending to care about the future generation while doing his best to kill their best prospects today.

He was quoted as telling the CPP-NPA, “We cannot go on this way. We have been fighting for 53 years. Maawa kayo sa susunod (Have mercy on the) coming generation.”

If he was indeed a man of mercy, he could have helped signal the end of armed fighting early into his term. When he terminated the peace negotiations in 2017, the two sides were on the cusp of signing an agreement prompting the Philippine government to implement a genuine land reform.

A clearly-defined mutually coordinated ceasefire would have followed.

As such, even before the massacres occurred in the hacienda land of Negros, or before the killings of peasants all over the country have reached a staggering number of victims (more than 200 as of August 2019 since he became president), the Duterte government could have halted the fighting. For the first time in history, it could have led to the neocolonial government helping resolve the peasant demands which are at the root of the prolonged armed conflict.

Instead, Duterte only confirmed the correctness of the people’s war as means to dismantle the neocolonial government by armed force. His regime has acted true to form in deploying more troops against the peasant-based NPA fighters. Duterte himself acted true to form like the other neocolonial leaders before him. He vowed to sell to highest bidders the fertile lands being defended by the peasants with their very lives.

His agricultural secretary accused the farmers doing bungkalan for survival that they have no rights to the land they should have owned already. He has also been approving with alacrity the appeals of landlords to defeat the farmers’ demands for land distribution. This includes the lands in Hacienda Luisita already ordered for distribution by the Supreme Court.

Duterte admits that “it’s not only about gaining a foothold in those areas,” referring to hotbeds of revolution like Negros, for example. In Sagay City where peasants awaiting CLOAs were massacred by paramilitary troops in October 2018, farmers have been forced to leave and go hungry as troops continue arriving to secure the landlords’ “lawful” ownership. How could the Duterte administration think they could win over these farmers?

Duterte himself admits it is not enough to just bring soldiers to guard the land. “Kunin mo na ang initiative sa komunista (Take the initiative from the communists). What they’re parlaying is land. Eh di unahan na natin. Bigay na natin [ang lupa] (Then let’s move ahead of them. Let’s distribute the land already).”

From the puppet leader who has repeatedly uttered lies and shamelessly admitted to uttering lies, the only true thing he revealed here is that the initiative on land reform is with the communists.

Ever since, the puppet government bowing to imperialist masters has only been reacting to the peasants’ demands for land with bogus land reform programs. The imperialists profit so much from dumping their surplus agricultural products here, while pushing their manufactured products, too. As long as the domestic industries are pushed back and stunted, they have a captive market. The landlord and comprador classes, meanwhile, win big in corruption, buy-and-sell profits, fat contracts and commissions. But the masses grow poorer and hungrier by the day.

Four years ago before Duterte, the poorest 50 percent or 11.4 million Filipino families subsisted on just P15,000 or less per month (P500 or less per day for a family of six). After tax and price hikes amid the lowest wage grants and the worst job generation in the post-Marcos period, the people are definitely worse off today under Duterte. Meanwhile, thanks to his economic policies, the net worth of the country’s richest and the profits of the largest corporations have ballooned.

“Crisis generates resistance,” as CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison titled one of his recent books. The peasantry had launched uprisings and died in bigger numbers before, without the communists to guide them. Now that they have tasted agrarian victories and glimpsed the best future in advancing the national democratic revolution, with socialist perspective, they have hope and will not likely give up on that.

Duterte’s “whole-of-nation” mantra for what he strains to approximate as martial law stands no chance. His human rights record already stinks with blood and many have recoiled from it, even the ordinary people in other countries.
His publicly paid troops who perform services for the landlords, oppress the peasants and the indigenous peoples, will continue to earn the people’s ire and mistrust. Duterte’s minions can conveniently dismiss their war crimes as “shit happens” and “collateral damage”. Before the media, Duterte can shed tears when his troops suffer defeat in legitimate combats with the New People’s Army.

They will keep on getting what they deserve from the people’s army, if they don’t stop standing in the way of genuine land reform, democracy and real prosperity for the majority of the people. #

#PeasantMonth
#ServeThePeople
#JoinTheNPA

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