Fight Back News Service is circulating the following April 24 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) extend their most militant revolutionary greetings to all allied organizations and friends in the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) on the occasion of the NDFP’s 49th anniversary.

Let us celebrate the achievements and victories of the NDFP in its work of uniting the Filipino people and mobilizing them along the path of the national democratic revolution. In the coming year, let us continue to vigorously promote the national democratic program and aspirations of the Filipino people, expand the ranks of the NDFP and its allied organizations at an unprecedented rate, as we look forward to celebrating the NDFP’s golden anniversary next year.

The 18 underground organizations allied with the NDFP represent the majority of the Filipino people and their aspirations for genuine national freedom and democracy. In addition to the CPP and NPA, the NDFP counts among its allied organizations the:

Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan (Armas); Christians for National Liberation (CNL); Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF); Kabataang Makabayan (KM); Katipunan ng mga Gurong Makabayan (Kaguma); Katipunan ng mga Samahang Manggagawa (KASAMA); Liga ng Agham para sa Bayan (LAB); Lupon ng mga Manananggol para sa Bayan (Lumaban); Makabayang Kawaning Pilipino (MKP); Makabayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (Makibaka); Makabayang Samahang Pangkalusugan (MSP or Masapa); Moro Resistance Liberation Organization (MRLO); Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM); Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions (RCTU); Revolutionary Organization of Lumads (ROL); and the Revolutionary Organization of Overseas Filipinos and their Families (Compatriots).

These organizations serve workers, peasants, youth, women, teachers, health workers, scientists, minority people, and other sectors, and raise their determination and militance in fighting for the democratic rights. They have persevered in the revolutionary underground to unite their constituent sectors and link them with the overall struggle of the Filipino people.

They have been tempered in decades of revolutionary struggle, and many served as the indomitable core of the resistance against the US-Marcos dictatorship. They wage anti-imperialist, antifeudal and antifascist mass struggles and draw more and more people to the national democratic revolutionary cause. They promote and extend invaluable moral, political and material support to the revolutionary armed resistance. Countless members of the NDFP have become Red fighters of the NPA.

The NDFP is the most concentrated expression of the united front for armed struggle and draws widespread support for the people’s war. Its 12-Point Program is the most concentrated expression of the aspirations of the broad masses of the Filipino people for national and social liberation.

The NDFP represents the people’s democratic government which is the collective expression of the thousands of organs of political power at village and higher levels spread throughout the country. These organs of political power are founded on the strength of NDFP-allied mass organizations of peasants, women and children, youth and cultural workers. In its territories, the NDFP implements the minimum and maximum program for land reform, raising agricultural production and supplementary income from sideline occupation, campaigns for public health, education and literacy, maintaining peace and order, resolving contradictions among the people, and people’s defense.

Over the past two years, the NDFP has actively mobilized and helped the masses cope with the pandemic and the crisis brought about by the reactionary state’s neglect of their welfare. The NDFP’s revolutionary personnel have actively provided public health service (information campaign, sanitation drives, mass clinics) and educational support to school children who suffered the most from the gross failures.

The NDFP has represented brilliantly the people’s democratic government in the field of diplomatic and protodiplomatic relations. It has established state-to-state, state-to-people, and people-to-people solidarity relations and has been at the forefront and active participant in international anti-imperialist formations. It has formal relations with foreign governments and various international agencies, humanitarian organizations and peace institutions.

The NDFP has also demonstrated that it can engage in peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) without falling into the fascist trap of pacification, demobilization and capitulation. It has succeeded in establishing the principle for a just and lasting peace attainable by addressing the social, economic and political roots of the armed conflict, and demonstrating how this framework is vastly superior to the militarist notion of “localized peace” attained through military suppression of the people’s rights and resistance.

In the past six years, the Duterte regime has carried out intensified counterinsurgency operations and “war on terror” in line with US-imposed doctrine. This war is marked by sheer brutality to terrorize the people and use overwhelming force in the vain attempt to defeat the revolutionary guerrilla forces. It enacted the so-called Anti-Terrorism Law, a draconian law that overturns universal judicial processes and basic democratic rights.

Following US dictates and to justify his acts of suppression, Duterte has falsely and maliciously declared the CPP, the NPA, the NDFP and all its allied organizations as “terrorists.” This is a vain attempt to malign the revolutionary forces and obscure the national and democratic aspirations of the Filipino people which they represent.

On Duterte’s orders, police and military forces have gone on a rampage of mass killings, unlawful arrests, abductions, torture and forcing people to “surrender” in violation of their basic democratic rights. These acts of suppression have been accompanied by a campaign of red-baiting and terrorist-tagging. Internationally accepted rules of war are brazenly trampled. The AFP has applied US tactics of terror, blurring the distinction between combatants and civilians. In line with US tactic of “shock and awe,” the AFP has resorted to scorched earth tactics of aerial bombings, aerial strafing and artillery shelling of civilian communities to terrorize the people and make them bow to the military.

The Duterte regime, however, has succeeded only in inciting the Filipino people to fight back and resist his tyrannical rule. In various parts of the country, the people are denouncing rampant military and police abuses, taking collective action to protect their ranks against killings and unlawful arrests, expressing their indignation against military abuses, and driving out abusive soldiers from their communities. People are standing up for their rights and are persevering in building their unions and organizations and raising their determination to defend themselves.

The upcoming reactionary election is viewed by large segments of Philippine society as an opportunity to put an end to the six-year tyranny of the ruling Duterte fascist regime and prevent attempts to fully restore to power the corrupt Marcos family. Duterte and his clique, however, are determined to cling to power through outright stealing the elections to install his chosen successor and daughter as president and vice president, as well as his minions in the senate and lower house. The rising temperature of the elections is marked by increasingly large protest actions mounted by broad sectors supportive of the leading opposition contender. With the increasing political activity of the masses, more and more people are being drawn to the national democratic cause, generating conditions for the rapid expansion and strengthening of the NDFP.

In the countryside, the New People’s Army continues to persevere in waging armed struggle and steadily carry forward the people’s war. The ranks of the NPA continue to grow, especially with increasing numbers of victims and targets of military and police abuses being driven to the path of armed resistance. The NPA continues to expand its territories or areas of operation, strengthen or build new mass organizations, people’s militia units, self-defense corps and organs of political power, thus further widening and strengthening the base of the NDFP.

The chronic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system is being aggravated by the crisis of the international capitalist system, intensifying plunder and exploitation of the country’s resources by multinational companies, mounting foreign debt, barefaced corruption by bureaucrat capitalists, worsening forms of oppression and exploitation of workers and toiling people, rising cost of living, widespread unemployment, low wages and landgrabbing. The US imperialists and the ruling classes of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords are resorting to outright tyranny and state terrorism to preserve the ruling system which is increasingly unable to address the needs of the people.

The worsening crisis of the ruling system underscores the necessity and justness of waging people’s democratic revolution. The broad masses of workers and peasants and the rest of the oppressed and exploited classes and sectors have no way out of the crisis but to wage revolution and carry out the radical transformation of Philippine society. Only by putting an end to the US-supported neocolonial fascist state that serves the interests of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords can the Filipino attain national freedom and democracy and build a progressive and just society.

Let us celebrate today and in the coming days the 49th anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Let us continue to promote the 12-Point Program and gain more adherents. Let us accelerate recruitment of more members to the NDFP’s allied organizations. Let us heighten support for the revolutionary armed struggle. Let us continue to build and expand the organs of political power. Let us look forward to celebrating its 50th anniversary next year with greater strength and bigger victories.

Long live the National Democratic Front of the Philippines!

Long live the New People’s Army!

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Long live the Filipino people!

Carry forward the national democratic revolution until victory!

Greater strength and bigger victories for the NDFP!

#Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #NationalDemocraticFrontOfThePhilippinesNDFP #Asia