Will A “Hugo Chavez-type” End the Filipino Revolution?

[The question arises: Can populist rhetoric sway hearts and minds without petrodollars?  —  Frontlines ed.]

Joma sees Duterte as Pinoy-version of Hugo Chavez

October 10, 2015

by JEFRY M. TUPAS, CORRESPONDENT, The Manila Times

UTRECHT, The Netherlands: Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), made himself clear—he did not endorse Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as his preferred next president of the Philippines.

“But how can I do that when he did not yet declare that he is running for president?” he said laughing, in front of him a cup of brewed coffee sitting cold – untouched – on a long white table, the ‘centerpiece’ inside the office of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) here.

Philippines: Peasants Shut Down Trial of Political Prisoners

Tiamzon couple hearing suspended as Quezon City Courthouse Shuts Down

The Quezon City Regional Trial Court suspended work today, as peasants and activists protested on its grounds and called for the release of political prisoners Wilma and Benito Tiamzon.

 

BY DEE AYROSO
Bulatlat.com

 

MANILA – The pre-trial hearing of political prisoners Wilma and Benito Tiamzon was deferred today, Oct. 21, as the Quezon City Hall of Justice suspended work for the day at around 8:30 a.m., prompted by a protest of more than 1,000 peasants outside the court.

Philippines: Rebels warn MILF: “Don’t give up your weapons”

[see the news article, followed by the statement from the National Democratic Front of the Philippines — Mindanao. — Frontlines ed.]

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by Germelina Lacorte, Philippine Daily Inquirer Mindanao

 Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

[JORGE MADLOS, spokesperson of the National Democratic Front in Mindanao, in this photo taken December 2003 in his then hideout somewhere in Surigao del Sur AFP]

DAVAO CITY—Two weeks ago,  amid calls for the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army to return to the negotiating table with the government, Left leader Satur Ocampo had urged President Aquino to “uphold his vow to resume peace talks”  with the insurgent group, just like he did with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

But over the weekend, the communist National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) warned the Moro group against the government’s  “devious scheming” with regard to the framework agreement it signed early this month.

In a statement e-mailed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Jorge Madlos, NDFP spokesperson in Mindanao, warned the MILF against readily giving up its arms, and said that agreeing to decommission its Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) would render the group useless in protecting the rights of the Moro people.

“Learning lessons from the    past, the MILF should not easily relinquish its effective military strength on the whim of the reactionary government so that it can continue to defend the interests of the entire Moro people,” said Madlos, also known as Ka Oris.

Philippines: “Support the Moro struggle against the Aquino regime’s deceptiveness”

[Reporting on the recently-announced negotiations and agreement between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippine government, this article from Ang Bayan (organ of the Communist Party of the Philippines) traces the CPP’s view of the agreement, its dangers, and the CPP’s relationship with the Moro Independence movement. — Frontlines ed.]

Editorial, Ang Bayan

October 21, 2012

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the national-democratic revolutionary forces are among the most ardent advocates of the Moro people’s struggle for their right to national self-determination.

The Program for a People’s Democratic Revolution supports the struggle of national minorities against chauvinism and oppression and recognizes their aspirations for autonomy and their right to secede from the ruling oppressive state. This support is also unequivocally contained in the 12-Point Program of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

The struggle of the Filipino and Moro peoples are tightly intertwined. Both of them resist the same reactionary state that oppresses and exploits the toiling masses. As an instrument of US imperialism, the Philippine puppet reactionary state tramples on the rights of the Filipino people to national liberation in allowing American and foreign big companies to exploit the Filipino nation’s natural resources. It further allows the US military to interfere, dominate and freely operate in the country and make use of the Philippines as a platform for its power-projection and interventionism in other countries.

In recent decades, this same reactionary state, from the Marcos to the current Aquino regime, has gravely abused the Moro people’s political, economic and cultural rights. Fascist troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) occupy the ancestral land and political territory of the Moro nation in an effort to impose the constitution and political power of the reactionary state upon the Moro people.

The violent suppression of the Moro people has sparked their armed resistance throughout history. They largely succeeded in resisting over three centuries of Spanish colonialism. Their aspiration for self-determination was, however, more effectively suppressed with the supplanting of the Spanish colonialists by the new US colonial power. Using its bigger, more economically and technologically advanced capability, US imperialism, and later, its puppet reactionary state were later able to completely dominate the Moro homeland.

It was only through persistent revolutionary armed struggle since the 1970s that the Moro people were able to defend themselves, gain recognition for their struggle for self-determination and provide it a more national form. The Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausog, Samal, Yakan and other Moro groups united under the banner of armed struggle. Since the start of their national armed revolution, the revolutionary movement has been one with the Moro people in advancing their struggle for their right to national self-determination.

As US-Philippine military drills begin, CPP opposes VFA and weighs its role in possible China conflict

[The US role in the Philippines, militarily, began with the US’ replacement of the Spanish as colonial master, and the defeat of Filipino independence forces.  The formal colonial relationship continued for a half-century, when a comprador, neo-colonial relationship was established, with strong US controls and a string of US military bases in place.  During the US war on Vietnam (as part of its strategic “encirclement of China” campaign), the US utilized the Philippines as a major staging area and base for aggression, which also brought in the period of Marcos’ martial law to ensure US control over rebellious Filipinos.  In the years after the war, US strategic planning reduced the US military from full-time deployment on bases, to a recurrent “Visiting Forces” role.  The US is now pressing for larger forces and a more established presence once again.  With US hegemony feeling pressure from the growth of Chinese imperialist economics and power, the sharpening dispute over the Spratley Islands (between the Philippines and China–and other “China Sea” disputes involving Vietnam, Japan, and Korea) may be a flashpoint as the Philippines are once again becoming a geo-strategic pivot for regional contention.  See the following 3 articles on how these forces, including the Communist Party of the Philippines, may see their role in the period ahead. — Frontlines ed.]

The PH, US Marines begin annual joint exercises

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Monday, October 8th, 2012

SUBIC Bay Freeport—The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) starts Monday joint exercises with soldiers of the United States (US) to strengthen their defense partnership amid continuing tensions between Manila and Beijing over the ownership of the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal and other disputed islands in the West Philippine (South China) Sea.

In a statement, First Lt. Cherry Tindog, director of the Philippine Marine Corps public affairs office, said the 10-day Philippines-US Amphibious Landing Exercise (Phiblex) 2013 would focus on humanitarian assistance, disaster response and relief preparedness, maritime security and community development.

Annual training

Tindog said Phiblex was held yearly, providing joint training not only to Philippine Marines and US troops, but also the Philippine Army, Air Force and Navy.

The US helicopter carrier USS Bonhomme Richard, escorted by two frigates, arrived in this free port on Friday carrying 2,200 American troops. The ship carries amphibious assault vehicles, light armored vehicles, helicopters and Harrier fighter jets.

The USS Olympia, a submarine, docked here on Thursday, but it was not clear if it will join the exercises. The US Embassy, in a statement, said the Olympia’s visit “highlights the strong historic, community and military connections” between the US and the Philippines.

Exercise venues

The training venues are the Subic Bay International Airport here; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija; Marine Barracks Gregorio Lim in Ternate, Cavite; Crow Valley in Tarlac; Naval Station

Apolinario Jalandoon in Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, and the Naval Education Training Command in San Antonio, Zambales.

“[The conduct of Phiblex 2013] perpetuates a long and lasting partnership founded firmly on the common heritage between freedom-loving countries committed to true service and the preservation of liberty and democracy,” the Phiblex command said in a statement.

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Robert Gonzaga, Inquirer Central Luzon

Local Reds vow to fight with PH forces vs Chinese aggression

By Dennis Jay Santos, Inquirer Mindanao, Friday, September 28th, 2012

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—Philippine communist rebels, while embracing the ideology of Mao Zedong, will not side with China in the event the two countries’ territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) gets ugly.

Jorge Madlos, spokesperson of National Democratic Front in Mindanao, said New People’s Army rebels will fight alongside government security forces if China declared war on the Philippines.

“If there is a direct foreign invasion of our country, the focus of the revolutionary movement would be to fight the foreign aggressor,” Madlos, also known as Ka Oris, told the Inquirer in a telephone interview.

Philippines: “Shatter the illusion of the ‘righteous road'”

[This article from Ang Bayan by the Communist Party of the Philippines, takes a look at the current Aquino regime’s cultivation of petty-bourgeois illusions (of progress and reform) and support for the Philippines’ comprador relations with the US.  It argues that only through breaking with the US can corruption be ended, and can progress and reform take place.  The article does not speak to the Philippines’ relations (today and in the future) with other imperialists who wait in the wings, nor to whether the democratic struggle it promotes is linked to socialist revolution–and if so, if this is a distant prospect or one that is more contemporary.  In a period when some parties internationally have de-linked the democratic struggle from socialist revolution, this question deserves the attention of revolutionaries everywhere. — Frontlines ed.]

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Editorial, Ang Bayan, August 07, 2012

Under the guidance of its imperialist master, the Aquino regime is relentlessly conjuring the illusion of the “righteous road” and has been pouring in funds, lavishing attention and providing personnel to deceptive showcase projects.

This is an indication of the depths of the crisis of the ruling system. The regime wants to deceive the people, create false hopes of a better life and nip in the bud their determination to put an end to the rotten exploitative system.

These programs are particularly aimed at winning over the middle sectors of society, including the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, using the framework of “good governance.”

It is crucial for the ruling classes to “gain the trust” of the petty bourgeoisie to maintain the stability of the ruling system. The petty bourgeoisie are forcibly isolated from the movements of the toiling masses and distanced from the path of revolutionary change. They are inundated by glittering propaganda and enticed through idealist slogans that are attuned to their dreams of making it big even as they partake of “concrete changes” as individuals, without disturbing the current order of things and abandoning their personal dreams.

Schools, the mass media and the internet are awash with the Aquino regime’s propaganda and programs to hoodwink and seduce the petty bourgeoisie. Their closest partners in this sinister endeavor to mobilize the petty bourgeoisie for attention-grabbing but limited housing, education and health programs are agencies appendaged to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) or the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Philippines: An alliance between CPP and the Philippine government?

[Under the banner of “defending national interests” against China, the first steps toward an alliance between the US’ comprador/puppet Philippine regime of  President Aquino, and the Communist Party of the Philippines are being given public expression.  See, below, news of the government response to the offer made by Jose Maria Sison a few days ago.  Sison’s speech, given in the Netherlands but transmitted online to a National  Security Program at the AFP HQ Camp Aguinaldo in the Philippines, is posted under the news article, below.  —  Frontlines ed.]

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“Govt open to alliance with Reds”

Manila Standard Today, May 2nd, 2012, by Joyce Pangco Panares

The Aquino administration is open to forging an alliance with the communists, the government’s chief negotiator, Alexander Padilla, said Tuesday.He said the government was open to accepting suggestions from “a recommendatory body” created by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front.Communist Party founding chairman Jose Maria Sison on Monday renewed his offer of an alliance and a truce with the government through a “special track” in the negotiations, but dropped a proposal for a coalition.Sison made the offer in an online lecture before the National Defense College of the Philippines in Camp Aguinaldo on Monday, a copy of which was e-mailed to the Manila Standard.

Padilla described Sison’s offer as “doable.”

“It is possible that a recommendatory body by them may be formed. If they are pushing for this special track, we are open to this. We find this more welcome than their earlier proposal for a coalition,” Padilla said.

“But let me make it clear we are only talking of an alliance here. We are not talking of coalition or power sharing or giving Cabinet posts to the CPP-NDFP.

Sison expressed optimism that the peace talks, which have been stalled for 14 months, could still be revived through the special track.

“I urge no less than the President of the government of the Philippines to muster the political will to do his crucial part in making the regular and special tracks succeed,” he said.

Internationalist Solidarity: Indian Maoist salute to the memory of Filipino Revolutionary leader “Ka Roger”

COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) — CENTRAL COMMITTEE — Press Release — September 24, 2011

The son of a rice farmer, Ka Roger, native of Ibaan town in Batangas, was spokesperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines until his death from a heart attack last year, at the age of 63.

CPI (Maoist)’s condolence message to the Central Committee of the CPP on the demise of Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal

Dear Comrades,

Our CC felt deep sorrow when we heard the news of passing away of Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, spokesperson and chief of the Information Bureau of your Party, the CPP. On behalf of the Indian revolutionary movement and entire revolutionary masses of India, we send our heartfelt condolences to the CPP, NPA and NDF, all near and dears of the departed veteran of Filipino revolution. We share your grief. The demise of Ka Roger is a great loss to entire Communist revolutionaries of the world.

Veteran Communist leader Comrade Roger greatly contributed to the Filipino revolution ever since he jumped into the revolutionary movement in 1972. Born into a poor peasant family in the countryside, he raised to the level of the spokesperson of the Party. This would inspire every communist across the world. From ‘Great Escape’, he played crucial role in expanding and consolidating the Filipino revolution as well as armed struggle and mass struggles. He strode unwaveringly against all odds faced in his personal and political life. Understanding the significance of the propaganda work in revolution he accrued immense experience in propaganda front striving hard. The way your Party waged a relentless revolutionary propaganda war in defeating the psychological war being carried out by the imperialists and their lackey Benigno Aquino III is simply great. It’s been an immense inspiration to our Party. Despite of severe ill health, as a veteran communist leader Ka Roger had been in touch with propaganda bureau of the CPP furnishing it with his invaluable suggestions till the end and thus he handed over his legacy to his comrades so that the tasks of the revolution could be carried on ceaselessly.

His demise is a huge loss to not only Filipino Revolution, but to the world socialist revolution as well. He displayed enormous competence, patience, straightforwardness, intelligence, patriotism and love for his nation throughout his career as a revolutionary. Thus he presented himself before the world people as a model of how communists would think about the world.

The CC of CPI (Maoist) humbly bows its head in memory of this Great Leader of the World Proletariat Ka Roger and vows to carry the World Proletarian Socialist Revolution forward.

 (Abhay)

Spokesperson,

Central Committee,

CPI (Maoist)

Philippines: President and Politicians Stir a Media Riot of Rumors and Speculation

PNoy: Joma may run in 2013 polls

by Joyce Pangco Pañares and Maricel Cruz, Manila Standard Today

Sunday March 4 2012

Benigno Aquino III ("Noynoy")

Jose Maria Sison ("Joma")

PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III on Friday confirmed that Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison will be returning to the country.

However, Sison, who has been on a self-imposed exile in Utrecht since 1988, would only return to the Philippines after a formal and comprehensive peace agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front has been signed, the President said.

“Joma Sison will return home once there is already an agreement … There is ongoing negotiation for the signing of a peace agreement. But negotiations for his return have not yet begun,” Mr. Aquino said.

He also hinted that Sison could participate in the 2013 elections but did not elaborate.  “We have an upcoming election.  Whoever wins in the elections will represent the people and will decide for the majority. So the end point is if he returns to the country, it will be for the final peace agreement,” Mr. Aquino said.

The anti-communist party-list group Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy earlier claimed that at least four members of Mr. Aquino’s Cabinet were convincing Sison to return to Manila to join the government as part of national unification efforts, a claim the Palace has denied.

The group’s spokesman, Joey Sison, named presidential peace adviser Teresita Deles, presidential political adviser Ronald Llamas, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, and government chief negotiator for the CPP-NDF Alexander Padilla as among the conduits of the communist leader.

Padilla, in a phone interview Friday, denied that the government is offering a Cabinet post to Sison for the sake of “national unification.”

“If the government and the NDF sign a peace agreement tomorrow, then maybe Sison would come back here. But that is so impossible at this point because the NDF is still insisting on the release of their political prisoners, which we cannot agree to,” Padilla said.

Philippines: “US wants to setup a mini-Subic to accomodate rotating American troops”–CPP

[The Japanese Kyodo News Agency reported, “Defense Secretary Leon Panetta indicated Tuesday that the United States is considering moving some of its Marines in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to the Philippines as part of efforts to diversify their deployment on a rotational basis….Noting the importance of maintaining a military presence in the Pacific region, Panetta told a hearing of the Senate Arms Services Committee, ‘We’ve just developed an agreement with Australia to do a rotational presence there. We’re working with the Philippines on hopefully a similar arrangement there as well.’ …..Giving up the initial plan to transfer some 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam, the Pentagon is now considering moving about 4,700 Marines from Okinawa to Guam and 3,300 to elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region.”  After this news was reported, the Communist Party of the Philippines issued the following statement, with important background information. — Frontlines ed.]

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Before its closure 20 years ago, the US Naval Base Subic Bay was the largest Navy base overseas, and a hub of activity during the imperialist war on Vietnam. Today the US seeks to re-establish a permanent presence in the Philippines, as military attention is focusing anew on the Asia-Pacific region

Information Bureau, Communist Party of the Philippines

Press Release, February 16, 2012

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today assailed the US government for seeking to establish another Subic Naval Base in the Philippines, a little smaller perhaps, to service ships and troops being “rotated” in the Asia-Pacific region.

“US plans to setup a mini-Subic military base, service facility or exclusive dock in the Philippines have become increasingly apparent as officials of the Obama government announced it is going to rotate at least 3,300 troops from its Okinawa base in Australia, Singapore, Hawaii and the Philippines.

Testifying before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Obama government is working to forge an agreement with the Aquino regime similar with that forged with Australia allowing the US military to regularly dock American warships and maintain “rotational” presence.

US officials have announced earlier that it had scrapped initial plans to transfer its 8,000 troops based in Okinawa to its base in Guam, an American territory. Instead, it now plans to transfer only 4,700 troops to Guam and have the rest of its Okinawa-based forces “rotated” in the Asia-Pacific countries.

“The plan to set up facilities in the Philippines for the regular docking of American warships will practically bring back American military bases in the country,” said the CPP. “The US wants to use the Philippines as a platform for its power-projection, China-containment and interventionist operations in the Asia-Pacific region.”

“The biggest problem of the Filipino peopls is that the Aquino regime is all too willing to provide its masters with all the facilities it needs.”

The matter of providing facilities for American troops on rotation in the Philippines was discussed in the Strategic Defense Dialogue (SDD) meeting earlier last month between officials of the US government and the Aquino regime. Aquino’s officials have promised the American government that it would come up with concrete proposals for this plan.

An agreement to setup such a facility in the Philippines is one of the agreements that the US seeks to sign in the coming months. Such negotiations are being carried out in the dark by officials of the Obama and Aquino regimes are an affront to Philippine sovereignty.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today called on the Filipino people to vigorously oppose US imperialist machinations to set up facilities in the Philippines to accomodate thousands of American troops who are to be put on “rotation” in Asia-Pacific waters in the upcoming years.

“The Filipino people must fan the flames of patriotism and stand up against the imperialist machinations of the US to use the Philippines as a platform for their hegemonism,” said the CPP.

Philippines: Chinese CP says it has disowned local rebels

[For over 30 years–since the death of Mao Zedong, when the revisionist coup led by Teng Hsiao-Ping overthrew socialism and restored capitalism–the Communist Party of China has been “communist” in name only.  A policy of suppressing revolutionaries inside China has been matched by opposing and disavowing, internationally, revolutionary movements, parties, and communists (including “Maoists”).  The following article spells out this policy in more detail:  the CCP disavows relations with communists who are banned and illegal (ie, those who wage armed struggle and have not committed to legal and electoral reform within capitalist and oppressive regimes).  While this policy is not surprising for a regime which has reversed its earlier revolutionary path, what does surprise is that, around the world, some so-called “communists” and so-called “Maoists” continue to disingenuously refer to China as “socialist,” “communist,” or “anti-imperialist’, despite the mounds of evidence to the contrary. — Frontlines ed.]

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‘ZERO’ TIES WITH CPP
Chinese communist party says it has disowned local rebels
By Jerry E. Esplanada, Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 27th, 2011

BEIJING—The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is no longer a concern of the 90-year-old and 80-million member Communist Party of China (CPC), according to a top party official.Shen Beili, director general of the international department of the Bureau of Southeast and South Asian Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, has described as “zero” the Chinese ruling party’s ties with its Philippine counterpart.Shen told a group of visiting Asian and African journalists—including this reporter—taking part in a two-week media program sponsored by the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the CPC, that the party’s relations with the CPP “have been severed since the 1980s.”“The CPC and the CPP used to have relations in the 1960s and 1970s. But in the 1980s, we made adjustments in our party policies and our relations were severed,” she recalled.Shen emphasized that “as long as our counterpart groups in other countries (like the CPP) are banned or considered illegal by their host governments, then we cannot have normal party-to-party relations.”

Philippines: Revolutionary Leader “Ka Roger” has passed

In this file photo taken Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2004, rebel spokesman Gregorio Rosal gestures as he talks to journalists during a clandestine news conference in a communist New People's Army encampment in northern Luzon, Philippines. The outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines said Sunday, Oct. 9, 2011, that Gregorio "Comrade Roger" Rosal died in a guerrilla zone on June 22 of a heart attack. He was 64. The popular Philippine communist guerrilla served as the movement's spokesman for years and gave a face to one of Asia's longest-running Marxist insurgencies.

“Ka Roger” dead at 64

By AARON RECUENCO, Manila Bulletin

October 9, 2011

Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, for many years the spokesman for the communist insurgency in the Philippines, is dead, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) revealed Sunday.

In a statement posted on its website Sunday afternoon, the CPP said Rosal succumbed to a heart attack last June 22 in a guerrilla front in Luzon at the age of 64.

“The entire membership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Red fighters of the New People’s Army, and the Filipino people are one with his family and friends in mourning his death,” the statement read.

Marco Valbuena, the media liaison of the CPP Information Bureau, said the public announcement was delayed to allow CPP officials to inform Ka Roger’s daughters of their father’s demise.

“Intense military operations prevented information from reaching his daughters with dispatch. Ka Roger’s siblings have also been informed of his passing,” Valbuena said.

The third of the six children of sugarcane planters in Batangas, Rosal got his first taste of militant activism when he joined a small group called Kabataang Gabay ng Bayan, a Batangueño activist group, and later the Kabataang Makabayan.

He became more militant when martial law was declared in 1972. The following year he was arrested and detained in a military camp in Batangas City.

In November 1973, he and nine others bolted jail. It was after his escape that he joined the CPP-New People’s Army and became part of the guerrilla front established in the Laguna-Quezon border along the Sierra Madre mountains–the so-called Larangan ng Kagitingan or Front of Heroism.

Philippine Army Commander: “Communism is not really a bad thing”

[It has been said that praise is an instrument  of deception and as such is a weapon of warfare–but ineffective if such “sugar-coated bullets” do not strike, and change, their target.  So the praise of the Chief of the Philippines Armed Forces for the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has since 1968 marched under the banners of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism, brings certain cautionary and basic truths to mind–one from Sun Tzu, the other from Mao Zedong:

“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.” (Sun Tzu, The Art of War)

“I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.” (Mao Tse-tung, May 26, 1939)

These are words worth taking to heart, as the AFP and the Philippine National Police, call once more for an end to the people’s war. — Frontlines ed.]

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Communism not really a bad thing, says AFP head

By DJ Yap
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

MANILA, Philippines—Communism is not bad—in fact it’s legal, says the man who commands the Armed Forces of the Philippines in its war against the 42-year-old Maoist insurgency.

Notwithstanding his position, AFP Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Eduardo Oban said he believes communism is not a terrible thing at all, at least as a personal philosophy.

“You know, communism as an ideology is not bad. Actually, under the Constitution, communism is legal,” he said on the sidelines of a news conference on Thursday.

Communist Party of the Philippines welcomes order for release of the Morong 43, demands end to human rights abuses

International delegation of lawyers visit the Morong 43 at an army base

From http://www.phippinerevolution.net

[The Morong 43 are health workers who were arrested in February 2010 by units of the Armed Forces of the Philippines while they were attending a seminar in the coastal town of Morong in Rizal Province. The army accused them of being members of the banned New People’s Army.–Frontlines ed].

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today welcomed President Benigno Aquino’a order for the Department of Justice to withdraw charges against the Marong 43 as a boost of goodwill for the forthcoming resumption of peace negotiations.

Formal peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) are scheduled to resume in February 2011, in Oslo, Norway.

The withdrawal of charges against the Morong 43 is expected to be finalized by the DOJ [Department of Justice]  on Monday and pave the way for the immediate release of the detained health workers. Aquino’s order came weeks after repeatedly insisting that he cannot do anything except to await the court’s action, despite recognizing defects in the arrest of detainees and despite the fact that they have yet to be brought to court.

“The CPP and the revolutionary forces congratulate the Morong 43, their families, colleagues and supporters for their tenacious struggle and outstanding victory. These serve as inspiration in the fight of thousands of other victims of military abuses to defend their rights and in the effort to seek redress for the grave injustices inflicted on them by the puppet reactionary state and its fascist forces.”

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

 

Manila police attack students in front of Malacanang, the presidential palace

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

Posted on http://www.philippinerevolution.net

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

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

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

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

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

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