Central Committee
Communist Party of the Philippines
March 29, 2025
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines hails the New People’s Army on the occasion of its 56th anniversary. We give our firmest salute to the bravery and valor of Red fighters and commanders who continue to perserve in advancing the people’s war in order to fight for the Filipino people’s aspiration for national freedom and genuine democracy.
We congratulate the NPA for all its hard-won achievements in more than five and a half decades of waging people’s war. The Filipino people honor you as their beloved warriors. You fearlessly fight for the people to end the yoke of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, and wage fierce resistance against the US-Marcos regime.
On this important day, the leadership and entire membership of the Party pays tribute to the fallen heroes of the NPA who paid the ultimate sacrifice for choosing to serve the people in resisting their oppressors and exploiters. They are the people’s martyrs, whose lives of selfless dedication to the revolutionary cause is worthy of emulation.
We commend you for firmly upholding the leadership of the Party and actively advancing the rectification movement since December 2023. By being self-critical and rectifying past errors and weaknesses, you are slowly rebuilding your strength on the basis of the deep and wide support of the masses, and by waging guerrilla warfare according to your capabilities.
Much work has to be done to recover lost ground, revitalize the army and the mass base, and regain previous levels of strength. We have to hurdle many obstacles and adversity. The enemy desperately wants to crush the New People's Army, to leave the people defenseless and without a force to fight for their cause. The enemy wages a ruthless and relentless war, but in doing so, succeeds only in rousing the people to fight back with even greater energy and determination.
The entire Party must exert its utmost effort to strengthen the New People’s Army and advance the revolutionary armed struggle, which is the principal weapon of the Filipino, not only for defending themselves against the fascist oppressors and exploiters, but to achieve their aspiration for national and social liberation. The task of strengthening the NPA is presently the foremost task of the Party, as a whole, and must be shouldered by all cadres and committees, including those based in the cities, as well as overseas. Fulfillment of this task is requisite to advance all other tasks. All other tasks must serve the objective of advancing the revolutionary armed struggle.
Situation and tasks of the New People’s Army
The rectification movement currently being carried out by the Party continues to take root, spread out and bear positive results, particularly in the field of the revolutionary armed struggle. In the course of a little more than one year since launching the rectification movement, we have made thorough efforts at consolidating and revitalizing the NPA. Under the rectification movement, the Party is vigorously promoting within the ranks of the NPA an internal study and review of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the Party’s basic principles and the strategy and tactics for waging protracted people’s war.
To further the rectification movement, the NPA has held conferences at the regional and other levels of command to sum-up experiences in order to identify and address errors, weaknesses and shortcomings in the past. These have confirmed, elaborated and deepened the key critical observations made by the Central Committee in initiating the rectification movement in December 2023. Resolutions have been adopted that aim to strengthen the NPA and propel the people’s war forward in a comprehensive manner. The Red fighters of the NPA are ever determined to fight for the people against the brutal onslaught of the fascist and oppressive US-Marcos regime.
The Party and the NPA are thoroughly criticizing and repudiating the predominantly Right opportunist tendencies that lead to errors, weaknesses and shortcomings, and which have resulted in stagnation and setbacks. These have primarily taken the form of conservatism and loss of guerrilla initiative in both military and political work, weakening both the NPA and its mass base.
These have resulted in self-constricting tendencies, such as prolonged mountain basing of NPA formations and failure to expand the operational areas of NPA units beyond their “favorite” base areas. This consequently diminished the capability of the NPA to conduct sustained and widespread social investigation, propaganda and organizing among the peasant masses in large numbers. Some NPA units have began to bank on rich peasant allies to lead mass struggles, instead of building the organized strength primarily of the poor peasants and farm workers, together with the lower-middle and middle-middle peasants. There is also the tendency to rely solely on providing socioeconomic or community projects, which draw the masses away from the necessity of building their mass organization for waging class struggles to fight feudal and semifeudal forms of oppression and exploitation. There has been a prolonged neglect in the systematic effort to build the militia units and unleash their initiative in guerrilla warfare. As a result of all these, we have seen how the mass base has tended to grow narrow and shallow.
The key task of waging agrarian revolution has not been firmly grasped. Land reform campaigns that mobilize the peasants in their numbers have not been waged at a level of intensity and scope corresponding to the worsening and increasingly widespread forms of feudal and semifeudal exploitation, land-use conversion, and rural economic dispossession of millions of peasants, farm-workers and fisherfolk. Past victories in carrying out land reform have not been consolidated and raised. The strengthening of local Party branches and mass organizations is not being carried out in a sustained manner.
We have observed how these weaknesses and shortcomings in building and expanding the mass base have undermined the capability and confidence of the NPA to carry out tactical offensives that primarily aim to annihilate the enemy’s armed forces piece by piece, and take away its weapons. There is instead the tendency to excessively favor sporadic harassment and other attritive tactical offensives, which neither systematically erodes the strength of the enemy, nor helps in the steady accumulation of strength of the NPA. This is further compounded by the tendency to be passive in the face of the enemy’s military superiority, that is a result of the come from a myopic and one-sided view of the balance of forces, and the failure to have a dialectical view of the enemy’s tactical strength and its strategic weakness.
Right opportunist tendencies also foster ultra-democracy and weaken the internal military discipline of the NPA, and the ideological commitment of Red fighters. Ultrademocracy has engendered a sense of complacency and bred “civilianization” among Red fighters. The basic rules and orientation are not strictly observed in the way they conduct their daily activities in camp, on march, in mass work or military work. These invariably slow down maneuvers, deter initiative, and ultimately hamper their capability to effectively fight battles with the enemy. Guerrilla secrecy is compromised with the overuse of supply lines, maneuvering through old routes known to the enemy, and neglect of basic precautions in the use of electronic and radio equipment. Due to lack of strict observance of policies, the enemy has succeeded on many occasions to infiltrate GPS trackers used for precision aerial strikes.
Other manifestations of ultrademocracy are the overdispersal of units, lack of a strong system of command and control, failure to regularly report to and coordinate with their higher command, and neglect in developing and strengthening a fast and reliable system of communications. Right opportunism has also given rise to bureaucratism, in which commands fail to exercise prompt leadership to give direction or help resolve problems or issues facing lower units. At its worst, bureaucratism has taken the form of “exceptionalism” where policies have been unevenly applied among commanders and fighters, thereby eroding the internal unity of some units of the people’s army.
We have also observed “Left” opportunist tendencies as a secondary trend, including the absolute or prolonged concentratation of platoons and higher formations, expansion-by-fire tactics that unduly reveals the direction of the NPA, hitting at hard targets of the enemy, undue focus on company-sized tactical offensives to the neglect of small unit tactical offensives, and others.
The gradual erosion of the mass base, the steady reduction in the capability to carry out annihilative tactical offensives, increasing lapses in guerrilla discipline, and growing bureaucratism within the ranks of the NPA have all contributed to shortcomings in carrying out the tactical line of waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. This has resulted in the protracted people’s war being stuck in the middle phase of the strategic defensive, for an extended period of time.
These weaknesses and shortcomings made the NPA vulnerable to the enemy’s intensified war of encirclement and suppression. Since 2017 and 2018, this has been marked by relentless focused and sustained military operations (FSMO) mobilizing tens of thousands of combat troops across the country, to array one or several battalions to every guerrilla front. The enemy attacked the peasant mass base viciously and relentlessly through hamletting, psywar, intimidation, surrender” drives, abductions, extrajudicial killings, massacres, aerial bombing and shelling. Under the guise of so-called retooled community support program” (RCSP) or “modified community support program,” teams of fascist troops permanently maintain their oppressive presence in the middle of civilian population.
Self-constriction placed the NPA in a weakened political position, which forced many units into a purely military situation, making them lose initiative and vulnerable to attacks. Due to these and other internal weaknesses and shortcomings, the NPA suffered significant setbacks during the period 2017-2022 in facing the ruthless US-supported aerial bombing campaign and ground operations of the US-Duterte regime. Many units mis-anticipated the duration of the enemy’s campaign with some thinking that they could “wait it out,” However, unlike the enemy’s past campaigns with shorter cycles lasting a few weeks to a month, the duration of the enemy’s FSMOs since 2017 grew longer, lasting from a few months to one year or more. The enemy has adopted blockhouse tactics by permanently setting up series of military camps and detachments in villages and communities. In some guerrilla fronts, the enemy’s FSMOs have been conducted non-stop for 7-8 years now.
For several years now, the enemy has played up the psywar line that it is on track to winning a strategic victory against the NPA. He has conjured exaggerated numbers of supposed “dismantled” or “weakened” guerrilla fronts. Top officers of the AFP have made the preposterous claim that the NPA has only one “weakened guerrilla front” left, even if they do not hide the fact that it continues to spend billions upon billions of pesos in aerial bombing, ground operations and psywar against the NPA and against the people.
Goaded by the AFP, provincial and local officials have made farcical declarations that their provinces or towns are “insurgency-free,” later eating their own words when NPA units mount tactical offensives. The AFP cannot dispute the reality that the NPA continues to enjoy the deep and wide support of the people because it continues to fight for their aspirations for justice and genuine freedom.
As early as 2022, several regional Party committees summed-up their experiences pointing to crucial errors, weaknesses and shortcomings in waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever deepening and widening mass base. Immediate adjustments in the conduct of NPA units were adopted to take the initiative to expand the mass base and mount tactical offensives based on capabilities. By launching the rectification movement in December 2023, the Central Committee built on these initial efforts, pointing out more systematically the ideological roots of these weaknesses, and more incisively identifying and criticizing the various Right opportunist tendencies which have caused the stagnation and setbacks in waging people’s war. The Party and the NPA recognize the challenges, the new situation and the new set of tasks that come with it.
The NPA is currently in the process of redeploying and re-orienting its units in accordance with the requirements for waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. Guerrilla units of the NPA are slowly overcoming passivity and regaining initiative. In the past year, they have been relatively more successful in preserving their forces, and at frustrating the enemy’s relentless and heightened campaign of encirclement and suppression. The enemy’s large-scale FSMOs are increasingly being rendered ineffective. So much so that even at the height of the enemy’s combat and combing operations last December and through January, units of the NPA were able to hold consolidation assemblies and host scores of visitors to conduct education and cultural activities.
By adapting the tactics of concentration, dispersal and shifting, quick movements, maintaining a high degree of secrecy, and by expanding their area of operations, guerrilla units of the NPA have mostly kept the enemy deaf and blind and rendered his military campaigns and aerial bombing drives ineffective. By waging active defense, units of the NPA have been increasingly able to inflict damage on the rampaging enemy forces. Ground forces of the AFP are being used as cannon fodder in combat operations waiting to be ambushed. Meanwhile, to maintain the illusion of having “strategically defeated the NPA,” the AFP is systematically concealing the rising number of casualties, killed and wounded, resulting from its failed attacks against the NPA.
However, as we pointed out last December, much work has to be done in order to see the complete fruition of the rectification movement. On this occasion of the NPA’s 56th anniversary, we reiterate and expound on the urgent ideological, politico-military and organizational tasks of the NPA and the Party core in line with the Party’s rectification movement.
We must raise the level of theoretical understanding of Red commanders and fighters and political guides. Further invigorate the study of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the basic principles of the Party by using these as guide in assessing and summing-up our experiences, and for planning out future courses of action. Make available the military writings of Chairman Mao Zedong for study and reference of Red commanders and fighters. Assidiously study Amado Guerrero’s Specific Characteristic of our People’s War as well as other key articles of the Central Committee, in order to have a clear grasp of how the protracted people’s war will develop through stages. Study Ka Joma’s valedictory article “The people’s democratic revolution is invincible” and firmly grasp the factors how the New People’s Army cannot be defeated.
Conduct ideological and cultural campaigns to further steel the determination of Red fighters to wage revolutionary armed struggle and deepen their selfless dedication to serve the people. Conduct memorials to remember the heroes and martyrs of the Philippine revolution who serve as models for emulation. Expose and repudiate the traitors and renegades who betrayed the people and the revolution.
Carry out a sustained campaign of ideological remoulding among the Red commanders and fighters of the NPA. Undertake regular criticism and self-criticism, and evaluation. Raise the level of military discipline and skills of Red fighters through constant review of basic military orientation and policies, trainings and regular physical exercises. Regularly conduct drills to raise the capability of units to move as one body.
Raise the political consciousness of Red fighters through regular political education about the burning issues of the day and the overall national and international situation. Hone their political and technical skills through such trainings as social investigation, public speaking, writing and so on.
Carry out recovery or reactivation, expansion and consolidation of the mass base with the aim of building company-sized guerrilla fronts. Continue to redeploy and reorient NPA units in accordance with the requirements for waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. Continue to build and strengthen NPA platoons as basic units, that maintain a center of gravity for command and communications, flexibly deploy and disperse its squads and teams for mass work and small unit tactical offensives, concentrate for consolidation, trainings and bigger tactical offensives, and shift to counter enemy encirclement and carry out expansion.
Carry out vigorous campaigns to recruit Red fighters from local Party committees and peasant mass organizations, especially from among the ranks of youth activists who have actively taken part in the rural mass struggles. Party committees and mass organizations in the cities and town centers must actively carry out propaganda, and carry out campaigns to recruit Red fighters from workers and petty-bourgeois intellectuals and other sectors. Unions and mass organizations must plan to regularly dispatch small teams for exposure or deployment to the NPA.
Conduct politico-military trainings to produce new officers capable of leading teams, squads and platoons of the NPA in mass work and combat.
Conduct social investigation and class analysis covering towns and provinces, crop lines or industrial lines, to identify the most urgent socioeconomic and political issues and problems of the masses. On the basis of these, we must build, reactivate, or expand the revolutionary mass organizations of peasants, youth, women, children and cultural workers. We must avoid the mechanical “start from scratch” step-by-step organizing method that fail to take into account the revolutionary history of people in the guerrilla zones or base areas. Tirelessly conduct propaganda and education to consolidate the masses and raise their militance. Build, rebuild or reactivate the organs of political power at the village, inter-village or town level.
Wage mass campaigns and struggles to mobilize the peasant masses in their numbers against feudal, semifeudal and other forms of oppression. Advance the struggle of the peasant masses to demand lower land rent, the elimination of usury, fair farmgate prices for agricultural produce and others. Mobilize the masses against land grabbing and mining and other big commercial operations that destroy and poison the environment. Organs of political power, local Party branches, mass organizations, and units of the NPA must urgently forge a plan to assist the people cope with climate disasters, including rebuilding farms, water systems, search and rescue and retrieval and burying of the dead.
Wage antifascist campaigns and struggles. Expose the ever worsening abuses, atrocities and crimes perpetrated by AFP units and its soldiers, including violations of democratic rights and international humanitarian law. Expose and denounce all cases of intimidation, Red-tagging, arbitrary and unlawful detention, abduction, torture, extrajudicial killings and massacres. Expose cases of aerial bombardment, strafing and shelling that endanger civilian lives and property in violation of international humanitarian law.
Commands of the NPA, up to the provincial and front levels, must actively carry out propaganda and counter-propaganda through their spokesperson or information officers. They must use all means to actively rouse the people to fight against the oppressive policies and programs that dispossess them and subject them to even worse sufferings. They must actively expose the enemy’s psywar lies and disinformation being spread among the masses.
Local Party branches and section committees must actively and assiduously build the people’s militia units, along with the self-defense corps of mass organizations. More than ever, we must underscore, in theory and practice, the crucial role of the NPA’s militia units in waging guerrilla warfare. We must unleash the military initiative of the people’s defense forces by training and encouraging them to employ all possible forms of armed resistance against the enemy. People’s militas are essential complements of full-time horizontal units of the NPA. They expand the breadth of the people’s war to force the enemy to spread its forces thin and expose its weak points.
Launch tactical offensives according to the capability of NPA teams, squads and platoons. Discover and strike at the enemy’s weak points, including armed contingents that occupy rural villages, do reconnaisance, man checkpoints, conduct ground operations, and so on. Plan to seize the enemy’s weapons to arm new recruits. Mount hundreds of small unit tactical offensives to seize firearms.
Adhere strictly to policies designed to ensure the secrecy and security of guerrilla camps and maneuvers. Vigilantly guard against all attempts of the enemy to smuggle in electronic trackers such as GPS transmitters, through supply lines and other channels. Identify and address all violations of security policies that jeopardize guerrilla secrecy.
Assess the enemy’s intelligence stock and render these ineffective. Smash the enemy’s intelligence network and build the local intelligence network of the NPA and its militia units. Thoroughly expose and repudiate the countrerevolutionary misdeeds of renegade and traitors, and respond to the demand of the people to punish those who are actively collaborating with the enemy as military agents or spies.
Conduct political work within the enemy’s ranks. We must systematically gather information about the internal situation, grievances and contradictions within enemy platoons, companies, batallions and higher command structures. Expose the abuses against rank-and-file military personnel and paramilitary conscripts. Expose the corruption among officers in payroll system and delayed release of salaries and allowances, mulcting funds for so-called “rebel returnees,” collection of kickbacks in local projects (especially under the Support to Barangay Development Program of the NTF-Elcac), and so on. Expose how the AFP and PNP continue to be used by the US military as proxy and instrument for its geopolitical aims, especially in provoking armed conflict with its imperialist rival China. Recruit progressive and patriotic officers and men to the Crispin Tagamolila Movement
Conduct regular and special command conferences at regional and lower levels to analyze the disposition and plans of the enemy, ensure the proper distribution of our forces, forge an overall plan for advancing the people’s war in the area of operation, come up with a unified military campaign plan, and ensure proper coordination.
Strengthen the command system within the New People’s Army, from the National Operations Command and the Regional Operations Command, and from the regional to the subregional and front operations command, its platoons, squads and teams. Continue to develop, improve and strengthen a fast and reliable communications system, both electronic and physical. Ensure redundancy and a system of backups.
Continue to enforce and improve the policies and system of rules to secure and protect sensititve information through compartmentalization, encryption of files and physical notes, regulating the use of computers, smartphones, cellphones and other electronic gadgets.
The ground continues to become increasingly fertile for waging revolutionary armed struggle under the Marcos regime, which prioritizes the interests of the ruling classes and those of foreign economic and geopolitical powers, thus further exposing the rotten and corrupt ruling system. This is done at the expense of the broad masses of the Filipino people, the vast majority of whom suffer from deteriorating living conditions. Systematic repression of democratic rights in the cities and open military rule in the countryside targetting workers, peasants and other democratic classes, leave the people with no other option but to take up arms to resist, defend their rights and fight for their national and democratic aspirations.
Sharpening economic and political crisis of the ruling system
The moribund semicolonial and semifeudal system continues to deteriorate, as the US-Marcos regime aggravates the economic crisis with anti-people and anti-national policies, worsens the political crisis with Marcos’ drive to tighten his grip on power, and further undermines national sovereignty with its subservience to US imperialism.
Amid rising protectionism of leading industrial capitalist powers, the Marcos regime continues to pursue the same neoliberal policies which have resulted in unprecedented destruction of local productive forces during the past four decades. These policies have benefited of monopoly capitalist corporations and financial institutions and enriched the local big bourgeois compradors, to the detriment of the broad toiling masses of workers and middle classes. These policies have deepened the country’s backward, agrarian and non-industrial economy, and intensified joblessness, poverty and oppression. The country has become even more dependent on imports and deeper into debt.
Marcos keeps opening-up the economy even as the centers of global capitalism led by the US are pursuing opposite protectionist policies to protect and revive their local industries, which heighten trade conflicts and sharpen economic rivalries. In this context, the regime’s neoliberal policies and dependence on the US becomes more counterproductive than ever. It exposes the country to greater exploitation and unequal trade conditions. These will further deepen the country’s economic subservience, and exacerbate the people’s situation, as Philippine export markets slump and the regime economy becomes increasingly desperate to attract foreign capital.
The broad masses of the Filipino people are suffering ever worsening socioeconomic conditions. Widespread joblessness is disguised by official statistics but worsening. Wages and income remain low, precarious and grossly unable to keep pace with soaring prices of food, fuel, basic commodities, utilities and services. The sharp rise in the daily cost of living under Marcos is pushing millions of people into financial distress and intensifying poverty and hunger. Over 20 million families (up to 80%) are poor or in vulnerable financial circumstances, including millions of families misleadingly portrayed as middle-class. Since Marcos assumed power in 2022, the number of families in extreme poverty and going hungry had doubled from 3 million to 7.2 million. Joblessness, poor incomes and inadequate social services are steadily pulling down the quality of life of the vast majority of the Filipino people.
The Marcos regime remains obsessed with selling off the country to exploitation by foreign monopoly capital. To entice foreign capital, the Marcos regime has allowed the acceleration of the exploitation of workers by keeping workers’ wages and salaries low. He has also enabled the oppression and economic dispossession of peasants, indigenous communities, fisherfolk and other toiling people, and destruction of the environment by giving foreign monopoly capitalist firms and his big bourgeois compradors cronies free rein to take over and mine large areas of land, rivers and sea, or to operate their plantations, real estate projects, so-called green or climate-resilience projects, storage facilities for LNG imports from the US, and other profit-driven operations.
Land grabbing is particularly acute in Mindanao where warlords in collusion with the military, are driving away Moro and Lumad people from their land, in favor of oil palm, bamboo, coffee plantations operated by multinational corporations. This is happening even in the areas of the supposed autonomous Bangsamoro region, which Marcos wants to control, even at the expense of undermining the peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and provoking the resumption of the Moro people’s armed resistance.
The Marcos regime keeps workers’ minimum wages way below decent living standards (but has ordered the doubling of allowances of his fascist soldiers). To make ends meet, workers, small professionals and rank-and-file employees are forced to work additional jobs. Millions upon millions of Filipinos are jobless or without regular jobs. Nearly four-fifths (78%) of those officially reported as employed are in fact part-time, temporary and contractual, or informal workers. The acute crisis of unemployment in the Philippines forced close to 2.5 million Filipinos to seek employment overseas last year, increasing the number of overseas Filipinos to more than 11.5 million.
The worsening socioeconomic conditions has sharpened the social inequality between the ruling oligarchs and the broad masses of the people. Under Marcos, the number of households without financial savings increased by 1.5 million to 20.1 million, while the wealth of the top three richest in the Philippines—Enrique Razon, Manuel Villar and Ramon Ang—more than doubled (108%) to P1.8 trillion. They and their foreign capitalist partners are the biggest beneficiaries of government contracts and favors. While granting them tax cuts, tax holidays and other financial incentives, Marcos fleeces the people with onerous taxes on basic commodities—including the highest “value added taxes” in the region, excise taxes on diesel and other petroleum products that increases with every price increase, and other consumption taxes that burden the poor and middle-class the worst.
The Marcos budget is counterproductive and a gross burden on the people. Much of it goes to debt servicing, counterproductive military expenses, and grandiose infrastructure including grossly overpriced pork barrel projects. Cash assistance budgets have been cut overall, but more of these have been put under the direct control of politicians for election campaigning. Meanwhile, spending for education, health and other public services, as well as agriculture, have been substantially reduced, while no funding went to industrialization.
The Marcos government’s budget deficit of P1.5 trillion last year was equivalent to 5.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) – this is the worst in at least 40 years, outside of the larger deficits at the height of the pandemic lockdowns. Government borrowing under Marcos continues to rise sharply – it is now already at P16.3 trillion and is expected to reach P17.4 trillion by the end of the year. The Marcos regime’s gross borrowing is already at a record P188.7 billion per month which surpasses Duterte’s ₱130.7 billion per month.
Corruption under the Marcos government continues to run rampant, from kickbacks in government projects, to the use of public funds (Maharlika Investment Fund) for private investments. Since Marcos assumed power in 2022, at least nine corruption cases (involving at least P200 billion) against the Marcos estate have been dismissed by courts. The Marcoses are set to retrieve the property illegally acquired under martial law, including those held by cronies such as Lucio Tan and Ramon Ang (for Danding Cojuangco). The Marcoses, their relatives and cronies have taken over the syndicates and cartels involved in the importation and smuggling of rice and other products. The regime blatantly manipulates the national budget to ensure hundreds of billions in pesos in pork barrel projects annually for its allies.
To secure their dominance and continue their accumulation of wealth, Marcos is fast consolidating political power to ensure they remain in control beyond 2028. In doing so, he is also deepening the political crisis of the ruling system. He aims to eliminate the threat of a 2028 political challenge by the Dutertes, with whom he was allied with in 2022 to secure the elections through the then Duterte-controlled electronic counting system. With the new automated counting system now in his hands, Marcos’ scheme is to manipulate the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections to secure control of all levels of government from the Senate, the House of Representatives and local government officials.
In February, Marcos coordinated the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte by the House of Representatives. A few weeks ago, he used his power to cause the arrest and detention of Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, to stand trial for widespread and systematic murder constituting crimes against humanity. These actions have further intensified and raised the level of the political crisis of the ruling system to new heights. The Dutertes, known for using foreign-based data analytics and influence strategy firms, are trying to whip up a political storm against the Marcos regime by manipulating public opinion through systematic disinformation and fascist demagoguery on social media, that take advantage of the people's grievances, use distraction tactics to draw attention away from the abuses and crimes under Duterte's tyrannical rule, and misrepresent themselves as victims to gain public sympathy. They are trying to organize mass rallies and create divisions within the military and police.
The predominance of the Marcos-Duterte conflict exposes even further the rottenness of the ruling system. It shows how the ruling system is currently dominated by two of the most corrupt and ruthless reactionary cliques, both representing the economic interests of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords, both bureaucrat capitalist, both subservient to foreign imperialist powers, both anti-people and oppressive. As the state of the Philippine economy worsens, the loot and privilege shared among the ruling class factions continues to shrink, intensifying the contradictions between rival bureaucrat capitalists. The political crisis of the ruling system remains bound to intensify and break out in violent conflict.
To further consolidate and monopolize political power, Marcos is also heightening political repression directed against the mass organizations of workers, peasants, fisherfolk, youth, women and other democratic sectors. State surveillance, abductions, torture, unlawful arrests and filing of fabricated charges, extrajudicial killings, massacres and other gross violations of human rights perpetrated by the reactionary armed forces and police are increasingly worsening. The situation is worst in thousands of rural villages which Marcos has ordered placed under martial law.
Amid the economic crisis, there is growing restiveness among the broad masses of the people and the steady growth in the their organized resistance. Exhausted from years of being short-changed with meager wage increases, workers are urgently demanding significant wage increases, to keep pace with rising cost of living. This clamor has also resonated among government employees, and public and private school teachers, calling for fair compensation. Demands for higher wages and better working conditions are bound to fuel more strikes and other forms of mass actions.
There is a growing outcry against uncontrolled importation of rice, as well as fish and other agricultural products that kill local production. Peasant and indigenous minority people’s communities are fighting back against mining and other projects that destroy the environment and take away their land. Various sectors, including jeepney operators and drivers, small fisherfolk and others, are also standing up for their rights and vigorously resisting programs that dispossess them of their sources of livelihood. Students are demanding greater state subsidy for education and opposing tuition increases, as well as jobs amid the growing unemployment crisis.
Protests against US military intervention in the Philippines continue to grow stronger. There is mounting condemnation against US military support to the repressive regime, against US military bases and facilities in the country used by the US for its overseas military operations, against the entry, transit and docking of US carrier strike groups carrying nuclear weapons, for using the Philippine armed forces to provoke armed tensions with China, and for dragging the country deeper and deeper into the danger of an inter-imperialist war.
Broad democratic sectors are fighting back against worsening form of abuses and human rights violations being committed by the reactionary armed forces and police. They welcome the trial of Duterte before the ICC as an opportunity to hold him accountable for the innumerable crimes against humanity perpetrated during the course of the sham “war on drugs.” At the same time, they demand that Marcos be held accountable for the spate of killings, disappearances and other crimes against people fighting back.
The deepening economic and political crisis of the ruling system clearly exposes the bankrupt semicolonial and semifeudal system, and the thoroughly rotten neocolonial state, whose rule is marked by rampant corruption and brutal repression. The only way to break the chains of oppression and exploitation, and bring an end to the unbearable hardships and suffering of the broad masses of Filipino workers, peasants and toiling people, is to overthrow US imperialism and the class dictatorship of the big bourgeois compradors, big landlords, and bureaucrat capitalists.
The Filipino people are left with no other alternative but to wage unwavering revolutionary struggles, principally armed struggle, to overthrow the oppressive and exploitative ruling classes, and establish the people’s democratic power. The need to strengthen and expand the New People’s Army and propel the people’s war forward, is ever urgent, just and necessary.
Trump 2.0 aggravates the crisis of the global capitalist system
The capitalist world is set on rapidly plunging into deep turmoil amid the irresoluble crisis of capitalist overproduction, and the brazen push of the US government under the Trump 2.0 regime to ram through its imperialist interests. The Trump government represents the most reactionary and most chauvinistic elements of the financial oligarchy in the US. It is taking off the US imperialist mask of being the “champion of democracy” and is laying bare its hegemonist policy, in line with its vain attempt to reverse the strategic decline of the American empire, and re-establish itself as the sole superpower.
Indicators last year show that the capitalist economies remains in a state of protracted stagnation (since 2008) after a short-lived post-2020 pandemic rebound. Global economic growth went down sharply to 2.8% in 2023 and 2024, from 5.8% during the post-pandemic rebound. This is lower than the average 3.2% growth during the last decade (2010-2019). Global debt has soared to a new record of $318.4 trillion last year, which is more than three times the amount (328%) of global production in 2024. Not only are these impossible to pay, but have also become impossible to service in the long run. The growth in global trade in merchanise goods continue to slow down, slumping to 2% growth in 2024, much lower than 4.5% in 2010-2019. The flow of foreign direct investments globally went down by 8% in 2024. This was pulled down by the 45% contraction in the European Union, and by 29% in China, despite the 10% growth of foreign direct investment flows to the US driven mainly by Taiwanese and South Korean investments in new semiconductor foundries.
In the face of the prolonged capitalist stagnation, the Trump government is more aggressively pushing drastic and desperate economic and trade measures that has the declared aim of reviving domestic production. In doing so, it is undermining the multilateral system it helped established in the period of neoliberal globalization. The shift in direction, in fact, began around 2008, under the Obama government, when the US started to give incentives to bring back US foreign investments. It effectively rendered the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system inoperative, and its agreements unenforceable. For close to a decade now, the US has been extensively using higher tariffs, export restrictions, technology restriction and stricter regulation of investments against China.
The aggressive use of such trade and economic policies by the Trump government against other countries, raising levels of antagonism even with its traditional imperialist allies. In addition to China, it has imposed or threatened to impose higher tariffs on a whole range of commodities from Canada, Mexico, the European Union and other countries, with the declared aim of protecting American companies and boosting local production. Trump threatened to reassess the US military alliance with Japan, to which Japan responded by promising to boost imports of liquefied petroleum gas from the US, and to increase investments to the US to $1 trillion. Other US allies, however, are not as acquiescing. Canada and Mexico have announced plans to impose counter-tariffs on commodities imported from the US. The French government has also threatened to reciprocate US tariffs.
On the other hand, China has responded more robustly, increasing tariffs and banning imports of US soybeans and logs, and declaring it is ready to engage “in any form of war” with the US. It is establishing and expanding strategic diplomatic, economic and military alliances, including the BRICS , the G-77, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Forum on China-African Cooperation, the RCEP and others.
In addition to imposing or threatening to impose additional tariffs, Trump has declared readiness to use military force to wrest control of the Panama Canal (through which 40% of US container traffic passes through), Greenland (an autonomous region in Denmark possessing large rare earth mineral deposits and strategically located in the Arctic region), and the Gaza Strip which Trump wants the US to “own,” in brazen disregard of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Trump now appears to be pursuing a policy of rapprochment towards Russia in relation to Ukraine, having seen that despite Russia suffering great losses during the war, the US has failed in its varied aims of weakening Russia’s strategic ability to wage war, causing an economic disaster, inciting a regime change, or dismembering Russia. The shift in policy highlights the fact that the conflict in Ukraine has, all along, been a proxy war between the US and Russia, despite involving questions of territory between the two countries. The Trump government is pushing Ukraine to accede to ceasefire with Russia, along with signing a mineral agreement to give the US access to a large portion of its rare earth mineral deposits, supposedly as a form of payment for the estimated $70 billion in US military aid since 2022.
In contrast to the apparent policy of rapproachment with Russia, the Trump government continues to heighten its conflict with China and North Korea, keeping open the possibility of igniting a hot war. The US military continues to build up its forces under its so-called Indo-Pacific strategy. It recently carried out large-scale war exercises in South Korea, and is set on holding continuous war games in and around the South China Sea, the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan with the strategic aim of containing China. The US recently dropped its policy of “not supporting Taiwan independence,” an act of outright provocation against China.
The Trump government has also heightened imperialist intervention in the Middle East, further boosting the Zionist state of Israel’s aggression and occupation of Gaza. It recently ordered the release of $3 billion worth of missiles and bombs to Israel, and supported renewed strikes at Gaza which killed hundreds of Palestinians, and ended the two-month ceasefire. In support of Israel, Trump also ordered missile strikes against Houti forces in Yemen, which have actively supported the Palestinian liberation struggle. In collusion with Israel, Turkey and other NATO countries, the Trump government is also fortifying its position in the new government of Syria, to put greater military pressure on Iran, in line with its strategic aim of controlling Middle East oil resources.
Trump is presiding over the rapidly worsening political crisis in the US, with the current ruling oligarchy taking a sharp turn to outright promotion of fascist ideology. He has surrounded himself with sycophants and cheerleaders as cabinet officers. He is ruling by executive order and defying court orders, in a major push towards authoritarianism. To divide the working class, Trump and his officials are actively fomenting prejudice against minorities, immigrants, the LGBT community, and promoting superstition and outright unscientific beliefs. Hundreds of thousands of US government employees have been summarily retrenched on the pretext of cost-cutting. He has ordered a clampdown on democratic rights, particularly, against the right to assemble and free expression in university campuses. He has employed draconian and summary methods in the deportation of thousands of immigrants.
By railroading his anti-democratic and anti-worker policies, the Trump regime has ignited a widespread protest movement in the US that is certain to expand and explode in massive demonstrations across the country in the coming months. Protests against US imperialism are also bound to emerge around the world in response to the imperialist trade and economic policies being aggressively pushed by the Trump regime, and its incessant war provocations. More revolutionary armed resistance movements are bound to emerge and grow as people oppressed by imperialism and fascism are given no other option to fight for national and social liberation.
Wage revolutionary resistance, principally through armed struggle
We discussed briefly the recent developments both within and outside the country to show the objective conditions that impel the broad masses of the Filipino people to wage revolutionary resistance to fight for and realize their aspirations for national liberation, democracy and socialism. The struggle of the Filipino people is inextricably linked to the revolutionary struggle of all oppressed and exploited people’s around the world.
The Filipino people carry out all forms of struggle to advance their national democratic cause. They wage legal forms of struggle in both the cities and countryside that arouse, organize and mobilize the masses in great numbers to fight their oppressors. They build their unions and mass organizations, fight in negotiations with capitalists or state bureaucrats, carry out factory strikes, boycotts, walk outs, mass demonstrations and other forms of collective action. They take part in the reactionary elections to promote the national democratic cause and campaign for progressive candidates and parties. Through the National Democratic Front, they engage in peace negotiations with the reactionary government, to promote the people’s aspiration for a just and lasting peace.
Armed struggle is the principal form of struggle in waging the people’s democratic revolution in the Philippines. It is by waging armed struggle that we can fight to overthrow US imperialism and the ruling classes of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords. It fulfills the central task of the Philippine revolution of smashing the armed puppet state of US imperialism and of the ruling classes, and establishing the democratic people’s state under the leadership of the proletariat. Only with the people’s democratic state can the revolutionary social transformation be carried out.
On today’s occasion of the 56th anniversary of the New People’s Army, we call on all committees, cadres and members of the Party, that in performing your various tasks in all fields of struggle, always give attention to the great task of waging revolutionary armed struggle and strengthening the NPA.
We call on all Red fighters of the New People’s Army to heighten their determination and raise their capabilities to fulfill the tasks of the rectification movement. We are certain that the NPA can win greater victories in revitalizing and expanding the mass base and in waging guerrilla warfare against the US-Marcos fascist regime.
Hail the steadfast revolutionary spirit of the Red fighters of the New People’s Army!
Strengthen and expand the NPA!
Frustrate the US-Marcos regime’s brutal and terrorist war of suppression!
Expand and intensify guerrilla warfare!
Advance the revolutionary armed struggle!
Carry forward the people’s democratic revolution!
Long live the New People’s Army!
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!
Long live the Filipino proletariat and people!
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