By CPP Information Bureau
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today lambasted demands by the Philippine government for the New People’s Army (NPA) to surrender its weapons, even as it reiterated its calls for the intensification of tactical offensives to punish the Aquino regime’s national treachery.
“It is completely moronic for the Aquino regime’s chief negotiator Alex Padilla to think that the revolutionary forces will heed his call for them to cease their offensives, lay down their weapons and negotiate for surrender,” said the CPP. “Such a proposal by the chief peace negotiator of the Aquino regime betrays the reactionary government’s total disregard for the political and socio-economic issues that lie at the roots of the raging civil war in the Philippines.”
“In the face of the Aquino regime’s national treachery and total submission to US imperialism and allowing the US government to use the Philippines as one big American base in its its aim of asserting economic, political and military hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, the Filipino people have no other recourse but to wage armed revolution and mass struggles in order to uphold national freedom and fight for sovereignty,” said the CPP.
In an earlier statement, the CPP called on the NPA to “launch bigger and more frequent tactical offensives to punish the Aquino regime for its national treachery and out and out puppetry to the US imperialists.” It condemned the Aquino regime for acting as a pawn in the US imperialist drive to provoke tension in the South China Sea and justify the deployment of more American warships for power-projection operations in the region.”
Security and defense officials of the US had met with representatives of the Aquino government in Washington on January 26-28 in the so-called Strategic Defense Dialogue. During the meeting, the Aquino regime agreed to allow more and more American naval warships to dock in the Philippines, participate in more “joint military exercises” particularly in the South China Sea region, allow the US to fly more drone surveillance aircraft in Philipine airspace, continue the permanent presence of the 600-strong US Joint Special Operations Task Force based in Zamboanga City and allow more US soldiers to operate within the scope of the AFP’s Western Command in Palawan.
Such increased US military operations in the Philippines are being carried out within the framework of the Mutual Defense Treaty and the Visiting Forces Agreement. The US also seeks to increase its military aid to the AFP to enable it to upgrade its arsenal, particularly naval military equipment, to serve more effectively US needs to project power and patrol the South China Sea.
The US military is also active in the AFP’s war to suppress the people’s revolutionary resistance and advises the Philippine military in line with the Counter-insurgency Guide issued in 2009 by the US Department of Defense.