Luis Jalandoni
Chief International Representative and Senior Advisor to the NDFP Negotiating Panel
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) expects heightened state terrorism and more violations of people’s rights as the US-Marcos regime unrolls its new National Security Policy (NSP 2023-2028). Released last August 10, the NSP is basically a ‘Christmas Wishlist’ of fascist dictators and peace saboteurs.
For one, the NSP seeks to further empower the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) by “targeting the financial apparatus” of the CPP-NPA-NDF. The NSP however fails to recognize that the reactionary armed forces remain the single biggest supplier of arms to the NPA through the seizure of weapons during tactical guerilla operations. In line with their counterrevolutionary objectives patterned after the US Counterinsurgency Guide, the GRP instead targets civilians and legal democratic organizations making no distinction between armed combatants and local populations.
The NSP declares “the Peace process will always be preferred over war” and commits to “observing civil and human rights, and the international humanitarian law (IHL).” The NDFP remains open to the possibility of resuming the peace negotiations with the GRP. But from their relentless violations of IHL in the form of aerial bombings and indiscriminate attacks against communities, to their complete disregard of landmark agreements made during the GRP-NDF peace negotiations such as the Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on the Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the US-Marcos regime’s anti-peace character thus far betrays its own pronouncements.
The NSP attempts to cloak Marcos Jr’s kowtowing to US and China by claiming to pursue an “independent foreign policy” that protects the territorial integrity of the West Philippine Sea. And yet, the AFP begs its US imperialist masters for more EDCA-sanctioned US military bases across the country. On the other hand, the Marcos regime continues to receive loans from bilateral cooperation agreements it signed with China early this year amounting to over USD $20 billion.
The NSP’s target to “achieve strategic victory over the CPP-NPA-NDF within the current administration” is ridiculous. The enemy’s claims of the surrender of around 25,000 NPA members is absurd considering they themselves declared a few years ago that the NPA had only 4,000 fighters or less. In fact, most of these “surrenderees” are unarmed civilians subjected to constant military pressure, harassment, and threats. If anything, this US-led AFP public relations line is meant to justify years of squandering billions of pesos of people’s money to fund relentless military abuses.
Try as it may, the US-Marcos fascist regime is unequipped to defeat the world’s longest-running armed revolution. Like his predecessors, Marcos Jr. will inevitably fail in his attempts to crush the revolutionary movement of the Filipino people.
