Elias Dipasupil, Secretary General, National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Today, we raise the red flags of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and its 18 allied organizations in celebration of its 52nd anniversary. The NDFP salutes all the heroes and martyrs whose lives were offered to plant the seeds of a new people’s democratic republic by waging the national democratic revolution led by the Communist Party of the Philippines and its army, the New People’s Army.
This is also an occasion to recognize the steady gains of the rectification movement since it was launched in 2023 to further advance the national democratic revolution amid the US-Marcos Jr regime’s brutal enemy attacks and treachery and chicanery. But no amount of fascist attacks and deceit (such as the endless offer of amnesty) against the revolutionary movement can deter the resolve of the revolutionaries and the Red fighters to rectify weaknesses and errors and carry forward the revolution to victory and end the sufferings of the Filipino people.
That we are also celebrating this occasion surrounded by the noise of the 2025 midterm elections dominated by the narrative of the ruling classes and political dynasties only proves the necessity, the justness, and the urgency to push forward the national democratic revolution and to highlight the NDFP’s 12-point program as the solution to the chronic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system that no reactionary elections could ever resolve.
Based on the CPP’s program for a people’s democratic revolution, the NDFP 12-point program offers hope for the Filipino people. Currently, it is being fleshed out by the revolutionary mass organizations and organs of political power in the countryside serving as the basis of unity and framework of struggle of the various patriotic and democratic classes of workers, peasants, the semiproletariat, the petty-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie.
United front for armed struggle
The NDFP as a united front organization is for revolutionary armed struggle. While recognizing the importance of other forms of struggle, the NDFP upholds the primacy of armed struggle to dismantle the rotten semicolonial and semifeudal system while gradually and steadily creating the new system through the development of the revolutionary organs of power in the countryside. We build a future that is bright as we destroy the decayed and corrupt system.
Since it was established 52 years ago, the NDFP allied organizations did not only provide political, material, and technical support to the New People’s Army but have deployed Red fighters, some even became commanders. The NPA is the mass organization that carries out the armed struggle. It also implements agrarian revolution and mass base building towards establishing organs of political power, the seed of the people’s democratic republic. While still in struggle, these organs of political power already flesh out and execute, in various levels, components of the NDFP 12-point program such as the minimum program for land reform, education and health services, environmental protection, justice system, among others.
These organs of political power are represented by the NDFP in establishing proto-diplomatic relations with states and other international agencies and in peace negotiations with the reactionary government of the Republic of the Philippines.
It is from this perspective that the NDFP must establish, expand, and strengthen the revolutionary mass organizations both in the cities and in the countryside. With the current global and national crisis, the mass organizations are indespensable in the Filipino people’s fight against oppression and exploitation and in building a society they so deserve, one that serves their interests.
Persevere in rectifying our errors and weaknesses
When the CPP launched the rectification movement, it identified the weakness in the united front work as characterized by the neglect of building the underground revolutionary movement that resulted from the errors of legalism and reformism. It also noted that since the launch of the rectification movement in 2023, there are now steady actions to correct this weakness by rebuilding the underground revolutionary organizations allied with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines—among the youth, workers, peasants, women, teachers, health workers, and others.
But the current crisis calls for more. Thus, this year’s celebration is also a challenge to the NDFP and its allied organizations to strive more diligently to correct these errors and weaknesses. Keeping in mind that the NDFP and its allied organizations is a united front for armed struggle, let us undertake the following tasks more vigorously:
- Promote and support the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside.
- Launch and sustain the Cherish the People’s Army campaign, including the enlistment campaign for Red fighters for the New People’s Army.
- Arouse, organize, and recruit the advanced section of the masses to build and rebuild the underground movement and the revolutionary mass organizations.
- Popularize the NDFP 12-point program.
1. Unite the people for the overthrow of the semicolonial and semifeudal system through a people’s war and for the completion of the national democratic revolution.
2. Establish a People’s Democratic Republic and a democratic coalition government.
3. Build the people‘s army and a people’s defense system.
4. Uphold and promote the people’s democratic rights.
5. Terminate all unequal relations with the United States and other foreign entities.
6. Implement genuine agrarian reform, promote agricultural cooperation, raise rural production and employment through modernization of agriculture and rural industrialization and ensure agricultural sustainability.
7. Break the US–big comprador–landlord dominance over the economy, carry out national industrialization and build an independent and self-reliant economy.
8. Adopt a comprehensive and progressive social policy.
9. Promote a national and progressive people’s culture.
10. Uphold the rights of the Bangsa Moro and the Cordillera peoples and other indigenous peoples to self-determination and democracy.
11. Advance the revolutionary emancipation of women in all spheres.
12. Adopt an active, independent and peaceful foreign policy.
The Filipino people deserves nothing but freedom from oppression and exploitation. They deserve a just, humane and progressive society and a government that truly serves their dreams and aspirations. And the only means to achieve this is to advance the national democratic revolution to victory.
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is the revolutionary united front organization of the Filipino people fighting for national freedom and for the democratic rights of the people. The NDFP seeks to develop and coordinate all progressive classes, sectors and forces in the Filipino people’s struggle to end the rule of US imperialism and its local allies of big landlords and compradors, and attain national and social liberation.