As we had foreseen, the bold but hollow declaration made by the fascist chief Marcos himself that “there are no more guerrilla groups” in the Philippines has exploded in his face. Since making that pronouncement during his State of the Nation Address just short of a month ago, a number of incidents of armed encounters have erupted across the country shattering Marcos’ illusion.
In a matter of several weeks, a number of armed clashes have been reported in the provinces of Quezon, Mindoro, Albay, Northern Samar, Capiz, Lanao del Norte and Bukidnon. This comes after the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) launched a new wave of brutal and costly armed offensives since the start of the month, mobilizing all its available combat battalions, and squandering billions of pesos in wasteful ground and aerial onslaught that ravage and terrorize rural communities.
Rehashing its tired rhetoric of the past two decades, the AFP again touts that these operations aim to “wipe out the NPA” before the year’s end. Inadvertently, the AFP brass undermines their command-in-chief’s claim, plainly acknowledging that guerrilla units continue to operate across the country, even if they make it a point to downplay the NPA as “weakened” or “remnants.” Across a number of guerrilla fronts in several provinces, the AFP has carried out relentless division-led operations, arraying two, three or more combat battalions (around a thousand or more armed troops), bolstered with aerial support, against NPA platoons, squads, or even teams.
Units of the NPA have placed themselves on alert and have taken an active defense posture. They are doing quick guerrilla maneuvers to elude and move out of the enemy’s encirclement and vanish from its sight. They have detached squads and teams to wait in ambush or harass the marauding fascist troops. While some NPA units suffered losses in battles resulting in the martyrdom of a number of Red fighters, others have also inflicted casualties on the side of the raiding troops of the AFP.
At least nine AFP soldiers have been killed since the AFP started its heightened attacks against the NPA this month. In a series of encounters from August 9 to 12 in Baco, Oriental Mindoro, five AFP soldiers were killed (including one who drowned while crossing the river during their retreat) while three were wounded. In Albay, three soldiers were killed, and another wounded, when a 16-man squad of the 49th IB was ambushed by a team of NPA Red fighters in Ligao City last August 21. In Capiz, the AFP reported one soldier killed-in-action, and another wounded in clashes with the NPA in Tapaz town last August 23.
In its obsession to employ superior firepower as means to defeat the guerrilla forces, the AFP has intensified aerial bombing and artillery shelling operations, using US-supplied jetfighters, 500-lb bombs and howitzers. In brazen violation of the rules of war, the AFP recently dropped heavy bombs in Northern Samar, Quezon, Bukidnon and Capiz, all within the proximity of civilian communities and farms, creating deep craters in forests, endangering civilian lives, terrorizing communities and causing widespread trauma among residents.
The US military is actively intervening in the AFP’s counter-guerrilla operations. In addition to heavy bombs, the US also supplies the AFP with drones, arms, bullets and other equipment. Visiting American troops have undergone counter-guerrilla training with the AFP over the past few months during so-called “war-exercises”. The US military also recently brought in Australian troops to train in so-called “jungle warfare” in Mindanao.
The US imperialists are carrying out direct and indirect armed intervention in the Philippines, just as it did in China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia and numerous other countries, to support their client state in suppressing the progressive and revolutionary forces asserting national freedom from US imperialist domination and control. In particular, the US wants to defeat the armed revolution in the Philippines in order that the mercenary AFP can give full attention to supporting US war efforts in the Asia-Pacific region, and dragging the entire country in its heightening conflict with its rival imperialist China.
In line with US counterinsurgency doctrine, the AFP carries out ruthless suppression activities against the peasant masses in the desperate effort to starve the NPA of political and material support. Military abuses, violations of human rights and international humanitarian law run rampant as the AFP impose martial law in many parts of the countryside.
The AFP implements a range of brutal tactics to intimidate and control communities. These include food blockades, forced evacuation of communities, and restrictions on commerce and free movement of people. Community leaders and organizers are subjected to incessant military harassment to force them to “cooperate” with the fascist military. Many face trumped up criminal charges, leading to arrests, illegal incarceration in military camps, physical and mental torture and prolonged detention. The number of extrajudicial killings continue to rise. The local population are made targets of the AFP’s “surrender” drive in the guise of “local peace talks” and “amnesty.” In the name of “territorial defense,” peasants are being conscripted by the AFP into the paramilitary CAFGU to make them betray their communities and their own class interests.
These are carried out foremost to support land grabbing by big landlords and the aggressive entry and expansion of destructive mining operations, plantations, green energy and eco-tourism projects, so-called flood control programs and other big business enterprises funded by foreign banks and owned by big bourgeois compradors and bureaucrat capitalists.
The Marcos regime’s ruthless suppression campaign, however, only fuels the people’s outrage and desire for armed resistance. Rural poverty and socioeconomic conditions continue to deteriorate, with widespread dispossession, displacement, and landlessness, fueling their aspiration for fundamental change.
In the face of the worsening conditions and fascist oppression under the Marcos regime, the peasant masses warmly welcome the presence of the NPA Red fighters who serve as their doctors, dentists, teachers, and workforce for production. The oppressed and exploited masses cherish the NPA because it is their genuine people’s army. It is their only weapon to defend themselves with and fight the fascist oppressors. The NPA can preserve itself and persevere because it enjoys the deep and wide support of the people.
Since launching the rectification movement less than two years ago, guerrilla units of the NPA have reoriented, reorganized and redeployed its forces to prioritize the expansion and consolidation of its peasant mass base. At the same time, they carry out timely and measured tactical offensives that it can win against the fascist forces on the strength of its mass base and to serve its expansion and consolidation.
Red fighters are busy conducting social investigation and class analysis with the aim of uniting the masses on the basis of their urgent social and economic issues and demands. Peasant mass organizations, as well as those of women and children, youth and cultural workers, alongside Party branches, are being built or re-established to wage agrarian revolution and organize their resistance and defense of their land, livelihood and lives. Efforts are underway to establish people’s militias and self-defense committees to wage guerrilla warfare, alongside guerrilla units of the NPA, against the fascist forces of the AFP and its paramilitary forces.
Because the Marcos fascist regime serves the interests of mining companies, plantation owners and land grabbers and plunderers, rural impoverishment and social injustice are bound to deepen, making the grounds even more fertile for armed and non-armed resistance. Guerrilla fronts of the NPA are set to expand and grow in number in the coming years. Mastering the art of guerrilla secrecy, units of the NPA are consolidating and expanding its ranks below the enemy’s radar, and conducts tactical offensives they are capable of winning against the enemy’s weak parts, and wage active defense against the ravaging units of the fascist AFP.
The militarist Marcos regime and its armed forces have prematurely declared “strategic victory” against the NPA, just as the Ramos regime did in 1992. Apologists of the reactionary ruling system declare that the revolution is over, with chief-of-staff Romeo Brawner stating that a peace agreement is set to be signed wherein the NPA will agree to end the armed struggle.
The Marcos fascist regime reveals its narrow concept of peace, premised only on the suppression of their armed adversaries through the employment of overwhelming military force, supplied by its imperialist master. Marcos refuses to acknowledge the historical fact that as long as social injustice, poverty, hunger, tyranny and fascist armed repression prevail, the oppressed and exploited people will take up arms and fight back.
The militarist mindset of the Marcos regime, as set forth and exemplified by the rabid anti-communists in the National Task Force-Elcac, completely dims the prospect of forging a political settlement to the armed conflict and attaining a just and lasting peace. Marcos shows he is interested only in “demobilization, disarmament and reintegration” (DDR), which simply means the surrender of the NPA and laying down of its weapons, without addressing fundamental social problems that have long stirred the people to take up arms.
The Party, the NPA and the NDF will never accede to such a framework for surrender. Instead, it is determined to mobilize the NPA to expand and strengthen itself and its mass base of support, to wage guerrilla warfare to seize more weapons to arm new Red fighters, and to firmly integrate the revolutionary armed struggle with the antifeudal resistance of the peasant masses. The situation underscores the great urgency that the NPA be strengthened and expanded, in order to defend the masses, attain justice for all victims of fascist suppression, and carry forward their resistance. By refusing to acknowledge and address the roots of the armed conflict, Marcos blocks the path of peace negotiations, and leaves the people and their revolutionary forces with only the path of armed struggle to attain their aspiration for a just and lasting peace.
The vast majority of the Filipino people suffering from ever-worsening forms of oppression and exploitation under the anti-people and onerous policies of the US-Marcos regime, marked by high prices of goods, low wages, widespread unemployment and poverty conditions. The situation is made even worse by massive bureaucratic corruption and by the subservience of the Marcos regime and the entire ruling system to the economic, geopolitical and military interests of US imperialism.
Amid the aggravating conditions of the semicolonial and semifeudal system under the US-Marcos regime, the Filipino people have no way out but to carry forward the struggle national democracy. The necessity of waging the people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war is now more urgent than ever before in order to attain national and social liberation.
Red fighters and commanders of the New People’s Army (NPA), Party cadres and revolutionary forces throughout the country are determined to wage guerrilla warfare, and carry forward the urgent tasks for advancing the people’s war. They are ready to make all the necessary sacrifices and persevere despite all the difficulties as they march along the long and difficult path towards victory.
