Advance the People's War to build the People's Democratic Government
(On the occasion of the NDFP's 37th founding anniversary)
By RUBI DEL MUNDO
Spokesperson, NDFP – Southern Mindanao
On the occasion of its founding anniversary today, 24 April, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao salutes the toiling Filipino workers and peasants and all the patriotic and revolutionary members who belong to the 17 NDFP allied organizations. Thirty seven years ago, the NDFP was born out of the people's active resistance to a fascist bankrupt regime; and out of the revolutionary people's movement.
Today, the NDFP has continuously lived up to its role of uniting all the progressive classes and sectors to fight for national liberation. It painstakingly educates, organizes and mobilizes the broadest possible number of the Filipino masses towards ending national oppression. The Filipino masses want to end the widespread misery that is deeply rooted in the country's ruling social system, and whose agents — now represented by the US-Arroyo regime — have perpetuated and worsened.
In the countryside as in the urban areas, more and more Filipino masses are being empowered to struggle and to fight for what is due the Filipino nation. They actively resist US foreign domination that has for ages tied us to a backward, agrarian economy. They rise up against the US puppet Gloria Arroyo regime that continue to plunder the nation. The Filipino masses are fed up, and they join and actively participate in the people's war to fight this social injustice.
Year in and year out, the NDFP organizes the Filipinos masses; and strengthens the revolutionary mass organizations, among them the Pambansang Katipunan ng Magsasaka (peasants), Kabataang Makabayan (youth) and the Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (women); and from barrio to barrio patiently builds the Red political power in the countryside.
In the guerilla territories in the country like in the Southern Mindanao countryside, the NDFP is at the head of the struggle for genuine land reform and persists to lead mass campaigns against usury, unfair tenancy relations and against the further encroachment of agri-corporations into peasant lands. Thousands of poor and lower middle peasants and farm workers have benefited from these mass campaigns. Under the auspices of the NDFP, programs for higher agricultural production through labor exchange, and cooperative farms have sustained peasant families in their fight for survival under harsh economic conditions. With the Red fighters and the People's Militia to protect the gains and their interests, the Filipino masses actively work to build the People's Democratic Government.
The bankrupt Arroyo fascist clique is acutely isolated from the Filipino masses. Arroyo uses the full might of her mercenary Armed Forces of the Philippines to quell the increasing and active opposition of the people amid the growing social discontent. It unleashed the counter-revolutionary Oplan Bantay Laya but failed miserably to suppress the people's active resistance.
The NDFP, along with the Filipino masses and allies have frustrated US-Arroyo regime's all-out war against the people. Undeterred by the thousand extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations of the regime, the NDFP has sustained efforts to thwart these fascist attacks which inspired the masses to continuing vigilance. In Southern Mindanao, where the AFP has unleashed its dirtiest, most cruel military campaigns of suppression, a total of 55 extrajudicial killings have been recorded since the 10th Infantry Division's deployment here in 2006. At the heart of the rural communities, the 10th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army deliberately endangers at least 30,000 innocent children, women and men with their 123 military camps, outposts and installations within civilian population in the region. State terror has wreaked havoc on the civilians around Southern Mindanao who suffered different forms of human rights violations that averaged 100 victims per month last year. Oppress the people more and they will fight back — thus, it is also here in these areas where the people's resistance has been more felt and where the people's army has successfully conducted an average of 17 tactical offensives per month the past year.
Arroyo's state fascism and lust for power inflamed the widespread discontent and restiveness of the people against the bankrupt Arroyo regime. Mass protests confronted Arroyo in many urban centers in Southern Mindanao and in the country in increasing frequency and number. Davao City local officials and progressive groups have declared persona non grata the notorious symbols of the Arroyo's state terrorism, retired Genenral Jovito Palparan and Pastor 'Jun' Alcover. Enlightened masses in the countryside actively protested fascist AFP offensives designed to pave way for multinational companies to plunder the country's natural resources and our national patrimony. Numerous masses and revolutionary mass organizations victimized by state fascism seek redress before the revolutionary People's Court of the People's Democratic Government.
Along with the Filipino masses and allies, the NDFP led its forces to condemn the gruesome Ampatuan massacre and to seek for justice against Arroyo's state-sponsored violence. The massacre which killed journalists, lawyers, local politicians and women generated the sympathy and rage of the people from all over the world. Mobilizations, street protests, educational discussion, among others, have united the broadest sectors of society to expose Arroyo's wanton disregard for fundamental rights and freedoms including the regime's culture of impunity.
The NDFP bears no illusion that the upcoming general elections of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines will solve the age-old problem of semi-feudal and semi-colonial system of the country. The electoral exercise showcases a bogus democracy as the big landed compradors continue to rule Philippine elections that serve to ease fierce squabbles among the ruling classes for economic spoils, and power grip. In the NDFP territories and areas of influence, the GRP elections provide vast opportunities for the revolutionary movement to enlighten the people, and further expose anti-people candidates, politicians and the rotten state of Philippine society. However, the NDFP also recognizes the people's desire to elect progressive candidates and electoral parties who will advance their interests, albeit limited, in the elite-dominated reactionary government.
The revolutionary movement has accumulated various victories in advancing the people's war. Now more than ever is the best time for the NDFP to expand and consolidate the Filipino masses towards a bigger and stronger mass base and build and develop the People's Democratic Government. This is our continuing commitment to the New Democratic Revolution through the protracted People's War as it advances from the strategic defensive to strategic stalemate, and until victory is won.
