Questions from Raymund Villanueva, Kodao journalist
Dear Prof. Sison: In his latest weekly midnight address last night, President Duterte said “malabo” na raw ang peace talks with you, accusing the NPA of attacking government soldiers during the coronavirus emergency. May I ask for a comment from you. Is it possible that Duterte “baited” the CPP into declaring a ceasefire again while the GRP really had no plans of stopping its counterinsurgency operations? What do you think does it serve that Duterte keeps on mentioning and putting blame on the NPA during his midnight addresses on COVID? And if there would no longer be peace talks while he is president, what does it mean?
He also said: “Pero, be careful, because the NPAs are around. There is no longer hope in talking to Sison…Gusto kong anuhin ang mga pulis. But times are not really normal. Talagang papatayin kayo ng mga NPA kapag nakita kayo because they want your firearms. Alam mo, mainit talaga yang m16 at m14. I know that. They’re itching to get it from you. That is why, be careful, mga sundalo at mga pulis, huwag kayong mag-kumpiyansa. Do not be too confident about it. Pati yung mga istasyon na nire-raid. They will kill you, and I am telling you, kill them also. Kaya di ko kayo mautusan mag-tracing. Sana madali, may sasakayan. Kaya lang delikado, so dito na ako sa local governments and mayors (in helping the national government in conducting covid tracing.)”
Reply of Jose Maria Sison, NDFP Chief Political Consultant
Duterte was merely pretending to declare a unilateral ceasefire on March 19, 2020 and was trying to bait the CPP and NPA to reciprocate his fake ceasefire. He was trying to deflect attention from his criminal responsibility for the entry of Covid-19 to the Philippine through more than 500,000 Chinese tourists and his lack of preparations and plan for fighting this pandemic.
However, upon the recommendation of the NDFP, the CPP and NPA declared and carried out their own unilateral ceasefire in response to the call of the UN secretary general for global ceasefire. They deliberately avoided reciprocating and being compromised by the malicious fake ceasefire declaration of Duterte. The CPP and NPA did not wish to become complicit with the Duterte regime in its own scheme of escalating military offensives in the countryside and carrying out repressive measures in urban areas,
As well proven by subsequent events and well documented by CPP, the NPA, NDFP, the people’s government and its local organs of political power, the Duterte regime and its military minions have used the fake ceasefire declaration and Covid-19 as cover for escalating military offensives against local communities and the revolutionary forces and undertaking repressive measures in urban areas nationwide.
To deceive the people during the 2016 presidential campaign, Duterte promised to negotiate peace with the revolutionary movement through the NDFP by addressing the social, economic and political roots of the armed conflict. But as soon as he became president, he surreptitiously declared all-out war under the guise of continuing Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan in 2016 and then his own Oplan Kapayapaan in January 2017.
He went through the motion of pretending to be for peace negotiations with the NDFP until he included the CPP and NPA as targets of his Mindanao martial law proclamation in May 2017. It is obvious that since the beginning of his rule, he has been interested merely in the surrender of the revolutionary movement and the people with no intention whatsoever to agree with the NDFP on needed social, economic and political reforms.
Ten days after soliciting and receiving from Trump the go-signal and support for his termination of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, Duterte terminated these peace negotiations on November 23, 2017 under Proclamation 360 and then declared the CPP and NPA as “terrorist organizations on December 5, 2017 under Proclamation 374.
Eventually, it became clear that his overriding malicious objective was to scapegoat the CPP and NPA in order to advance his ambition of realizing a Marcos-type highly-centralized and brutal fascist dictatorship through charter change under the pretext of federalism as well as through the application of Oplan Tokhang methods of extrajudicial killings and mass intimidation against social activists, critics and opponents and the broad masses of the people..
Under the current circumstances, it is even more convenient for Duterte to scapegoat and attack the CPP and NPA in order to deflect attention from his culpability for the wanton entry of Covid-19 into the Philippines through half a million Chinese tourists and casino personnel since December, the lack of preparations and plan to fight the pandemic and the failure to deliver food and cash assistance, mass testing and medical treatment to the people.
At the same time, he has used Covid-19 as the reason for grabbing emergency powers, the immediate amount of more than 375 billion pesos and the license to realign the 2020 budget. After pretending to declare a unilateral ceasefire and plead for reciprocation by the revolutionary movement, he has persisted in launching military offensives against the CPP and NPA and blame them for his own crimes, his ceaseless drive for fascist dictatorship and his failure to deliver sufficient food and cash assistance, mass testing and other necessities under the severe conditions of so-called enhanced quarantine.
Durterte’s mad dog ranting against the NPA is for the purpose of slandering the NPA as well as for rousing his armed minions to take harsher repressive measures and to commit more crimes against the people. But by acknowledging the widespread presence of the NPA in the whole country, he unwittingly belies all the false claims made by his military and police subordinates that they have already finished off the NPA several times over its actual number and potency through fake surrenders and fake casualties in fake encounters.
Duterte is very much aware of the fact that he and his armed minions are engaged in corruption and plunder in all sorts of programs and campaigns. They have used the counterrevolutionary campaigns of military suppression to pocket public money in the name of fake surrenderers and fake casualties. They are are engaged in corruption and plunder on an even larger scale by diverting hundreds of billions of public funds to their private accounts under the pretext of fighting of Covid-19.
It is fine that the health workers, the people themselves, the mass organizations, the local organs of revolutionary power and good-hearted institutions are doing everything they can to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. They are in sharp contrast to the Duterte regime which concentrates on imposing repressive measures on the people, stealing public funds, subjecting the people to isolation and hunger and depriving them of food and cash assistance, mass testing and medical treatment.
By repeating for the nth time that he does not want peace negotiations with the NDFP and wants to finish off the revolutionary movement with brute military force, Duterte is daring and alerting the people and their revolutionary forces (the CPP, NPA, the NDFP, the revolutionary mass organizations and the local organs of political power which are the base of the people’s democratic government) to put up their defenses and to carry out their own revolutionary offensives in a tit-for-tat struggle.
The Duterte regime is already killing more and more social activists, critics and opponents in the urban areas and is practically warning and urging the revolutionary movement to further strengthen its urban underground, increase deployment of cadres to the countryside for people’s war and carry out punitive operations in the urban areas against human rights violators and plunderers.
Duterte forgets that as Marcos escalated repressive measures under his fascist dictatorship the revolutionary movement grew from small and weak to big and strong. As the oppression and exploitation of the people worsen, the objective crisis conditions become more favorable for the growth and advance of the revolutionary movement. The crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system is now far worse than during the time of Marcos and is now far more favorable for carrying out the new democratic revolution. ##
