If, as Che Guevara put it, revolutionaries are guided by a great feeling of love, then we Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan (ARMAS) are heartbroken. As much as we love the masses we serve, so do we cherish the comrades with whom we serve the people.
We mourn the passing of revolutionary leader Fidel Agcaoili, chairperson of the negotiating panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, even in the diplomatic arena.
Before the fulfillment of the Duterte regime’s sabotage of the peace process with the NDFP, Ka Fidel’s leadership made the completion of the NDFP draft of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms possible. A landmark document in the peace process with the GRP, the CASER is documentary evidence not only of the correctness but of the feasibility of achieving peace that rests on social justice.
A key achievement of the peace talks with Ka Fidel at the helm is the agreement between both parties on free land distribution. The five-decade old protracted people’s war is, at heart, a peasant war for land. The armed struggle against feudalism seeks to reverse the massive landgrabs begun by Spanish and US colonialism and continued by big landlords and the comprador bourgeosie, and it will carry on till haciendas have been dismantles, plantations have been broken up, and land has been rightfully distributed to its tillers.
The peace talks, however, are only one means of achieving the just peace the Filipino people both desire and deserve. No peace talks will have been possible if not for the consummate achievement of establishing, sustatining, and intensifying the armed revolutionary struggle for national democracy led by the CPP – a struggle that Ka Fidel was not only part of, but led.
For this incomparable achievement, Ka FIdel’s death weighs heavier than a mountain.
Heartbroken as we are, we heed the call of history to carry in the revolution he has led, and call on the nation’s artists and writers to put our abilities in the service of the Filipino people. We must continue doing our part in the strengthening the basic alliance of the proletariat and the peasantry to achieve national democracy towards a bright socialist future.
In the light of Ka Fidel’s passing, we formally announce the establishment of ARMAS – Felix Salditos Chapter.
Highest revolutionary honors to Comrade Fidel Agcaoili!
Long live the national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective!
Long live ARMAS and the revolutionary underground!
Viva CPP-NPA-NDF!
ARMAS – Felix Salditos Chapter
