DEC 26,2018
Dear Comrades of the CPP,
The Communist Organization of Greece is extending to you and to the revolutionary Filipino people congratulations on the golden anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines. When, 50 years ago, relatively few revolutionaries were gathering at a hut in Pangasinan, Luzon in order to re-establish the CPP, Philippines were ruled by Marcos. At first maybe he laughed arrogantly at the news of CPP’s founding. Then, as the CPP was gaining roots among the masses and advanced its armed and mass struggle, he declared that soon the “bandits” shall be crushed.
Today the CPP is always here, while the dictator Marcos entered the dustbin of History – as did all those who replaced him later on as heads of the consecutive pro-US reactionary regimes. They all had declared, one after the other, that the time of CPP’s annihilation is approaching – only to be belied by the reality. If the golden anniversary proved just one thing, it is that a revolutionary movement that put itself selflessly in the service of the popular masses’ interests is not an easy match, no matter how powerful, malicious and manipulative the enemy is.
Today the world is very different than half a century ago. Scores of parties and movements worldwide, among them many that were boasting too loud their role as vanguards, have faded or ceased to exist, unable or unwilling to understand the ongoing profound changes of the globalized imperialist/capitalist system, to draw the lessons from previous failures, and to adapt in new realities in order to keep serving their peoples. Others have just chosen το bow to the TINA dogma and simply jumped to the enemy camp – the Greek people has experienced this recently in the most bitter way…
Clearly, CPP does not belong to either of these two categories. Its historic effort undertaken back in 1968, namely the struggle by all means for democratic, independent and socially just Philippines, remains today timely, valid and above all vivid. Its ideological, political and organizational strengthening continues and its roots among the popular masses get deeper. The CPP proved able to redress its mistakes and to resist the sugar-coated bullets of the enemy, while remaining the expression of the most profound needs and legitimate expectations of the Filipino people.
Dear Comrades of the CPP,
We know each other since the early 80s. During the last 35 years we have been together in many struggles and we have witnessed –and resisted– the emergence of the imperialist and neoliberal globalization as a response of the capitalist system to its own crisis. Today the alienation of whole peoples from this system, their generalized discontent and even their rage against it, as well as the delegitimation of its representatives, becomes more and more obvious in Europe and around the globe.
As we are anxious to discover new, effective ways to serve our peoples and to imagine new liberating perspectives, your 50 years’ long struggle is offering us courage. And we are confident that the actual president, Mr Duterte, who appeared as a progressive and peace-loving candidate only to prove himself very fast as just another enemy of the Filipino people and pawn of US imperialism, will share the fate of his predecessors – while the CPP, the NPA, the NDFP and all the allied organizations will win greater victories in the ongoing struggle for national and social liberation.
Long live the Golden Anniversary of the CPP!
Let’s all welcome the unwelcome, until the time of the biggest fireworks comes!
Athens, December 26, 2018
Communist Organization of Greece / KOE
