CPP Information Bureau
The report issued by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) yesterday claiming to have reduced the strength of the New People’s Army is pure hogwash. The Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression being carried out by the AFP has been a complete failure in terms of its objective of decimating the NPA. In waging its Oplan Bayanihan, the AFP has succeeded only in committing more violations of human rights and international humanitarian law and imposing a reign of terror in civilian communities in the name of “peace and development.”
The failure of the Oplan Bayanihan is underscored by the 15-20% growth trend in the number of Red fighters and NPA firepower, based on initial reports issued by NPA commands and leading committees of the CPP in Cagayan Valley, the Ilocos-Cordillera, Eastern Visayas, Panay and Mindanao.
In Mindanao, the number of NPA tactical offensives increased by 40% to 350 last year. Units and commands of the NPA in Mindanao and in other regions are increasingly able to launch more coordinated tactical offensives at the inter-front and regional levels. In many regions, the NPA can now launch simultaneous or coordinated tactical offensives, further causing the AFP and state forces to spread their forces thinly, in turn making them more vulnerable to attacks. This is exemplified by the coordinated tactical offensives last January 18 in Bukidnon which resulted in 22 enemy casualties.
There has also been a 15-20% increase in the membership of revolutionary mass organizations. Entities of the people’s government are now being set up at levels higher than the barrio level. Further expansion and strengthening of the people’s organized strength can be achieved as the people wage intensified anti-imperialist, antifeudal, antifascist and democratic mass struggles in both the cities and countryside.
There have been intense mass struggles against the incursion of mining companies, land grabbing by big plantations and big comprador companies, oil price increases, budget cuts in social services as well as against fascist Oplan Bayanihan military operations. People are being roused to political action. In Cagayan Valley, the number of mass activists increased by as much as 75%. In a span of just three months, at least 500 people in Leyte joined peasant, youth, women and cultural mass organizations.
There are tens of thousands of potential Red fighters who can serve the people’s army in its regular units or in people’s militias. There has been a steady increase in the number of armed people’s militias and people’s self-defense corps which are attached to the NPA and augment its strength. These armed units based in local communities can launch tactical offensives and defensive actions against the enemy and its brutal military operations. In further expanding and raising the capacity of the people’s armed militias, the armed revolution can launch thousands of big and small tactical offensives in the coming years.
At the core of all this are cadres and members of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Membership in the CPP continues to grow, gaining around 30% last year in Mindanao and elsewhere.
The Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army and the entire revolutionary movement have been steadily growing in strength over the past two years. The increasing momentum in the growth of the CPP and all revolutionary forces place them in a position to achieve a qualitative leap in strength and gain unprecedented victories in the following years.
The Filipino people are ever determined to advance their revolutionary struggles as they experience worse hardships under the Aquino regime which steel their commitment to put an end to the oppressive and exploitative system and build a genuinely democratic, just and progressive social system.