On the 40th Anniversary of the NDFP
By Ka Oris
Spokesperson, NDFP Mindanao
On the occasion of the 40th founding anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), we greet with utmost joy all revolutionary allied organizations, all 18 of them, allies and the entire revolutionary forces for having effectively and enthusiastically carried out the united front policies and programs in advancing the people’s democratic revolution.
Through the political leadership of the Communist Party, hundreds of thousands of organized masses in millions of mass bases in the whole of Mindanao have been aroused, organized, expanded and mobilized to advance their class and sectoral interests along the national democratic line.
In the painstaking process of undertaking united front work for armed struggle, many have selflessly offered their lives for the people’s democratic revolution. We salute all revolutionary martyrs among the ranks of the Party members and cadres, Red fighters and commanders, basic masses and the middle forces.
Since its inception in 1973, the NDFP and all its allied organizations have paved the way for the establishment of organs of political power — the people’s democratic government — in the countryside. Numerous people’s government have already been established at the barrio level, and even some at the municipal level. The US-Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan has sorely failed to stop the continued widening and strengthening of Red political power across numerous provinces in Mindanao.
Through our firm resolve in waging agrarian revolution as the main content of the people’s democratic revolution and as the key link to our mass work in the countryside, the membership of revolutionary mass organizations has rapidly increased; the anti-feudal movement in the countryside has also surged to carry forward agrarian revolution, raising the level from the inter-barangay to the municipal and inter-municipal up to the regional mass movement. This movement aims to weaken and topple down the feudal power and influence in Mindanao and to ultimately emancipate the peasantry from feudal and semi-feudal exploitation.
The anti-feudal united front has been steeled and expanded by the widespread mass actions demanding for increase in wages of farm workers, increase in prices of farm produce, the elimination of usury, the lowering of land rent and farm implements and agricultural machineries. In many towns in Mindanao, this has already benefitted hundreds of thousands of peasants and their families.
Units of the New People’s Army (NPA) are already positioned in strategic areas in more or less 250 municipalities and more than 2000 barrios in Mindanao. Consequently, the NPA has raised the level of guerrilla warfare in launching simultaneous, coordinated and widespread tactical offensives against fascist enemy forces, mobilizing many Red troops at the same time, and in defending the hard-earned victories of the masses of peasants and workers. These tactical offensives have been aimed also to deliver big blows against imperialist multinationals, such as large-scale mining and agri-business plantations, making them pay for decades of plunder of natural resources and the environment, the oppression and exploitation of the people of Mindanao, and bring to a halt their continued aggressive expansion.
In carrying out the requisites of revolutionary united front principles, the NDFP in various levels in Mindanao has endeavoured tirelessly to relate with numerous allies among the national bourgeoisie as well as among enlightened members of the ruling class. We engage in practical cooperation with these classes and a number of candidates running for public office this election period based on our revolutionary united front policy. In spite of recently hitting a snag on account of the deeply regrettable and unintentional incident that befell the convoy of Gingoog City Mayor Ruth de Lara-Guingona, our united front efforts in Mindanao will continue to advance.
Bourgeois elections are once again upon us. The NDFP in Mindanao views this as another exercise of rival factions of the ruling class to entertain the poor, distracting them from the socio-economic crisis, and to legitimize their hold on power. Despite the US-Aquino regime’s rhetoric of “clean elections,” unscrupulous election manoeuvrings, trapo terrorism, bogus surveys, vote buying, and cheating through the pre-programmed hocus-PCOS are ever present.
The NDFP-Mindanao has stressed to all politicians to abide by the revolutionary policies on elections. In entering Red territories, politicians must coordinate with concerned revolutionary territorial commands and committees in order to present their political platform and programs, and to ensure the orderly conduct of their campaigns. In so doing, they must avoid bringing with them firearms and armed escorts, except when given special permission by the local NPA unit. In the entire election period, the NPA put up checkpoints and roadblocks across Mindanao to enforce this policy.
The NDFP in Mindanao resolutely calls for the resumption of the peace talks between the NDFP and the GPH and for both panels to immediately return to the negotiating table. If we recall, it was the reactionary Philippine government under Benigno Aquino III which arbitrarily terminated the peace talks because, it claimed, the NDFP’s demands “are impossible to meet.” One of the NDFP’s major demands is the inclusion in the talking points genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, human rights, the respect for the right to self-determination and other substantial points. The GPH however intentionally bolted from the peace negotiations because, apart from having no interest at all in engaging in the discussion of the substantial peace agenda, it only desperately wants to step up the brutal Oplan Bayanihan military suppression campaign, hinged on the entirely false notion that it can actually decimate the revolutionary movement. In fact, the GPH recently deployed 500 AFP troops from Luzon to Mindanao to further attempt to put a stop to the intensifying armed revolution in Mindanao.
Clearly, despite of the recently signed Framework on the Bangsamoro, the GPH’s much-vaunted peace agreement with the MILF appears to be stymied, with the former compelling the latter to fast track the decommissioning of the BIAF. On the other hand, the US-Aquino regime has shown its rabidly fascist nature against the Moro people by siding with the Malaysian government in the arrest and even the merciless killing of the Tausugs and other Moros loyal to the Sulu Sultanate, which is presently headed by Jamalul Kiram III.
Amid the chronic economic crisis in the country, the mass movement of workers, urban poor, students and other professionals in the cities continue to widen and grow stronger to demand for better wages, benefits, livelihood and social services. The hundreds of thousands of victims of typhoons Sendong and Pablo strongly demand for serious and sustained rehabilitation from the government. Moreover, the anti-imperialist struggle is growing stronger against the escalation of US troop’s presence in the Philippines.
Under this context, the NDFP-Mindanao calls on all revolutionary forces to redouble its effort at building revolutionary bases by way of increasing membership for revolutionary mass organizations, launch anti-feudal struggle more aggressively, and establish more organs of political power in the countryside. On the part of NPA, it is important to accelerate building more platoons, and raise the level of guerrilla warfare in launching numerous coordinated, simultaneous and widespread tactical offensives based on an ever widening and deepening mass base, carrying the people’s war forward from the strategic defensive towards the strategic stalemate stage.
Long live the struggling masses!
Long live the National Democratic Front of the Philippines!
Long live the People’s Democratic Revolution!