The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) joins the Filipino masses in celebrating the 57th founding year of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Founded on December 26, 1968 amid the deepening crisis of a semicolonial and semifeudal state, the CPP has stood at the forefront of the people’s resistance against imperialist domination, feudal exploitation, and bureaucrat capitalism, guiding generations of workers, peasants, intellectuals, youth, women, and national minorities in organized struggle.
In honoring this milestone, the NDFP salutes the Party’s historic role in forging the basic alliance of the Filipino peasant and the working class, and in advancing the Filipino people’s just and necessary struggle for national and social liberation.
The CPP arose from concrete historical necessity at a time when modern revisionism has proven itself to be ideologically bankrupt, and as the semicolonial and semifeudal crisis of Philippine society was intensifying. Since its inception, various US-backed puppet regimes have unleashed vicious counterrevolutionary wars against the revolutionary movement only to be met with utter failure and humiliation.
As the CPP’s founding chairperson, Prof. Jose Maria Sison incisively summed up: “the people’s democratic revolution continues to grow in strength and benefits from the ever worsening chronic crisis of the ruling system.” The escalating oppression and exploitation imposed by imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism have pushed ever broader sections of the Filipino masses to join the armed struggle in the countryside. As Ka Joma emphasized, “in increasing numbers, they are joining and supporting the building of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the advance of the New People’s Army, the expansion of the revolutionary mass organizations, the strengthening of the National Democratic Front and the establishment of the People’s Democratic Government in ever wider areas of the countryside.”
Indeed, the Party’s enduring strength lies in its firm grasp of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and its rootedness among the masses. From the countryside to the cities, the CPP has consistently integrated itself with the daily struggles of the masses from peasants fighting for land and genuine agrarian reform, workers resisting relentless exploitation and union-busting, national minorities defending their ancestral lands against corrupt and greedy corporations and bureaucrat capitalists, women challenging multiple layers of oppression and exploitation, and the youth confronting a future shaped by crisis and irreversible imperialist decay. It is through this deep rootedness among the masses that the Party transforms the people’s resistance into an organized and revolutionary force capable of dealing deathly blows against the enemy.
A decisive factor in the Party’s continuing advance and resilience is its firm grasp of rectification as a vital weapon to self-criticize and to rectify its own errors. Through its rectification movement, the Party is able to combat the errors of empiricism, dogmatism in ideology; conservatism, liberalism, tailism, and sectoralism in politics; and bureaucratism and ultra-democracy in organization.
At the core of the class struggle stands the New People’s Army that wages protracted people’s war under the absolute leadership of the Party. The NPA wages protracted people’s war by integrating armed struggle, agrarian revolution, and mass base-building, ensuring that every tactical action strengthens the political power of the masses. In the face of relentless counterrevolutionary violence, the Party has preserved the NPA’s character as a disciplined, mass-oriented, and ideologically grounded force, capable of withstanding repression while advancing the strategic objectives of the revolution.
Equally important is the Party’s leadership of the united front, firmly anchored on the basic alliance of the working class and the peasantry. In a semicolonial and semifeudal society where peasants comprise the majority and workers provide the most advanced class leadership, the Party has consistently upheld this alliance as the backbone of the people’s democratic revolution. From this solid foundation, it has drawn in the petty bourgeoisie and other positive forces, isolating the most reactionary elements of the ruling classes. The Party guides the united front while mobilizing the broad masses around their concrete demands while steadily raising their revolutionary consciousness and capacity to struggle.
After fifty-seven years, the CPP stands steeled by struggle, enriched by decades of experience, and enlivened by new Party members endowed with the wisdom of veteran and experienced cadres.
While the challenges ahead remain formidable as the ruling system sinks deeper into crisis, these same objective conditions are favorable for the revolution to continue to mature. As Ka Joma stated, “the intensifying inter-imperialist contradictions augur the resurgence of the world proletarian revolution and validate the people’s aspirations for national liberation, democracy and socialism.”
On this 57th founding anniversary of the CPP, the NDFP together with the underground revolutionary forces and the Filipino masses both in the homefront and abroad, reaffirms its commitment to uphold and advance the people’s democratic revolution. We honor the martyrs and Red fighters who gave their lives, the cadres who persevere under the harshest conditions, and above all the fighting Filipino masses whose struggles give life to the Party and meaning to the revolution.
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!
Long live the New People’s Army!
Long live the National Democratic Front of the Philippines!
Long live the fighting Filipino masses!
Forward on the road of people’s democratic revolution toward socialism!