Towards a Just and Lasting Peace Conference Secretariat International League of Peoples’ Struggles – Participating Organizations in Canada
SPEAKERS' PAPERS

THE FILIPINO PEOPLE’S STRUGGLE FOR NATIONAL AND SOCIAL LIBERATION

by Luis G. Jalandoni
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Vancouver, 17 June 2006

What is the key to the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation that has persisted and grown strong over 37 years?  What is the key to the commitment and courage of the Filipino people to struggle against the most powerful imperialist power and face the fascist repression of the Arroyo regime?

I would venture to say that the answer lies in the story of an 11-year-old girl named Adeliza. One night about four years ago, Adeliza and her parents were wakened by the noise of approaching soldiers. Her mother quickly hid her in the closet telling her to keep absolutely quiet. The soldiers banged on the door, calling for her father. They broke down the door and grabbed him. Adeliza’s mother clung to him trying to stop the soldiers. Through a slit of the cabinet door, Adeliza could see the leader of the soldiers. They dragged her father out, with her mother following trying to stop them. Then several shots rang out. Her father and mother had been summarily executed.

The orphaned Adeliza was taken care of by Eden Marcellana and Eddie Gumanoy. Eden was the head of Karapatan, the human rights organization, in Southern Tagalog. She had not finished grade school but she avidly studied human rights documents, such as the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. She went on factfinding missions to document human rights violations. When Col. Palparan, the notorious killer of unarmed civilians,  was promoted by the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to general, she registered her objection at the confirmation hearings in Congress. Eddie Gumanoy was a peasant leader.  In April 2003, Eden and Eddie went on a factfinding mission in Mindoro, an island south of Manila. Upon returning from such a mission, their van was blocked by masked soldiers. The soldiers took Eden. Eddie tried to stop them and when he could not, he decided not to leave Eden alone. The next day their tortured bodies were found.  They had been shot in the head.

A week later at their wake, Adeliza was among the mourners. A TV reporter asked her. “What are you going to do now? What is your plan for the future?”  Adeliza answered: “The soldiers killed my parents. Now they have also killed Nanay Eden and Tatay Eddie. What do I want to be? I want to be like Nanay Eden and Tatay Eddie – and like my parents – helping people.”

In the International Tribunal held in Manila in August 2005, Adeliza, then 14 years old, testified and identified the military agent who led in the murder of her parents.

Adeliza, Eden Marcellana, Eddie Gumanoy multiplied a hundred thousand times

The key to the persistence and advance of the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation is Adeliza multiplied a hundred thousand times! It is Adeliza, Eden Marcellana and Eddie Gumanoy in their hundreds of thousands all over the country.  This is the revolutionary force that US imperialism and the Arroyo fascists cannot defeat.

It must be noted that this revolutionary force is the product of a long revolutionary tradition.  The Filipino people waged more than 200 revolts throughout the more than three centuries of Spanish colonial rule.

The current revolutionary struggle is a continuation of the successful revolution for independence against Spain in 1898 led by the worker leader Andres Bonifacio. Only this time, in the era of imperialism and the proletarian revolution, the struggle has been raised to a higher level, with the leadership in the hands of the working class and with a clear socialist perspective.

The revolutionary struggle today likewise draws lessons from the Filipino people’s war of resistance against US imperialist invasion, which resulted in the loss of 1.5 Filipino lives from 1899 to 1913. It continues the revolutionary principles of Crisanto Evangelista who founded the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas in 1930. 

The committed masses and the correct line of leadership

On this firm commitment and revolutionary foundation of hundreds of thousands of Adelizas, Eden Marcellanas and Eddie Gumanoys, the leadership of the revolutionary movement has nurtured the most advanced revolutionary theory drawn from the practice of successful revolutions. The experience of the Soviet people under the leadership of Lenin and that of the Chinese people under Mao Zedong, raised to the level of revolutionary theory, have enlightened the revolutionary path of the Filipino people’s struggle.  The revolutionary leadership applied Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought to the concrete conditions and history of the Philippines and defined the general political line of the national democratic revolution through protracted people’s war.

The interactive relationship between the militant masses all over the country and the correct line of the revolutionary leadership is the firm foundation of the persistence and growth of the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation.

After several years of struggle against the revisionist leadership of the old Communist Party, young proletarian revolutionaries started the First Great Rectification Movement in 1967 which led to the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968, the founding of the New People’s Army in 1969 and the formation of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in 1973.

Despite the US-backed fascist dictatorship of Marcos, the revolutionary movement spread throughout the country. Its militant struggle of more than 15 years weakened the dictatorship until people power with a military rebellion toppled it in 1986.

Adventurist errors of some elements in the CPP leadership such as launching urban insurrectionist actions and building prematurely big formations of the NPA, while neglecting mass work caused huge setbacks. Under conditions of military defeat, they launched a disastrous anti-infiltration campaign. Because of the errors, sixty percent of the mass base was lost and hundreds of cadres and members of the revolutionary movement and the masses were victimized with death, torture and illegal detention.

Upon the demand of many cadres and units in the regions and districts, the CPP leadership identified, repudiated and rectified the errors in an educational campaign, the Second Great Rectification Movement launched in 1992.  The masses embraced the rectification movement, while the renegades who were responsible for the grave errors refused to accept their responsibility and rectify their errors. Many of the renegades joined the reactionary government, some becoming enemy agents and spies, while others became armed security personnel of state officials, big compradors and despotic landlords. .

With the resounding success of the rectification movement, the revolutionary movement has regained its strength, recovered lost areas, consolidated and expanded its forces.   

Revolutionary Work in the Countryside

The bulk of the revolutionary movement’s work is in the countryside, where the great majority of the population, the peasantry, live and work. Their basic aspiration, genuine land reform, is the main content of the people’s democratic revolution.  In response to this basic aspiration, the revolutionary movement carries out its land reform program. At this time, this consists mainly of the minimum program.  This consists of lowering land rent, reducing or eliminating usury, raising farmworkers’ wages, raising income through simple cooperation and sideline occupation. This is supplemented with health programs, literacy and numeracy campaigns, cultural and self-defense programs. The maximum program of land reform of free distribution of land is to be implemented later.

In concert with the campaigns for land reform, health and other campaigns is the building of the mass base. This means setting up the mass organizations of peasants, workers,
women, children and cultural activists. As the mass organizations are consolidated, organs of political power are built. These are the embryos of the people’s democratic government, consisting of revolutionary barrio committees, and the subcommittees of organization, education, health, land reform, self-defense, and settling of disputes.

The mass base building together with the campaigns for land reform, health and other campaigns form the basis for the third factor: the revolutionary armed struggle.
The NPA units are built from the families of peasants and workers who cherish the NPA for its defense of their rights. The NPA is an organizing force, a productive force and a fighting force.

The three elements of the work in the countryside interact under the current line of intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of a strong mass base.

The work in the countryside is guided by the revolutionary movement’s policy of the anti-feudal united front.  This means relying mainly on the poor peasants and farmworkers, winning over the middle peasants, neutralizing the rich peasants and taking advantage of the splits between the enlightened and despotic landlords, to direct the strongest blows against the despotic landlords and thereby destroy landlord power in the countryside.

Not only is the work in the countryside vital for the revolutionary armed struggle. It is also very important for the revolutionary mass movement. Mass organizations in the countryside play a big role in mass actions in the provincial urban areas and even in Manila. An example is the Lakbayan or people’s march held in October 2005 stretching to more than 100 kilometers from Manila.

Revolutionary Work in the Urban Areas

Complementing the work in the countryside is the revolutionary work in the urban areas.
Organizing work among workers, the urban poor, youth and students, government employees, church sector and other sectors is undertaken. Strikes and other worker’s mass actions, demonstrations, forums and rallies are launched in Manila and other cities. The work for human rights, for sustainable environment, against violations of national sovereignty and actions against many anti-people and anti-national policies of the reactionary government take place in urban areas

The revolutionary movement is guided by its policy of united front in developing the broad united front.  This policy calls for developing the basic alliance of the working class and the peasantry under working class leadership. Then it fosters the united front with the urban petty bourgeoisie as part of the basic motive forces of the revolution. It also brings the middle or national bourgeoisie into the alliance of patriotic forces. Then it takes advantage of splits among the reactionary classes and concentrates its strongest blows on the enemy at any given time, the most reactionary clique that is also the most subservient to US imperialism.

Peace Negotiations

The peace negotiations comprise one more form of legal struggle.  They do not substitute for the revolutionary armed struggle which remains always the main form of struggle, because it is decisive for achieving political power. They are also a less effective form of legal struggle than the revolutionary mass movement.

However, at the negotiating table, the revolutionary movement through the NDFP is able to negotiate with the enemy on an equal footing under international law. It is able to project the program of the movement and the justness of its struggle. It is able to accumulate points for the recognition of its status as a co-belligerent in the civil war, even as the enemy tries to depict it as an insurgent force or a police problem and lately, through the US, the European Union and other governments, as a “terrorist” organization.  Through the peace negotiations, the revolutionary movement is able to achieve to a limited extent the release of political prisoners.

Our negotiating panel, ably assisted by Prof. Jose Maria Sison as Chief Political Consultant, United Nations Judge ad litem Romeo T. Capulong as Senior Legal Adviser, a team of consultants and volunteers in the Reciprocal Working Committees for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law and for Social and Economic Reforms, working collectively, has successfully negotiated important agreements such as The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the CARHRIHL, among others. In the negotiations, the NDFP has asserted and continues to assert the political integrity of the revolutionary movement, making sure that it does not submit to the political authority, the constitution or the judicial and legal system of the GRP. Thus, The Hague Joint Declaration stipulates that the talks must be held according to mutually acceptable principles of national sovereignty, social justice and democracy. In it is also enshrined the principle of non-capitulation, which means neither party can be made to submit to the other’s constitution or political authority.  These principles are reiterated in subsequent agreements.

The GRP, however, since November 2001 has used the threat of and actual “terrorist” listing of the CPP, the NPA and Prof. Sison to pressure the NDFP to capitulate by signing a  GRP-formulated “Final Peace Agreement” which is nothing more than a document of capitulation and dissolving the people’s army. It has practically killed the peace negotiations by charging NDFP panelists and some consultants with rebellion and invalidly suspending the JASIG.  The “terrorist listing” has emboldened the Arroyo regime to escalate political killings and enforced disappearances, now occurring almost daily!

Revolutionary Movement’s Coverage and Current Stage of People’s War

Through many ups and downs, twists and turns, the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation has grown tremendously after the resounding victory of the Second Great Rectification Movement.  The revolutionary movement is now carrying out its program in more than 9,000 barrios or villages (out of about 42,000), in about 800 municipalities and cities (out of about 1,600) in 70 out of 79 provinces. In those areas there are more than 120 guerrilla fronts of the NPA

The leadership of the revolutionary movement has defined the current stage of our struggle as developing and completing the middle phase of the strategic defensive stage of people’s war.  Thereafter the advanced phase of the strategic defensive has to be developed and completed before entering the stage of strategic stalemate which precedes the third and final stage of strategic offensive. This definition is meant to emphasize that there is much work to be done in order to change the balance of forces. It serves to ensure that no adventurist errors will arise as did from the early 1980s to 1991.

The Principle of Self-Reliance

The revolutionary movement adheres to the principle of self-reliance. NPA rifles are seized from the enemy in successful tactical offensives of the NPA.  Voluntary contributions from the peasantry are major factors for self-reliance. The peasantry willingly donate a small portion of the gains from the revolutionary land reform program. Other sources are the donations from members of the revolutionary movement and its friends in the country and abroad.  The people’s government collects taxes from profit-making enterprises in order to finance social programs. The principle of self-reliance ensures that the revolutionary movement is able to maintain its independence. It is not subject to unfavorable changes in political color of parties, governments and movements abroad.     

International Work and Solidarity

To all these forms of struggle, the Philippine revolutionary movement adds as integral to its program, its international work among millions of overseas Filipinos and its solidarity and representational work among fraternal peoples, governmental and intergovernmental organizations. The movement seeks to win the broadest and strongest political, moral and material support for its just struggle. In the face of the escalation of political killings and enforced disappearances, we have launched a human rights campaign to expose to the international community the barbarity with which the Arroyo regime is violating human rights and international humanitarian law. We are also campaigning against the unjust and baseless “terrorist listing” of the CPP, the NPA, and Prof. Jose Maria Sison, the NDFP Chief Political Consultant. We request solidarity support for these campaigns.