Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
 
Press Release
December 23, 2007
 
NPA remains on alert as guns fall silent on Christmas and New Year--CPP
 
As a matter of policy and tradition, the guns of the New People's Army (NPA) will be silent on December 24-25 and on December 31-January 1, 2008, in deference to the people's holiday celebrations. However, NPA units have been instructed to remain alert against enemy operations, and—if provoked—fend off or repulse its fascist offensives.
 
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said
the NPA practices unilateral military restraint on the eve and days of Christmas and New Year, even if there is no formal declaration of a ceasefire. "As practiced for many years, the Filipino people, their people's army and revolutionary forces unite in humble traditional holiday celebrations and in the commemoration of the anniversary of the Communist Party which falls on December 26."
 
"At the same time," Rosal said, "even as a four-day Christmas and New Year ceasefire is observed, the order to intensify tactical offensives against fascist government forces remain in force. All units of the NPA are instructed to closely monitor the movements of the AFP, maintain vigilance, be on active defense and decisively counter all forms of treachery by the fascist armed forces. The need to intensify the people's war remains as the Arroyo regime relentlessly pursues its brutal war of terror."
 
"The practice of observing a four-day ceasefire during the traditional holiday celebrations has nothing to do with the totally sham and outrightly hypocritical 22-day 'suspension of military operations' (SOMO) declared by Malacanang which it is only using to camouflage its continuing military operations including patrol, surveillance and offensive operations against the NPA and the revolutionary mass base."
 
The CPP spokesperson said "In actual fact, the AFP has been completely ignoring its self-declared ceasefire since Day One. Its units continue to be on offensive mode against the NPA despite their unilateral SOMO declaration. They have been scouring peasant and minority communities, committing military abuses, forcibly displacing thousands of residents and wreaking havoc on peasant and tribal communities."
 
"Malacanang and the AFP's three-week SOMO has no value at all for the people and their revolutionary forces, especially in the face of the continuing brutal fascist rampage of the government's armed forces in their frenzy to suppress the people's resistance to Arroyo's rotten rule," said Rosal.
 
"Their sham SOMO is an obvious bait to paralyze the NPA for three weeks and allow the government's fascist forces free rein to continue attacking the revolutionary forces, its mass base and the legal democratic forces with impunity. It merely serves as a cheap psywar gimmick to make it appear that they want peace even as they continue with their extrajudicial killings, forcible abductions, illegal arrests, torture, arson, looting and forced evacuations of entire communities, and other gross human rights violations."
 
Rosal noted reports of continuing AFP military operations even after the AFP's supposed SOMO starting December 16. He cited the case of the tribal folk of General Nakar, Quezon who have been forced to go on an exodus to Infanta in order to escape continuing AFP operations against the NPA. In Surigao del Sur, Manobo national minorities were forced to evacuate again to Tandag City after AFP troops refuse to heed the pleadings of the tribespeople for the government armed forces to leave their villages. In MacArthur town, a Philippine Army armored personnel carrier forcibly entered Barangay Hibodhibod to conduct "pursuit operations against the NPA."
 
The CPP spokesperson said "an extended ceasefire in the future is still possible if, among others, the Philippine government agrees to work with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in a common effort at striving to attain immediate peace and addressing the roots of the armed conflict," Rosal said.
 
Rosal said the CPP supports the view of NDFP Senior Political Consultant Jose Ma. Sison that a ceasefire is possible on a larger perspective if whoever heads the reactionary government would agree to and abide with certain conditions that would enhance the peace process, namely: respect of the political authority and territory of the people's democratic government; withdrawal of AFP troops to divisional headquarters and the PNP mobile brigades to brigade headquarters; dissolution of the fascist paramilitary forces; removal of the 12 impediments that prevent the resumption of formal talks; and agreement with the NDFP to resume and accelerate the peace negotiations in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration, the Oslo Accords and other previous agreements with the NDFP.
 
"If the Arroyo government remains as extremely pro-imperialist and ultra-reactionary as it is now and refuses to heed such reasonable proposals of the NDFP for the resumption of the peace process, the revolutionary forces and the Filipino people will merely continue with their revolutionary armed struggle and wait for a regime that will be more receptive and genuinely interested in the peace process."