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"The NDFP is
tasked to further develop the revolutionary united front for armed
struggle. In this regard, it employs the basic alliance of workers and
peasants, the alliance of the progressive forces, the alliance of
patriotic forces and the broad alliance with certain sections of the
reactionary classes in order to rally the people in their millions to
isolate and destroy the worst reactionary force at every give time and
increase the capacity of all the three weapons of the armed revolution to
overthrow the ruling system" - Jose Maria Sison. |
"The major part
of the work of the NDFP allied organizations is in the wide countryside.
Mass organizations of peasants and farm workers, workers, women, youth,
cultural groups and children are set up. Mass campaigns for land reform,
health, education, culture, and self-defense are carried out in response
to the peasants' basic needs. Organs of political power or alternative
governments on the barrio level are formed, while the New People's Army
and the CPP are strengthened." - Louis Jalandoni |
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PRESS
RELEASE
NDFP International Information Office
28 April 2008
OVERSEAS FILIPINOS, FOREIGN COMRADES
JOIN NDFP CELEBRATE ITS 35TH YEAR
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines on Saturday observed its
35th anniversary with the theme "Celebrating 35 years of the Filipino
people's victories in their struggle for national liberation." The event
was held at an old church, the Nassaukerk, in Amsterdam and was attended
by overseas Filipinos and foreign comrades from the Netherlands, Belgium,
Germany, Norway, Ireland, the UK, Turkey, and Indonesia.
The event started at 2 p.m. with an exhibit of NDFP memorabilia,
revolutionary paintings and posters, film showing, and a sale of various
items to raise funds for the victims of the recent calamities in Eastern
Visayas and for the campaign to resurface disappeared NDFP peace
consultants and staff who have been victims of enforced disappearances.
A forum highlighting the victories and prospects of the Philippine
revolution was held next. Featured speakers were Luis G. Jalandoni, chair
of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, Professor Jose Maria Sison, NDFP chief
political consultant; and Koen Hostyn, a Belgian student who was part of a
delegation that visited the Philippines recently.
In his speech, Jalandoni described the work of the NDFP in this way: "The
major part of the work of the NDFP allied organizations is in the wide
countryside. Mass organizations of peasants and farm workers, workers,
women, youth, cultural groups and children are set up. Mass campaigns for
land reform, health, education, culture, and self-defense are carried out
in response to the peasants' basic needs. Organs of political power or
alternative governments on the barrio level are formed, while the New
People's Army and the CPP are strengthened."
Strides in the areas of land reform, health service, literacy and cultural
programs have been made, said Jalandoni.
With regard to the work in urban areas, Jalandoni explained: "In the urban
areas, NDFP allied organizations promote the workers' struggles, the
revolutionary mass movement, the struggle for human rights, and political
work within reactionary institutions. They join the masses in the campaign
to oust the corrupt, illegal and fascist Arroyo regime. They help build
alliances to broaden the national united front in support of the overall
revolutionary struggle,"
Jalandoni singled out the holding in 1980 of the Permanent Peoples'
Tribunal (PPT) on the Philippines as one of the revolutionary movement's
successes in its international work. The PPT would later declare the NDFP
as the legitimate representative of the Filipino people and recognize the
status of belligerency of their revolutionary armed struggle.
Jalandoni said that "abroad, the NDFP allied organizations promote the
work among overseas Filipinos to defend and uphold their rights and foster
their participation in and support for the Filipino people's liberation
struggle. It also develops international solidarity with peoples from
different countries, fostering mutually beneficial cooperation in the
struggle against imperialist globalization and wars of aggression."
He added: "The NDFP likewise carries out proto-diplomatic and diplomatic
work to win support and recognition from governmental and
intergovernmental institutions abroad. The NDFP Negotiating Panel and its
consultants, staff and volunteers are also tasked with undertaking peace
negotiations with the reactionary government."
Prof, Sison spoke about the current situation in the Philippines and the
prospects in the coming years. He explained that the semifeudal and
semicolonial system is in chronic crisis and is ever rife for a national
democratic revolution. "The Arroyo regime has aggravated and deepened the
crisis by escalating the exploitation and oppression of the people."
Sison lambasted the Arroyo government for being anti-people and for going
against the development of the economy through national industrialization
and genuine land reform. "She is extremely servile to the US and other
imperialist interests and has allowed free rein to plunder of the economy
by foreign corporations and by the big compradors and landlords."
Can Arroyo finish her "stolen" term up to 2010? To this question, Sison
replied that the fake president being ousted before her term ends remains
a "distinct possibility". He said protest actions participated in by a
broad alliance of all classes and sectors in Philippine society will
continue across the country. He added that the Communist Party of the
Philippines, the New People's Army and the NDFP are all doing their share
to isolate the Arroyo regime by intensifying its revolutionary struggle in
the countryside.
"But the most decisive event is still to come, which is the pouring out of
hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of the national capital
region in order to signal the anti-Arroyo military and police officers and
personnel to withdraw support from the Arroyo regime and give way to a new
civilian government," Sison said.
Lastly, Sison also emphasized the important role played by the NDFP's
international work. This work, he said, includes gathering the support of
international friends and mobilizing overseas Filipinos for the Philippine
revolutionary movement.
The importance of learning from each other's experience was the message
Belgian youth activist Koen Hostyn tried to impart in his message during
the forum.
Joining a delegation of Belgian students who in 2007 went to the
Philippines for an exposure trip, Koen experienced firsthand how it was to
live and struggle with the Filipino masses. The group visited the peasants
in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, the striking workers of Nestlé in Laguna,
and also their fellow students at the Polytechnic University of the
Philippines.
Visiting a third world country for the first time, Hostyn said the
experience concretized for him and the rest of the group the meaning of
exploitation and oppression. He said they were also amazed at the
militancy of the workers and peasants in continuing their struggle despite
the fascist measures employed by the landlords and the capitalists. Hostyn:
"We were moved by the courage and determination of the Filipino masses."
International awards, cultural nights
Part of the afternoon program was paying tribute to non-Filipino nationals
"who have become "friends, supporters, partners and comrades of the NDFP,
the Filipino people, and the revolutionary struggle".
This year's recipients of the NDFP "internationalist awards" are: Bernard
Tomlow, the NDFP's Dutch lawyer; husband-and-wife Harsono and Darmini,
Amsterdam-based Indonesians who have been supporting the Philippine
struggle for years; and posthumous awards to Gerard Raemaekers, a Dutch
development volunteer in the Philippines; and Pat Healy and Jack Hynes,
two Irish missionary priests assigned in the Philippines who selflessly
dedicated their lives to the Philippine revolution.
Cultural night
Capping the celebration was a two-hour cultural night prepared by the NDFP
staff in Utrecht, international friends, and the Filipino community in The
Netherlands.
Dances from the Philippines, Indonesia and Ireland were showcased, while
revolutionary songs were sung not only by the Filipinos but also by
Turkish, Dutch and German friends who attended the celebration.
Chorale reading of Carlos Bulosan's poem, "If you want to know who we
are", as a tribute to overseas Filipinos and their participation in the
revolutionary movement, was also rendered.
The most moving part of the cultural night was the beaming of the names
and pictures of the martyrs of the Philippine revolution. #
REFERENCE:
Ruth de Leon
Executive Director
NDFP International Information Office
Tel.+31-30-2310431
Fax +31-84-7589930
Email: ndf@casema.nl
Download news release
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CURRENT
PHILIPPINE SITUATION AND PROSPECTS OF THE NDFP
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
NDFP Negotiating Panel
26 April 2008
It is
fitting and proper that we are exceedingly jubilant over the 35th
anniversary of the founding of the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines on 24 April 1973 when its 10-point Program was promulgated.
Since then, the NDFP has won great victories in the application and
development of the policy and tactics of the united front in advancing the
people's democratic revolution against foreign monopoly capitalism,
domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
The NDFP is the most consolidated and most powerful united front of
revolutionary forces in the Philippines. It has succeeded in gathering,
harmonizing and coordinating the revolutionary forces and winning over the
millions of people to the cause of armed revolution. It has promoted the
growth of all its allied organizations, the revolutionary mass movement
and the organs of political power. It has served as the base for various
types of alliances.
The revolutionary forces, the people's revolutionary government and the
broad masses of the people have authorized the NDFP to represent them in
peace negotiations with the reactionary government. In this regard, the
NDFP has upheld the integrity of the people's revolutionary government and
the revolutionary movement. It has worked fruitfully for the unity of
compatriots abroad and for international solidarity at the popular and
diplomatic levels.
Let me discuss the current situation in the Philippines and the prospects
of the NDFP
Current Philippine Situation
The character of the Philippine ruling system has remained semi-colonial
and semi-feudal. This system is in chronic crisis. It is ever rife for a
national democratic revolution. The Arroyo regime has aggravated and
deepened the crisis by escalating the exploitation and oppression of the
people under the US-dictated policy of “neoliberal globalization” and “war
on terror”.
It is hostile to the national and democratic rights and interests of the
Filipino people and to the development of the economy through national
industrialization and genuine land reform. It is extremely servile to the
US and other imperialist interests. It has allowed free rein to plunder of
the economy by foreign corporations and by the big compradors and
landlords. It knows no bounds for its bureaucratic corruption, the
practice of electoral fraud and rampant human rights violations.
It has kept an agrarian and pre-industrial economy that is dependent on
the production of raw materials for export and low value-added
semi-manufactures for re-export. The income from these always falls far
short of import payments. The regime has engaged in a wanton spree of
foreign and local borrowing, in combination with a policy of regressive
taxation and the appropriation of the remittances of overseas contract
workers. This is to cover the growing trade and budgetary deficits,
service the accumulated debt and make false claims of economic growth and
poverty alleviation.
The Arroyo regime and preceding regimes have allowed the destruction of
Filipino-owned manufacturing enterprises and local food production by
adopting the policy of trade liberalization. This policy has allowed the
dumping of foreign products on the country even while the income from the
export of raw materials and re-export of semi-manufactures has decreased
due to the global glut. Now with the unprecedented deep and ever worsening
economic and financial crisis of the US and the world capitalist system,
the Arroyo regime is at a loss as regards to getting the funds to pay the
debt service and the import of food, fuel and other necessary goods.
There is an international credit crunch that has arisen from the prolonged
abuse of credit under the policy of “neoliberal globalization”. The US
industrial decline, unemployment, the drastic contraction of the US
consumer market and the unsustainable national, corporate and household
debts further cramp the global financial system. They have resulted from
the ever worsening crisis of overproduction and runaway financial
speculation. All these adversely impact on the Philippine economy as
international credit tightens and orders for its raw material and
semi-manufacture exports are drastically reduced. The export of live labor
is also decreasing discernibly. The costs of imported food, fuel and other
necessities are rising relentlessly.
The dramatic bankruptcies of US households and an increasing number of
major US corporations, especially in the financial sector, through the
mortgage meltdown have a depressing effect not only on the US economy but
also on the entire world economy. They signify the grave loss of demand
due to reduced income and suppressed rights of the working people and the
failure of neoliberal policy to stimulate the economy with the most
irresponsible expansion of the money supply and credit, tax cutbacks for
the corporations and wealthy and unbridled military spending.
The worsening of the socio-economic crisis has resulted in the sharpening
of the political crisis in the Philippine ruling system. The ground for
amicable mutual accommodation among the reactionaries has increasingly
become constricted. The Arroyo ruling clique has increasingly monopolized
the spoils of power. The rising bitter rivalries within the ruling clique
have resulted in the exposure of many outrageous cases of bureaucratic
corruption. The intra-systemic political rivals of the ruling clique and
the broad range of the opposition, including the patriotic and progressive
forces, are inspired by the people's outrage and are emboldened to expose
and oppose the regime.
Discontent with the Arroyo regime is ever rising even among the military
and police forces. But the regime is trying hard to preoccupy and rally
them with bloodthirsty calls for the strategic defeat of the revolutionary
forces by 2010 under Oplan Bantay Laya 2. It is deliberately displaying
and using brute force in order to maintain the loyalty of the chain of
command, obtain increased US military assistance, intimidate the broad
range of legal opposition and of course to whip up the psy-war against the
revolutionary movement.
At any rate, the ouster of the Arroyo regime before 2010 is a distinct
possibility. Despite the brutal efforts of the regime to curtail rights
and suppress the opposition, the organized forces of the workers,
peasants, urban petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie are working
hard to enlarge and make more frequent their protest mass actions in the
national capital region and in the provinces. They invoke the democratic
right to speak and assemble in order to counter the attempts of the regime
to preempt, discourage and disrupt the protest mass actions.
Significant sections of the reactionary classes are already vocal and
active within the broad united front against the Arroyo regime. But the
most decisive event is still to come, which is the pouring out of hundreds
of thousands of people into the streets of the national capital region in
order to signal the anti-Arroyo military and police officers and personnel
to withdraw support from the Arroyo regime and give way to a new civilian
government.
While the broad legal united front of opposition forces are working hard
to oust the Arroyo regime through mass mobilization in the streets of
urban areas, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army
and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines are noticeably
striving to further isolate and weaken the Arroyo regime through the
intensification of the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside.
The broad masses of the people expect that even as the broad legal united
front does not yet succeed in ousting the Arroyo regime, the armed
revolutionary movement continues to gain strength and advance against the
crisis-ridden ruling system.
Prospects of the NDFP
The rapidly worsening crisis of the ruling system inflicts terrible
suffering on the broad masses of the people. But it also incites the
people to fight back. It serves as the favorable objective condition for
the advance of the subjective forces of the revolution, particularly the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People's Army (NPA) and
the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). These are the
three magic weapons of the Filipino people for carrying out the new
democratic revolution through protracted people's war against the
oppressive and exploitative forces of foreign monopoly capitalism,
domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
In its recent message to congratulate all Party cadres and members and
celebrate the 39th anniversary of the CPP, the CPP Central Committee
summed up the accumulated victories of the CPP in the ideological,
political and organizational fields and described these victories as the
basis for still greater victories on time for the 40th anniversary of the
CPP. Also in its more recent message to congratulate all Red Commanders
and fighters celebrate the 39th anniversary of the founding of the NPA,
the CPP Central Committee summed up the accumulated political and military
victories of the NPA and described these as the basis for still greater
victories in the protracted people's war along the line of the new
democratic revolution on time for the 40th anniversary of the NPA.
The National Council of the NDFP has summed up the accumulated victories
of the NDFP in serving as the people's instrument for developing various
types of alliances and for arousing and mobilizing the people in their
millions. All the 17 allied organizations of the NDFP are growing in
strength and advancing. Thus, the NDFP has a solid basis for winning
greater victories in further developing various types of alliances,
generating mass campaigns and attracting the broad masses of the people to
the revolutionary cause against the Arroyo regime and the entire ruling
system. Indeed, the NDFP has bright prospects so long as it carries out
the tasks that it has set forth.
The NDFP is tasked to further develop the revolutionary united front for
armed struggle. In this regard, it employs the basic alliance of workers
and peasants, the alliance of the progressive forces, the alliance of
patriotic forces and the broad alliance with certain sections of the
reactionary classes in order to rally the people in their millions to
isolate and destroy the worst reactionary force at every give time and
increase the capacity of all the three weapons of the armed revolution to
overthrow the ruling system.
The NDFP is tasked to further develop the revolutionary mass movement in
the countryside in order to support directly the armed revolutionary
movement and inspire the legal democratic mass movement in the urban areas
to develop on their own distinctive account. It is by ensuring, promoting
and assisting the building of the revolutionary mass organizations of
workers, peasants, women, youth and other related forces that the NDFP
prepares the way for the building of the organs of political power from
the village level upwards.
As widely reported, the current joint plan of the CPP, NPA and NDFP is to
increase the number of guerrilla fronts from the level of 120-130 to a new
level of 173 in order to cover every congressional district in the
provinces and to start developing the leadership of regional and
provincial Party committees in relatively stable base areas on the basis
of the guerrilla fronts. In this regard, the special task of the NPA is to
destroy the armed power of the reactionaries and build more fighting
units. That of the NDFP is to facilitate, assist and oversee the further
development of the revolutionary mass organizations and organs of
political power at various levels.
The Arroyo regime is hell-bent on using Oplan Bantay Laya 2 to destroy or
inflict strategic defeat on the revolutionary movement by 2010 and is
intransigently against the resumption of formal talks in the GRP-NDFP
peace negotiations unless the NDFP capitulates under the guise of an
indefinite ceasefire agreement. In response, the CPP, NPA and NDFP
declared their determination to intensify the people's war, especially
because the broad masses of the people want to overthrow the Arroyo regime
and the entire ruling system.
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