Expectations of the people in 2019

By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
January 1, 2019

The Filipino people expect that this year, 2019, the socioeconomic and political crisis of the ruling system will worsen and that the Duterte regime will not solve or soften but will even aggravate the crisis by imposing heavier taxes and causing the prices of basic goods and services to rise further and to use the tax revenues and public debt to feed bureaucratic corruption and raise spending for the military and police in order to carry out his terrorist all-out war aimed at suppressing the revolutionary movement of the people.

Within the year, the Duterte regime will further inflict grave social and economic suffering on the people and unleash mass murder and other human rights violations in a futile attempt to destroy the armed revolutionary movement and intimidate the people. The state terrorism will victimize not only the toiling masses of the people but also the middle social strata and even those in the upper classes who do not belong to the small and narrow ruling clique of Duterte.

Duterte is hellbent on imposing on the people a fascist dictatorship ala Marcos by using de facto or proclaimed martial law nationwide in the name of anti-terrorism in order to ensure control of the results of the May 2019 elections (if still to be held) and the railroading of charter change for a bogus kind of federalism in which the fascist dictator centralizes powers in his hands and handpicks his regional and provincial agents among the local dynasties and warlords.

Duterte is not interested in serious peace negotiations to address the roots of the armed conflict and make comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms in order to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace. He has issued proclamations and executive orders in order to terminate peace negotiations and further render them impossible during his rule. What he wants is the impossible, which is the surrender of the revolutionary movement of the people.

In view of the foregoing, what are the expectations of the people from the various revolutionary forces? The answer comes from the revolutionary publications that disseminate the decisions and plans of the leading organs of the revolutionary forces in the Philippines.

1. The Communist Party of the Philippines will perform its overall leading role in the people’s democratic revolution promptly, correctly and clearly. It will base its plans and directives on the strength accumulated in 50 years of revolutionary struggle and the current circumstances and demands of the people. It will carry out the tasks to further strengthen and advance the Party and the revolutionary movement of the people.

2. The New People’s Army(NPA) will intensify its tactical offensives to defeat the campaign of the enemy to destroy it while carrying out agrarian revolution and mass work. The successful NPA offensives in guerrilla warfare based on an expanding and deepening mass base will serve to strengthen the revolutionary movement by seizing arms from the enemy forces and will expose the lies of the enemy which misrepresent the character and status of the people’s army and seek to mislead the people. The intensified offensives are meant to develop a fully armed company per guerrilla front and fulfill the maturation of the strategic defensive and proceed to the strategic stalemate in a few year’s time.

3. The various types of mass organizations will be expanded as the source of strength of the CPP, NPA and the people’s democratic government. The urban-based mass organizations will supply more workers and educated youth to serve in the rural areas and in thepeople’s army. The rural-based mass organizations are urgently needed for direct support to the people’s democratic government and to the entire armed revolutionary process. The members of the mass organizations qualify as members of the local organs of political power, the people’s militia and self-defense units.

4. The people’s democratic government will be strengthened at all possible levels in order to take charge of administration and programs for the benefit of the people, such as land reform, public education, production, health and sanitation, cultural work, defense, arbitration and people’s court, environmental protection and disaster relief. The people’s government will support and facilitate the mobility and tactical offensives of the people’s army.

5. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP will further strengthen itself as the most consolidated realization of the national united front but will be able to cooperate with all possible allies in the broad united front in order to isolate and oust the Duterte regime from power. The NDFP is authorized to be open to peace negotiations with the current and prospective regime of the reactionary government but its principal work now is to work for the ouster of the Duterte regime.

We expect that the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces will win ever greater victories in the next year and thereafter. The accumulated victories of their struggle in the 50 years of revolutionary struggle since the founding of the Party under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism ought to inspire them to confront and defeat the US-Duterte regime and make further advances in the struggle for national and social liberation against the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. ###