The leadership and entire membership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and all Red commanders and fighters of the New People’s Army (NPA) extend their greetings of solidarity with its allies and friends in the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) on the occasion of its 51st anniversary today. We also extend our solidarity to the friends and supporters of the NDFP, both here and abroad.

We join all the forces of the NDFP in paying tribute to all the heroes and martyrs of the people’s democratic revolution during its Week of Remembrance. We draw strength and inspiration from their lives of selfless dedication to the cause of national and social liberation, and all their sacrifices in serving the oppressed and downtrodden masses. We shall forever remember their names and honor their memory.

The NDFP is the most consolidated united front organization of all progressive and patriotic classes —the workers, peasants, petty-bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. It has the Party at its core and leadership. The 18 organizations allied with the NDFP represent the various sectors of the toiling people in the Philippines. They all hold high the banner of national democracy and are committed to the struggle to overthrow the neocolonial state through revolutionary armed struggle.

The strength of the NDFP is based on the organized force of its allied organizations. These are deeply and widely entrenched among the masses. In the countryside, the NDFP-allied organizations of peasants, youth, women and others, together with and led by the Party that wields the NPA, form the foundations of the organs of political power that exercise leadership in areas covering millions of people. Presently, these serve as governance bodies at the village and town levels, and as embryo of the people’s democratic government. The NDFP represents the totality of the organs of political power, until the People’s Democratic Government can be formally established upon nationwide victory.

There is great urgency to strengthen and expand the NDFP and its allied organizations. As a result of the corruption, fascism and foreign subservience of the Marcos regime, the Filipino people are confronted with the deepening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system, and threats to the Filipino people’s security and welfare amid intensifying US militarism and heightening inter-imperialist conflict in Asia.

The socioeconomic conditions of the Filipino people are deteriorating rapidly everyday as a result of constantly rising prices of food, fuel and other basic commodities, essential services and public utilities. Wages are being kept low, resulting in the sharp fall in the standards of living of workers and other toiling people. Under the Marcos regime, the masses of peasants, minority people, fisherfolk, transport workers and other toiling people are being dispossessed of their sources of livelihood in favor of the interests of foreign banks and multinational corporations. There is widespread unemployment and economic dislocation.

Under Marcos, the nation’s sovereignty is further being eroded by heightening US military intervention. The massive presence of US military forces are dominating the country’s defense and security landscape and foreign policy. Marcos has allowed the US to use the country as launching pad for its geopolitical strategy of encircling China from the so-called first-island chain, and drag the country to a possible war with its imperialist rival.

The Balikatan exercises involving 11,000 American troops is the biggest ever war games of the US in the Philippines that aim to turn the country’s northern and western seas as a battleground for US military forces. The previously non-antagonistic conflict and disputes between the Philippines and China is becoming antagonistic due to Marcos’ complete subservience to US provocations against China, and in turn, by China’s response that has it intruding into Philippine waters, becoming increasingly aggressive against US-backed Philippine security forces, and denying Filipino fisherfolk access to their fishing grounds

Encouraged by military, economic and political support from the US, the Marcos regime has intensified its campaign of political repression and war of suppression in both the cities and countryside. Its armed forces, police and paramilitaries are carrying out a fascist rampage marked by rising numbers of extrajudicial killings, torture, abductions, disappearances, imprisonment, harassments, intimidation and surveillance on social activists.

On orders of Marcos, the Terrible Terrorist, the AFP’s counterinsurgency campaign has seen increasing attacks against civilians, including aerial bombings and artillery shelling of farms and communities, in gross violation of international humanitarian law. With promises of increased US military aid, the Marcos regime has shown very little interest in seriously pursuing peace negotiations with the NDFP, and instead has intensified its military operations in the vain attempt at putting an end to the people’s armed resistance through the force of its war of terror.

Bureaucrat capitalism under Marcos continues to worsen, as the Marcoses use their privilege and power to recover the billions of dollars of illegal wealth, and aggrandize themselves further through their cronies and bourgeois compradors favored with government contracts and foreign loans. Marcos is squandering billions of pesos in his junket trips abroad using the people’s money. Marcos and his cohorts are pushing for charter change in an attempt to perpetuate themselves in power, and extend the privileges for foreign capitalist interests.

There is urgent need for the national democratic forces to stand at the forefront of the Filipino people’s antifascist, anti-imperialist, and antifeudal struggles. They must make every efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize the Filipino people in large numbers as they wage their economic and political struggles. At the same time, they must continue to draw more and more people to the path of the revolutionary armed struggle being waged by the New People’s Army under the leadership of the Party.

The struggle of the Filipino people for national and social liberation is closely linked to the international anti-imperialist struggle. All over the world, oppressed peoples are rising up in resistance in both capitalist countries and in backward countries such as the Philippines. The NDFP, through its international office, is commendable for initiating two theoretical conferences on imperialist wars and imperialist economic crisis, to deepen the understanding of the crucial global issues and forge solidarity among revolutionary and communist forces around the world.

The Party and all revolutionary forces are presently actively carrying out a rectification movement with the aim of pinpointing and overcoming past errors and weaknesses, and further strengthening the revolutionary movement. Allied organizations of the NDFP are expected to actively serve as the revolutionary voice of the sectors they represent, exposing the roots of their people’s day to day problems, linking their struggles to the revolutionary armed struggle, raising the people’s militance and courage to fight amid adversity against the puppet, fascist and corrupt Marcos regime. We are certain that the NDFP and its allied organizations will continue to be at the center of the Filipino people’s resistance as it surges forward in the coming years.

With firm commitment, the Party and the NPA are determined to march together with all allied organizations of the NDFP as we make ever greater strides and accumulate even more victories in carrying forward the people’s democratic revolution.