A slew of pseudo-reformist lies
Reply to the paid advertisement on the PTC by some elements of CBCP-NASSA
1.The masterminds of the CBCP-NASSA paid advertisement in PDI's April 16 issue are phoney social democrats and pseudo-reformists whose real aim is to sow anti-communist intrigues. They merely pose as reformists to defend the rotten system and fascist state. Their leaders are now at the top leadership of the National Security Council and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency and powerful agencies within the cabinet and Malaca�ang. They brazenly take the lead in pushing the AFP-PNP's total war and fascist witch hunt and are in direct conspiracy with AFP-PNP psywar experts and fascist thugs against the revolutionary movement.
Some of the signatories to the paid advertisement may be assumed to be well-meaning and were most likely carried away by intrigues, prevarications and disinformation against the NPA. We must do our best to approach and explain matters to them. Simultaneously, we must clarify to the public the issues raised and distorted by the paid advertisement. We also know that there are certain errors and shortcomings regarding some military actions that are being used by AFP-PNP psywar experts as pretexts to whip up anti-terrorist hysteria against the NPA.
2. The paid advertisement provides propaganda pointers for reactionary bureaucrats and NGOs against the NPA's PTC. On the whole, these points advocate Ultra-Rightist views on the peace talks and very demagogically heap the blame on the NPA for the rampant corruption of reactionary elections and reactionary politics, and even for the enormous gap between the lifestyles of the rich and poor.
The paid advertisement exploits bourgeois and petty bourgeois illusions on reactionary elections and rides on the surfeit of intrigues and distortions against the NPA from the Camp Aguinaldo news mill�in order to gather support for intensifying the AFP-PNP's total war and fascist persecution. Based on current realities in the country, it would not be farfetched for such intrigues to be used to justify and support continually intensifying US military intervention.
3. The NPA's fundamental stand on reactionary elections. The NPA does not participate in reactionary elections. Without exception, the puppet republic's entire history and worsening socio-economic and political realities prove that the people cannot rely on reactionary elections for a real solution to the very grave crisis and fundamental problems facing the country. Reactionary elections are a political process tightly controlled from start to finish by US imperialism and its local reactionary co-conspirators. They have absolute control over the primary sources of campaign funds, the mass media, the bureaucracy's rules and machinery, the strongest reactionary parties and other instruments that are most important to ensure victory in a reactionary election. The reactionary state's machinery for fraud and violence is ever ready to fight and block the influence and victory of genuinely progressive candidates.  |
Nonetheless, the NPA respects the right and efforts of legal progressive forces to join reactionary elections to take advantage of whatever opportunity they afford � not matter how small or limited � to advance the people's objectives and welfare. They face tremendous odds, and reactionary and pro-imperialist forces enjoy an overwhelming advantage over them.
The revolutionary movement likewise strives to take advantage of all opportunities to advance anti-imperialist, antifeudal and antifascist objectives and struggles. Accordingly, it stands ready to enter into agreements and cooperative arrangements even on a temporary basis with all friendly forces and elements, to advance people's struggles and acquire benefits for the revolutionary forces, mass base and mass movement.
The revolutionary movement likewise consciously takes advantage of all opportunities, even conflicts among reactionaries, to fight, isolate and weaken the most rabid reactionaries guilty of the biggest crimes and of wreaking the most havoc on the welfare of the country, the people and the revolution.
4. A burden on poor candidates? The paid advertisement comes up with the huge prevarication and fantasy that rich and poor candidates freely compete in a reactionary election, and that the NPA is now messing this up.
Long before the campaign period, the leading reactionary factions, the most powerful and most moneyed factions, clans, bureaucrats and financiers (legitimate or otherwise) on various levels scrutinize, choose and prime up their own candidates in the reactionary elections. The process of choosing candidates and forming tickets for the leading parties that lord it over reactionary politics already slams the door on poor candidates and especially pro-poor candidates. This is the reality of reactionary politics and reactionary elections from the bottom and especially at the topmost levels. The existence of poor candidates from the municipal level up is an anomaly in reactionary politics.
But granting that there are poor candidates or candidates "with no capacity to pay" running for whatever seat in the reactionary elections, he, she or they can be sure that the NPA or its policies will be the least of his, her or their problems in confronting the candidates chosen, supported and funded by the dominant reactionary factions.
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Compared to the hundreds of millions poured in by reactionary parties and politicians in elections from the municipal level up, the NPA's access fee or PTC is small change. In the NPA's view, what is more important is the gesture of respecting and requesting permission from the revolutionary authorities in guerrilla zones and bases. These guerrilla zones and bases were established through life-and-death struggle and the inestimable sacrifice of the revolutionary forces and masses. It is likewise more important to the NPA to have an opportunity to conduct discussions with everyone who is ready to establish friendly relations or seek accomodations with it and seek unconditional support for the benefit of the NPA, mass base and mass movement.
The permission granted by the NPA to requests to campaign in guerrilla zones and bases is neither solely nor mainly based on fees. A candidate's readiness to extend respect and seek accommodation is exceedingly more important not only to the revolutionary forces but more so, to the people in the area. In this regard, the NPA reserves the right to stop anyone who wishes to scour guerrilla zones and bases only to spew venom and hatred, spy on and sabotage the revolutionary movement. Those who recklessly enter guerrilla zones and bases and bring in goons or fascist military elements as armed escorts to boot are assumed to have sinister intentions and it is but fitting for the NPA to respond with appropriate armed actions.
5.Obstructing the right to information of the people in guerrilla zones and bases? Compared to those in other areas of the country, the average person living within the NPA's guerrilla zones and bases is far more informed and more discerning about the real social situation, burning issues and the real nature and interests of the leading political forces in the country. Such knowledge does not derive from the zarzuela and lies staged once every three years by reactionary candidates, but from conscious participation in people's struggles and from the ceaseless political education and organizing work conducted by mass organizations, organs of political power, NDF committees and NPA units. The average person living within an NPA guerrilla zone or base is definitely much more keenly able to distinguish between genuine advocates of the people's welfare and those who represent and defend foreign and local exploiting classes. They have proven this not merely, and not mainly, through what they have written in their ballots during reactionary elections, but by fighting against the various forces that have attempted to extort from, oppress and deceive them. An ignorant people, a people lacking political consciousness are incapable of waging revolution. People living within NPA guerrilla zones and bases have to study and learn because they need to be armed with the knowledge to defend their solidarity and resist the relentless intrigues and disinformation, threats and pressure and the brutal attacks of fascist troops of the AFP-PNP-CAFGU.
6.Exacerbating corruption? The unbridled corruption that enshrouds the reactionary government's civilian and military bureaucracy from top to bottom is a grave scourge to the people. Contrary to the CBCP-NASSA paid advertisement's obscurantist logic, what is really at the core of such corruption is the excessive appropriation by foreign and local exploitative classes, the gravely parasitic views and practices of ruling reactionaries at the top of the political and economic system and US imperialism's shrewd manipulation of the greed and puppetry of the local ruling classes in order for the reactionary government to blindly accede to any and all dictates from Washington and the international agencies it controls such as the IMF-WB-WTO combine. US imperialism hypocritically pontificates against corruption but actually encourages it and is its biggest beneficiary. It is this that was behind the unbridled corruption within the reactionary government during Marcos' time and its exacerbation during the terms of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.  |
It is by sheer stretch of socdem logic and imagination to blame the small change involved in PTCs for the hundreds of billions worth of public funds wasted annually due to rampant corruption�not to mention the other forms of havoc wrought by the grave distortion and debasement of national policies.
It is the revolutionary and progressive forces who have the longest and most consistent record of struggling against corruption and corrupt politicians. Braving all manner of repression and abuse, they have waged resistance against the biggest plunderers, from Marcos to Estrada and even Jose Pidal. Even as others have entered into compromises or have fallen silent, the legal progressive forces through protest actions and other means, have steadfastly and tirelessly continued the fight to hold accountable to justice, plunderers like Marcos and Estrada. The illegal revolutionary forces have also been exerting all possible means to prosecute and hold accountable the biggest plunderers. One proof of this is the continued weight given by the NDFP to this issue in prioritizing the problems that the NDFP-GRP peace talks should address.
In this regard, what do they have to gloat about, these phoney socdems and pseudo-reformists, these promoters and beneficiaries of the multi-billion peso peace bond racket, these civil society bureaucrats wallowing in the perks and privileges of positions granted them by the Macapagal-Arroyo regime and other reactionary regimes from Aquino's, and who now are among the most rabid apologists of the decadent reactionary system and puppet and fascist state?
7.What is really the biggest obstacle to advancing the peace talks? The paid advertisement claims that it is the NDFP's desire to acquire belligerency status that is the biggest obstacle to the peace talks' advance. This has also long been the claim of militarists and phoney socdems who both desire to effect the surrender of the armed revolution or crush it altogether. In fact, it is the militarists' and phoney socdems' obsession to cause the surrender of the revolutionary forces or hunt them down and annihilate them that has caused the biggest delays and difficulties in advancing the peace talks. It was militarists led by Angelo Reyes who urged Estrada to arbitrarily turn his back on the peace talks after signing the CARHRIHL and to subsequently order an all-out war against the revolutionary movement. It was militarists and phoney socdems who urged Macapagal-Arroyo to arbitrarily suspend the peace talks for over two years in the belief that the NDFP could be terrorized by Bush's anti-terrorist war and by US military intervention.
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In reality, the peace talks have long advanced beyond the issue of the NDFP's surrender. In The Hague Joint Declaration, an agreement was reached to conduct the peace talks based on the overall framework of the mutually acceptable principles of national sovereignty, democracy and social justice. Agreement was also reached to avoid preconditions that would prejudice the inherent nature and objective of the peace negotiations. At present, the peace talks address the issue of implementing the CARHRIHL, the first comprehensive agreement between the two parties, and gaining ground on issues concerning fundamental socio-economic reforms. The agenda behind CBCP-NASSA's paid advertisement is therefore highly suspicious, as it inflates the so-called issue of the NDFP's status of belligerency. This is clearly a renewed attempt to turn back the peace talks and have it bogged down once more on the issue closest to the hearts of militarists and phoney socdems�demanding the surrender of the revolutionary forces.
One cannot deny the existence of two armies and two distinct political powers in the country: the puppet and reactionary GRP and AFP on the one hand, and revolutionary power and the people's army on the other. Peace talks between the two parties are aimed at finding mutually acceptable points towards the resolution of fundamental national and social problems that are at the root of the civil war, aside from attempting to arrive at agreements on how to resolve problems and issues that would bring immediate benefits to the people.
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