On the 30th anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines, it is necessary and appropriate to reiterate and reaffirm its long-term fighting tasks. These are the ten points of the general Program for a People�s Democratic Revolution, defined and promulgated at the very foundation of the Party.
All Filipino communists must work and struggle to realize this long-term program and must be ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary in the struggle to bring about a new Philippines that is completely independent, democratic, united, just and prosperous.
We have won great victories through our revolutionary struggle. But we have a long way to go to complete the new-democratic revolution. We must resolve to fight for another 30 years or for as long as it takes to reach complete victory.
Within the same period that we celebrate the 30th anniversaries of the Party and the NPA, we also celebrate the centennial of the Filipino people�s revolutionary armed resistance against the US war of aggression, which started on February 4, 1899.
In this connection, we declare our readiness to wage people�s war for another hundred years until US imperialist domination is ended, in the same spirit that the people in our archipelago waged armed resistance for more than three centuries until Spanish colonial rule was ended.
- Overthrow the ruling system of big compradors and landlords!
The overriding interest of the Filipino people now is to fight for national and social liberation. This can be achieved only by overthrowing the ruling system of big compradors and landlords, which are in the service of the US and other imperialists. The Filipino people must struggle against every reactionary regime that arises and thereby gain revolutionary strength until they can completely smash the bureaucratic and military machinery of the reactionary state.
Armed revolution must be waged to defeat the armed counterrevolution and the united front must bring together all positive forces and take advantage of the splits among the reactionaries in order to isolate and destroy the enemy at every given time. The Filipino people and their revolutionary forces must eliminate the power and influence of the US imperialists and the local exploiting classes.
The Party must persevere in the strategic line of protracted people�s war. It must continue to build the people�s army and accumulate strength in the countryside before it can seize the cities. Simultaneously, it can fight, discredit, isolate and breach the monopoly of political power by the reactionaries in the cities. In this regard, the armed revolutionary movement and the legal democratic mass movement complement and help each other in disintegrating and destroying the power of the enemy.
- Establish the people�s democratic state based on the worker-peasant alliance!
The ultimate goal of the people�s democratic revolution is the establishment of the people�s democratic state. This is under the leadership of the working class, founded on the basic alliance of the working class and peasantry and includes such other democratic classes as the urban pettybourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie. The Party as the ruling party, in representation of the working class, shall form the coalition government of all democratic classes and forces. In the course of protracted people�s war, the working class and peasantry under the proletarian revolutionary leadership and with the assistance of the New People�s Army, establish organs of political power to form the armed independent regime or people�s revolutionary government. The people thereby learn to govern themselves, defend and advance national independence and democratic rights. The people�s revolutionary government is the preparatory government of the People�s Democratic Republic of the Philippines.
The National Democratic Front, as the most important formal united front organization, serves to promote the united front for armed struggle, encourages the combination of all patriotic and progressive forces in order to isolate and destroy the enemy and paves the way for the establishment of organs of political power, the people�s consultative assembly and the democratic coalition government of the broadest possible character.
- Forge national unity and fight for democratic rights!
The Party commits itself to forging the firmest and broadest possible national unity. This is based on national sovereignty and independence from US imperialism and its stooges, the liberation of the working class and peasantry and the promotion of the democratic rights and interests of all working people.
All patriotic and progressive classes, groups and individuals shall enjoy civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Consequent to the national liberation of the entire people from imperialism and the toiling masses from class oppression and exploitation, individual freedom and public participation shall be promoted to the utmost, with guarantees of such democratic rights as freedom of person, domicile, thought, religious belief, speech and assembly and other rights in a democratic bill of rights in the constitution of the people�s democratic state.
There shall be no national, sexual, ethnic, racial or religious discrimination. The state, cooperative and private sectors shall be harmonized in an economic plan to provide every citizen a decent livelihood. Individual initiative and enterprise on the part of fishermen, handicraftsmen, intellectuals, the urban petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie shall be respected, encouraged and assisted. Overseas Filipinos, especially migrant workers shall be encouraged to contribute their talents, experience and skills to the all-round development of their motherland.
- Uphold the principle of democratic centralism!
The Party shall uphold the principle of democratic centralism under the new state. The national government shall have central authority over the lower levels of government, and shall base its policies and decisions on the needs, demands and aspirations of the broad masses of the people and the lower levels of government. There shall be democratic deliberations and decision-making at every level of government; and there shall be consultations between higher and lower levels of government and between every level of government and the people. This is centralized leadership based on democracy and democracy guided by centralized authority.
At every level of the government (barrio, municipality, city, district, provincial and regional), there shall be elected representative bodies where decisions are taken democratically in response to the needs and demands of the people in their respective jurisdictions. A lower representative body shall be subordinate to the people�s revolutionary congress which represents nationally the sovereign Filipino people. In the election of officials or in voting on any question, the rule of the majority shall be followed.
The people shall have the right and the means to express to the Party and the government their varied interests and views at any time. They shall supervise the Party, the government and its officials, criticize their errors and shortcomings and have the power of recall over government officials and effect the removal of Party officials who violate the rights and interests of the nation and the people.
- Build and cherish the people's Army!
There can be no people�s democratic state without a people�s army whose main and most essential function is to defend and secure it. In the first place, the people�s democratic state cannot be established without the people�s army defeating and destroying the reactionary state. The people�s army composed mainly of fighters from the peasantry, must be under the leadership of the working class through the Party. Thus, at the core of the people�s democratic power is the power of the proletariat, which is necessary for the subsequent socialist revolution.
The most pressing task of the people�s army now is to defeat and destroy the UScreated and US-supported reactionary Armed Forces of the Philippines and all other kinds of armed power in the hands of the exploiting classes and the reactionary state at all levels. The forces of the people�s army are augmented by the militia, selfdefense units and armed city partisans. The echelon of forces is developed in the course of people�s war.
The people�s army is a fighting, propaganda and productive force closely linked with the toiling masses of the people. Under the leadership of the Party, this army constantly strengthens itself through mass work, politico-military training and the armed struggle. The Party and the people must cherish the New People�s Army and see to it that the people�s fighters are wellprovisioned and the needs and welfare of their immediate families are well attended to.
- Solve the land problem!
The main content of the people�s democratic revolution is the struggle of the peasant masses to solve the land problem. The revolution must satisfy the basic demand of the poor peasants and farm workers for land. The agrarian revolution is the necessary requirement for the vigorous and successful conduct of the armed struggle and the creation and consolidation of revolutionary base areas.
The current minimum program of land reform is merely a preparation for the maximum program, which is the complete solution of the land problem. Land shall be distributed free to the landless tillers. Land rent, exploitation of hired labor, usury, price manipulation and other feudal and semifeudal evils shall be wiped out. Mutual aid teams and labor exchange systems shall be promoted as the preliminary step towards higher forms of agricultural cooperation.
Through agricultural cooperation in stages of development, the socialist direction shall be taken and production shall be raised and well-planned, the sale of produce shall be assured at the best price possible and welfare services shall be guaranteed.
The Party shall ensure that the people�s democratic government extend all possible and necessary support to raise agricultural production through capital construction, mechanization, technical assistance, financial assistance and so on. The expanded and higher purchasing power of the peasantry shall stimulate and increase industrial production. The basis of the national economy shall be agriculture because it fulfills the food and raw material requirements of expanding industrialization. In turn, the peasantry shall immediately become the main market for the products of industry.
As the collectivization and mechanization of agriculture shall proceed, the machine and tractor stations shall serve as the command posts of the proletariat. Plantations and estates already efficiently operated on a mechanized basis before the revolution shall be converted into state farms where the workers shall establish proletarian power. Portions of export cropland in excess of the efficient level shall be subject to land reform and planted to other crops needed for domestic production and consumption.
- Carry out national industrialization!
The private ownership of the means of production and distribution by the foreign monopoly capitalists and the local exploiting classes shall be abolished. Basic industries shall be established and developed to produce basic metals, basic chemicals and capital goods. High technology shall be adopted and developed to serve the needs of the people.
National industrialization shall be the leading factor of the economy. While heavy industries shall be established, light industries shall be immediately undertaken to bridge heavy industry and agriculture. In the transition period, when socialist and bourgeois-democratic economic measures overlap, there shall be three sectors in the national economy: the state sector, the cooperative sector and the private sector.
All major financial institutions, major sources of raw materials and energy, all heavy and basic industries, major lines of domestic and foreign trade and all nationalized enterprises shall be run by the state sector. The peasants, fishermen, handicraftsmen and other petty producers shall be encouraged and provided with incentives to organize themselves into cooperatives to increase their productivity and assure themselves of a ready market. For a certain period and to a certain extent, the private sector including patriotic entrepreneurs and merchants, shall be encouraged to contribute positively to economic construction.
The state and cooperative sectors of the economy shall be built up as factors of socialism. The private sector in industry shall be regulated so that it does not monopolize or harm the people�s livelihood or subvert the socialist sector of the economy. Public ownership of the means of production shall become dominant and state economic planning will ensure the development of a comprehensive and wellbalanced socialist economy.
- Promote a national, scientific and mass culture!
The working class through the Party assumes leadership in the field of culture and education in line with its leading revolutionary role. A people�s democratic cultural revolution is necessary to rid the nation of the stultifying dominance of imperialist and feudal culture and education, including fascist mentality, bourgeois decadent behavior and superstition. The cultural revolution must advance and promote a national, scientific and mass culture.
In the course of the protracted people�s war, the Party wages mass campaigns to transform the backward villages into cultural bastions of the Philippine revolution. Cultural cadres and cultural battalions arise in the countryside. Illiteracy and superstition are steadily wiped out through education. The program of people�s democratic revolution is propagated.
The Party, the people�s democratic government and all democratic forces shall see to it that the educational system and the mass media serve the national, scientific and democratic interests of the people. Education at all levels shall be free to everyone, depending on ability and without any discrimination due to lower economic class origin, ethnicity, race, religion, creed, or gender. The courses of study and study materials in the social sciences, philosophy, law, arts and letters and so forth shall be cleansed of pro-imperialist, feudalist, fascist and other pernicious biases and misinformation.
- Respect the right to self-determination of the national minorities!
All national minorities in the Philippines are entitled to the right of national self-determination, including regional autonomy and the right to secede. They have the right to decide their own destiny; free themselves from national oppression, exploitation, chauvinism, racism and discrimination; achieve democracy; and pursue social progress in an all-round way.
The Party and the people�s democratic government shall always uphold the national and democratic rights of the national minorities. The national minorities shall be encouraged to take their rightful role and place in the people�s democratic state and shall receive special considerations because of the extreme oppression and exploitation that they have suffered for so long in the hands of Spanish colonialism, US imperialism and the local reactionary classes.
The Party leads the struggle against national oppression. The revolutionary forces must grow in strength among the national minorities and foster unity, cooperation and coordination. A new type of leadership, a revolutionary one, must be encouraged to rise from the national minorities so as to supplant the traditional leadership that has not only failed to fight for their rights but has also participated in their exploitation. Cadres of the Party and the revolution must be developed from among the national minorities.
- Adopt an active, independent and peace-loving foreign policy!
The Party through the various revolutionary and progressive formations strives to develop the broadest possible international relations of anti-imperialist solidarity, mutual support and cooperation with all forces � be they parties, movements, institutions or governments � abroad. The largest and widest possible moral and material support from abroad is greatly needed for winning total victory in the people�s democratic revolution against the imperialists and local reactionaries.
Upon its establishment, the People�s Democratic Republic of the Philippines under the leadership of the Party shall abrogate all unequal treaties, agreements and arrangements with US and Japanese and other imperialists and shall proclaim an active, independent and peace-loving foreign policy based on the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and consonant with the principle of peaceful coexistence with all countries irrespective of ideology and social system. The People�s Democratic Republic of the Philippines shall maintain normal diplomatic and trade relations with other countries.
The overriding principle of Philippine foreign relations shall be proletarian internationalism. The PDRP shall be an instrument for building socialism, shall have the closest relations with other socialist countries and shall support in every appropriate and possible way the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat and people of the world.
To realize the foregoing ten points of the Program for a People�s Democratic Revolution, the Party needs to set forth from time to time the specific demands and specific tasks in accordance with the concrete conditions in carrying out the revolution, it must always take stock of the available forces and the desire of the people for revolutionary change and arrive at ways by which the level of the revolutionary struggle can be raised and advanced.
The general line of new-democratic revolution is clear. So is the socialist perspective. Marxism- Leninism-Maoism enables the CPP to foresee that building socialism shall take a whole historical epoch. The Party is confident that Mao�s theory and practice of continuing revolution under proletarian dictatorship shall guide it in consolidating socialism, combating revisionism and preventing capitalist restoration until the people of the whole world shall have defeated imperialism and made possible the realization of the ultimate goal of communism.
