Interview with Salud Roja, CPP-Central Luzon spokesperson
On March 2, Ang Bayan interviewed Communist Party of the Philippines- Central Luzon spokesperson Salud Roja on various regional, national and women's issues.
In 2000, the Party regional committee in Central Luzon chose Ka Salud to become the regional Party organization's spokesperson alongside Ka Jose Agtalon, the New People's Army's spokesperson in the region.
With Ka Salud's appointment, the Party has become more active in clarifying many issues and developments in the region that are of major importance to the Party, the revolutionary movement and the people. It has more vigorously exposed the ruling regime and its henchmen in the military and local politics, and advanced and defended the revolutionary movement against the government and military's lies and deception.
Gender was not an issue in Ka Salud's appointment as regional Party spokesperson. Nonetheless, it has brought to the fore the Party's capability to develop women cadres as they carry out their revolutionary tasks. Likewise, it has also provided an added push to advancing women's issues along with national and regional issues.
It was not difficult for Ka Salud to carry out her new responsibilities. Ka Salud hailed from the petty bourgeois stratum and has well-developed propaganda skills. She was among the youth who became politically conscious during the 1980s and volunteered to be deployed to the countryside and join the people's army in the spirit of the Second Great Rectification Movement.
Women organizing by the Party
Women organizing is proceeding vigorously in CL, according to Ka Salud. "In accordance with the Party's general principles and policies, the Party and the revolutionary movement give particular attention to organizing women, mainly the women toiling masses, within the framework of the people's democratic revolution," says Ka Salud.
In the countryside and in the cities, organizing groups, organizing committees and chapters of MAKIBAKA, the revolutionary organization of Filipino women, are continuously being set up, the open democratic women's movement advanced and women mobilized to advance women's issues. Women are also recruited to join revolutionary mass organizations of peasants, youth and other sectors. Simultaneous with all this is the advance of the open democratic mass movement and people's mobilizations on both general and particular sectoral issues. Above all, the Party actively encourages women to work full-time in the countryside and in the armed struggle. "In fact, a significant number of women have joined the NPA in Central Luzon," says Ka Salud.
The most advanced elements of the NPA and the mass organizations are recruited into the Party and are integrated into Party formations within those organizations.
This coming March 8, the revolutionary movement in CL will be celebrating International Working Women's Day along with the rest of the country and the entire world. "This day is important to all women who are in the process of overcoming and struggling against the strictures of their traditional feudal role as beings subservient to men and inactive in political and social life," said Ka Salud.
"It is the women in the people's army who conduct the highest level of struggle to oppose and eradicate national, class and gender oppression. They carry on these struggles alongside the men." Ka Salud hailed women revolutionary martyrs like Rowena Bayani who was slain by the military in Aurora province last year.
Engaging the military in the field of propaganda
As spokesperson, Salud Roja often confronts slanderous statements made by the AFP's Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) against the NPA in Central Luzon. According to Ka Salud, "The Nolcom is enraged at the NPA because its forces sustained many casualties in NPA counter-attacks last year."
In Zambales, for example, the enemy suffered up to 67 killed during encounters with the NPA in 2003. Many of these encounters were defensive actions where the NPA was able to turn the tables on the enemy, inflict heavy casualties on the AFP and effect a safe retreat.
To cover up its weaknesses, it has became the Nolcom's policy to weave lies about their casualties. It usually declares civilians caught in the crossfire or even slain soldiers of the AFP as NPA casualties.
As recently as the first week of February, Ka Salud once more refuted the Nolcom's lies. She belied the 69th IB's claims that it had killed a Red fighter after encircling an NPA unit in Barangay Salu, Porac, Pampanga.
"The truth is that the NPA successfully repulsed the military's attacks despite having been at a disadvantage at the beginning due to the fact that the enemy had already pinpointed their location and had also blocked their retreat routes," said Ka Salud. The four-hour running gunbattle saw the retreating NPA unit clashing with AFP forces thrice, dealing blows on the enemy with every encounter. According to reports gathered by Ka Salud, up to 21 soldiers were killed and 15 wounded on the AFP side.
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