Editorial:
The Party continues to rectify the errors of the anti-infiltration campaigns of the 1980s

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

For more than a week starting from the Party's 35th anniversary on December 26, 2003, an intense campaign to vilify the Communist Party of the Philippines was undertaken in connection with the anti-infiltration hysteria that took place in the 1980s. The campaign to demonize the Party before the public was coursed through a national bourgeois paper. To make the smear campaign seem authentic, it based itself on a number of real events. But mixed with the facts were lies, distortions and half-truths. The abuses that took place were detailed but no details were provided on what measures the Party took to correct them.

At the height of the vilification campaign, the paper's editorial section was transformed into a pulpit for spewing an outrightly anti-communist sermon that spit out completely uncalled-for and baseless accusations that the Party supposedly "remained silent" and "refused" to confront the issue. It used as scare tactics the counterrevolutionary and anti-communist line that "the revolution devours its own children" and that "the communist revolution seems to breed the utter nightmare of paranoia" and that "purges and executions are a way of life in the CPP."

Even with such blatantly twisted accusations, the Party tirelessly explains its stand and policy and the truth about this issue. The Party repeatedly reminds its detractors that it has long since condemned, repudiated and rectified these errors.

Those who attack the Party have even called for the formation of a "Truth Commission" with the purpose of stripping the Party of its independence, scrutinizing issues internal to it, dissecting its history, organization and actions, and lay it bare not only for their consumption but for the enemy's. They would like to put the Party on the defensive and look for more pretexts they could use as ammunition to demolish the Party. In sum, it is their objective to destroy and liquidate the Party.

As a party imbued with integrity and independence and as one that is true to itself and its ideals, the CPP has its own way of conducting its own investigation and rectification of errors and decisively preventing their recurrence. In fact, the Second Great Rectification Movement encompassed the anti-infiltration hysteria, resolved up to the very roots the errors and violations that were perpetrated and reaffirmed correct revolutionary principles. The Central Committee assiduously studied the reasons why such events occurred in order to draw lessons, reaffirm and institute correct policies and processes and avoid the repetition of errors in the future.

OUTRIGHT VIOLATIONS Torturing and inflicting other forms of inhumane treatment on suspected enemy spies or anyone accused in the people's courts are violations of the Constitution of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the Rules of the New People's Army and the Party�s Guide for the Establishment of the People's Democratic Government.

The Party vehemently denounced the anti-infiltration hysteria as products of grave bourgeois and petty bourgeois subjectivism and impetuosity and the serious distortion and violation of the Party, people's army and the revolutionary movement's principles, line, policies and rules. Negligence of ideological work, habituation to urban life and the predominance of the erroneous lines of military adventurism and urban insurrectionism in the 1980s served as conditions for these errors to exist.

Those who carried out these anti-infiltration hysterias went through rectification, reeducation and the strict disciplinary processes of the Party in accordance with the gravity of their participation and responsibility�disciplinary action ranged from criticism for those who committed the lightest offenses, to expulsion from the Party for those guilty of the gravest crimes.

Those who remained loyal to the revolution criticized themselves in front of affected comrades and the masses and helped in repairing the harm wrought on the revolution's work and organization and the masses. They also participated in the rehabilitation of both the victims who survived and the loved ones of those who did not survive.

But the principal perpetrators and those with the gravest criminal culpability for the anti-infiltration hysteria refused to answer for their crimes and other serious errors. At the peak of the rectification movement in the early 1990s, they furtively left the Party and the revolutionary movement. They believed themselves fortunate for having evaded their accountability and responsibility.

They are now among the leaders of the small pseudo-reformist and Trotskyite groups whose mission is to destroy the Party, obscure their own crimes and errors, and strive to maliciously pass these on as the "original sins" of the Party itself.

They form pseudo-reformist groups and institutions that publish materials mixing distortions, sensationalism and half-truths, and launch anti-Party campaigns. They are propped up and funded by international and local anti-communist and counterrevolutionary organizations and institutions.

The Party has maintained its revolutionary integrity and has purified its ranks through the rectification and education movement to combat the ideological and political roots of opportunism and criminality and completely prevent their recurrence. It metes out disciplinary action without resorting to the death penalty and has not waged other acts of hysteria. Those who sincerely express remorse and commit minor transgressions are always forgiven and given a chance to change, remold themselves and remain as revolutionaries, or in any case, are granted amnesty.

Most of those victimized by the anti-infiltration hysteria who survived and remain loyal to the Party and revolution continue to be active in, or support, the revolutionary movement. They clearly grasp the Party's explanation of the whys and wherefores of the events that took place. They understand that the errors were not inherent in the nature of the Party and the revolution, but were the acts of certain elements who deviously distorted and violated the basic principles and fine practice of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the proletarian revolution.

To the extent of its ability, the Party has made efforts to provide the surviving victims and the families of those who did not survive with the necessary ideological, social, medical and material support to help them in their rehabilitation and to overcome the blows of their bitter experience and grave loss.

The Party views with understanding that there still are some victims and families of victims who still find it difficult to accept the movement's explanation and rectification but who have not ended up attacking the Party and betraying the revolution. It is the Party's wish to get in touch with and resolve matters with them. The Party continues in its efforts to reach out to the few families that it has been unable to get in touch with until now.

07 January 2004
English Edition

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