I. Great victories of the New People's Army
The ongoing new-democratic revolution is a continuation of all previous revolutionary struggles of the Filipino people to liberate themselves from foreign and feudal domination. We continue the revolutionary struggle for national liberation and democracy at a new and higher level.
The big difference between the old and the new democratic revolution is that the former was led by the nascent liberal bourgeoisie and the latter is led by the working class through its advanced detachment, the Communist Party of the Philippines, it is based on the worker- peasant alliance and it is aimed at laying the ground for the socialist revolution. The leadership of the Party and the working class enables the Filipino people both to solve the land problem, which is the main problem of the democratic revolution, and to accomplish the new evolutiona tasks in the global e a of impe ialism and proletarian revolution.
Guided by the revolutionary science of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the Party has set the correct revolutionary class line, the general political line and the strategic line of protracted people's war. Thus, the NPA has advanced from the Katipunan and Philippine Revolutionary Army of the old democratic revolution.
The NPA has surpassed the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People's Army against Japan) and the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (People's Liberation Army) because our Party since 1969 has clarified more than ever before the basic conditions, character, motive forces, enemies, stages and tasks of the Philippine revolution. We have cast away the revisionism and opportunism of the old communist and socialist merger party.
We have grasped the basic teachings of Comrade Mao on the strategy and tactics of protracted people's war under semicolonial and semifeudal conditions. At the same time, we have drawn lessons from our own experience and have contributed to the further development of the theory and practice of protracted people's war.
The NPA has become the most powerful revolutionary army in the entire history of the Filipino people. It has surpassed all previous revolutionary armies in the Philippines in terms of nationwide scope and being deeply rooted among the masses of workers and peasants. The Party has achieved the historic feat of building the New People's Army by relying on and trusting the masses and through hard work and arduous struggle under the principle of self- reliance.
From its small beginning of 60 fighters with nine automatic rifles and 26 inferior firearms in the second district of Tarlac in 1969, the NPA now has a sum total of more than a score of battalions armed with high-powered weapons, augmented by tens of thousands of people in militia and self-defense units. From a mass base of 50,000 to 80,000 in 1969, we now have a mass base of millions in more than 80 guerrilla fronts spanning the entire length and breadth of the country.
The NPA has built its strength by conscientiously adhering to the mass line and valiantly fighting the enemy. It has become tested in so many battles and has overcome so many campaigns of suppression launched against it by the enemy. It has persevered and strengthened itself against such task forces of division strength as Task Force Lawin and Task Force Saranay from 1969 to 1972, a 14-year fascist dictatorship with national campaign plans of suppression, like Cadena de Amor and Oplan Katatagan, and the Aquino and Ramos regime.s national campaign plans, Lambat Bitag I, II, III and IV.
The enemy flatters and fools himself when he claims falsely to have won a "strategic victory" under the US-Ramos regime and reduced the rifle strength of the NPA from 25,000 in 1985 to only 5,000 in 1992 as a result of the series of Oplan Lambat Bitag campaigns. The truth is that the NPA had only some 5,600 high-powered firearms in 1985, excluding the infe io weapons in the hands of the militia and self-defense units.
It was neither one-sidedly nor principally the enemy campaigns of suppression that caused the conspicuous decline of the mass base and tactica offensives of the NPA from 1988 to 1991. It was principally the errors of revisionism and the "Left" opportunism pushed by the revisionist renegades and incorrigible opportunists that played into the hands of the enemy, until the Second Great Rectification Move- ment stopped these and started to prevail in 1992.
The NPA could not be destroyed even when Lambat Bitag, with its "forward deployment", "war of quick decision" and "gradual constriction" coincided with the grave "Left" and Right opportunist errors and the bloody witchhunts carried out by the renegades. That is because, no matter how highly placed, the revisionist renegades and incorrigible opportunists could not destroy the Marxist-Leninist- Maoist leadership of the Party and foundation of the NPA. They could not totally impose at one and the same time on the entire Party and NPA their deviationist lines of "strategic counteroffensive", "Red Area-White Area line", "convergence theory" and various forms of insurrectionism.
The proletarian revolutionary cadres and the Red commanders and fighters have persevered in the strategic line of protracted people's war and carried out the strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare. The growth of the NPA, from the beginning and during the fascist dictatorship, was due to small-unit guerrilla offensives and not due to the prematurely enlarged and overstaffed units, which were burdensome to and divorced from the masses and easy for the enem to isolate and ende passive. The multiplication of guerrilla fronts, with the platoon as the relatively concentrated center of gravity, and the concomitant expansion and consolidation of the mass base were stunted or derailed wherever there was a premature formation of the absolutely concentrated companies and battalions and the consequent neglect of painstaking mass work and solid organizing among the masses.
The Second Great Rectification Movement has won resounding victory due to the resoluteness and militancy of the proletarian revolutionary cadres and the Red commanders and fighters. We have reoriented, reorganized and redeployed the NPA for mass work. When it is not in the offensive mode, even the platoon as center of gravity is not detached from the masses but has a smaller radius for conducting mass work than the smaller units deliberately deployed for mass work on a wider scale. Thus, we have recovered, expanded and consolidated the revolutionary mass base. Further on, we have steadily increased tactical offensives within our capabilities since 1996. We have overcome the threats to the life of the Party, the people's army and the entire revolutionary mass movement previously posed by the incorrigible opportunists and revisionist renegades. The NPA has not only preserved itself but has also revitalized and further strengthened itself as the revolutionary army for winning the new-democ- ratic and socialist revo- lution in the 21st century. We have defeated not only the 'Left' oppor- tunists who undermined the NPA under the guise of speeding up victory but also the Right opportunists (including those who swung from 'Left' to Right or posed as centrists) who brazenly peddled reformism, revisionism and liquidationism. The worst of these revisionist renegades and incorrigible opportunists are now openly in the service of the counterrevolutionary state. They have found their political graveyard in the US-Estrada regime.
The 'Left' and the Right opportunists used in common the wrong notion that the Philippines is no longer semifeudal in their futile attempt to draw the revolutionary movement away from the strategic line of protracted people's war and take recruits for the line of betrayal. They have been exposed as charlatans by the Second Great Rectification Movement and by the ever worsening semicolonial and semifeudal conditions.
The NPA has won significant victories in realizing the three integral components of people's war: armed struggle, land reform and mass base- building. All these are within the context of the new-democratic revolution. Even the enemy now publicly acknowledges the undeniable fact that the NPA has grown in strength among the masses and is in a position to deliver more lethal blows on his forces.
The NPA has won brilliant victories in tactical offensives on a nationwide scale, especially in Southern Tagalog, Central Visayas and Mindanao. The sum total of arms captured in all guerrilla fronts through ambuscades, raids and arrest operations is significant. We have captured a significant number of weapons from raids, often without firing a single shot, and from ambushes of varying scales.
We have been able to raid and capture a regional police headquarters and seize more than 80 high-powered rifles in Bohol. We have also captured high ranking military and police officers, including a general, and we have handled them well as prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva Conventions and its protocols, unlike the reactionary armed forces and police that torture and murder captives from our side.
Our victorious tactical offensives are political manifestoes and have caught national and international attention. The people applaud them, while the enemy reacts in panic, spews out the wildest sort of propaganda and escalates bombardments, forced mass evacuations, food blockades, massacres, arbitrary arrests, torture and assassinations.
Since the beginning, the US-Estrada regime has been carrying out an undeclared martial rule, especially in the countryside. It launches brutal campaigns of suppression under the so-called Oplan Makabayan, a nationwide campaign plan. It has vowed to crush the revolutionary movement and has terminated the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations to stress its counterrevolutionary line of all- out war against the people and the revolutionary forces. But the Second Great Rectification Movement has prepared us well to fight even more fiercely and more effectively against the bankrupt and isolated regime. The Party has consolidated, revitalized and strengthened itself ideologically, politically and organizationally. The NPA has expanded and consolidated the revolutionary mass base in the countryside. The national united front is developing vigorously.
We have succeeded in advancing the people.s war by carrying out land reform and doing painstaking mass work. We rely mainly on the poor peasants and farm workers, win over the middle peasants, neutralize the rich peasants, distinguishing the enlightened from the evil gentry in order to isolate the latter and destroy its power in the countryside. This antifeudal class line is carried out within the context of the national united front, which is revolutionary in character by virtue of the people.s war as main component of the struggle under the current circumstances. We are building the mass base on an unprecedented scale. We create and develop organs of political power and the mass organizations of workers, peasants, fishermen, women, youth, cultural activists and people from various walks of life. We launch mass campaigns to raise the educational and cultural level of the people, carry out land reform, improve the people.s livelihood, promote health and public hygiene, train the militia and the people in self- defense, eliminate antisocial activities and replace unhealthy forms of entertainment with meaningful ones.
Even as the counterrevolutionary state of big compradors and landlords is still entrenched in the cities, we are already building the people.s democratic government in the form of the local organs of political power, supported by mass organizations and the people in general, defended by the New People.s Army and led by the Party. We have long acquired the status of belligerency under international law by virtue of our victories in people.s war and we can gain international recognition of that status by winning greater victories.
Wave upon wave, we continue to expand the population and territory under the people.s democratic government. More guerrilla fronts are being established to fill the gaps between priorly existing guerrilla fronts. The NPA is further gaining access to the urban areas and trunklines. While the NPA concentrates on building and strengthening the guerrilla fronts in the countryside, the Party coordinates the revolutionary forces and mass struggles in the urban areas with those in the rural areas. It encourages and deploys workers and educated youth in the urban areas to serve in the people.s army and in rural communities.
The broad masses of the people cherish the New People.s Army, its Red commanders and fighters because they are fighting for the revolutionary cause against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes. The revolutionary strength and prestige of the NPA will rise ever higher as all the forms of revolutionary struggle of the people surge forward. By our perseverance and victories in people.s war, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People.s Army and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines all enjoy high respect, prestige and support all over the world, among the people and forces fighting against imperialism and for national liberation and socialism.
We have benefited from the long revolutionary experience and current struggles of the proletariat and people of the world and we have contributed significantly to the cause of world proletarian revolution. We are certain that as we can forward the torch of armed revolution, more oppressed peoples are bound to rise up in arms and make revolution amidst the worsening conditions of oppression and exploitation.
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