Editorial:
Exploit and intensify the rifts within the AFP

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The deterioration of the rotten and reactionary semicolonial and semifeudal system has accelerated in the previous decade as a result of the country's complete subjugation to the policies of imperialist globalization and unbridled corruption in the civilian and military bureaucracy. Lately, it has deepened further because of the puppet regime's shameless advocacy of US military intervention and its obseqiousness to the US policy of aggression in Iraq and other parts of the globe.

The extreme rottenness of the puppet state and its mercenary army is the most crucial factor condemning junior officials and ordinary soldiers not just to demoralization and desperation. It also drove them to rebel on July 27 against the ruling regime and their military leaders. The mutineers resisted their use as instruments in the Arroyo regime's all-out terrorist war and the government and their military leaders' abandonment of their welfare.

The group that called itself "Magdalo" disclosed cases of pervasive corruption by highly placed military and civilian officials, the terrorism of the Arroyo regime that included masterminding bombings in Mindanao and the plan to impose martial law in the near future.

The Communist Party of the Philippines has sympathized with the rebels' legitimate grievances even as it foresaw that the uprising would not achieve anything meaningful. The mutineers issued a just call for the resignation of the puppet regime and the AFP leadership. Arroyo and Gen. Angelo Reyes must especially be made to account and pay for their all-out puppetry to the US, their fascist and terrorist crimes and their excessive corruption, repression and oppression of the people.

Demoralization among the AFP rank-and-file grows deeper and more widespread in the face of the continuing advance and intensification of the revolutionary armed struggle of the New People's Army (NPA) and the successive victories of its tactical offensives in various parts of the country.

The NPA is able to demonstrate more sharply the superiority of the strategy of protracted people's war and its guerrilla tactics which enjoys broad and deep mass support, over the AFP's oppressive strategy and tactics taught to them by foreigners and which isolates them from the masses. Out of the fascist state and the military bureaucracy's desperation to stem the further advance of the revolutionary movement, they impose harsh fascist repression on the people, and use junior officers and soldiers as cannon fodder.

The uprising showed that because of the Arroyo regime's excessive rottenness and isolation, even officials and soldiers of the AFP stand ready to repudiate it and rebel against its rule. At the height of the uprising, practically no one heeded the call of Cardinal Sin to gather at EDSA to support the regime.

The mutiny also starkly shows that infighting between the principal rival reactionary cliques that nurture factions within the military has reached the level of open antagonism. The rebellion was carried out along the lines of the "Last Revolution," a plan hatched in June by reactionaries from the Estrada and Honasan camp. The latter incited the coup attempt, used and funded it out of its desperation to seize power. However, because of the clique's own narrow interests, it could only gather a sprinkling of support for the mutiny launched by the protesting soldiers.

The deep factionalism and rifts within the ranks of the AFP are directly related to the political rivalry of opposing reactionary factions. Such factionalism first burst out in the open in 1986 along with the EDSA uprising against the US-Marcos dictatorship and in repeated coup attempts against the Aquino regime.

The current situation is favorable for revolutionary forces to work within the reactionary army. We must carefully plan this out and implement it through bold but cautious means.

We must especially encourage ordinary soldiers and paramilitary forces who were after all, also recruited from the ranks of the toiling masses, to repudiate the rotten system that they are forced to defend, and instead uphold the interests of the Filipino people. Let us find out what their grievances are even as we explain to them that their problems cannot be resolved through piecemeal reforms within the reactionary system or by launching coups d'�tat and other measures that are linked to the interests of reactionary politicians. The entire rotten system must be changed through revolutionary struggle.

We must expose the rottenness of the AFP, especially the corruption and self-indulgence of the big-bellied generals who sit at the top of the military bureaucracy. It is important to impart to junior officers and soldiers that the AFP's rottenness is linked to the rottenness of the ruling system they are made to defend. We must expose the mercenary tradition and the puppet orientation of the AFP and propagate patriotism among its ranks.

We must encourage junior officers and soldiers to form clandestine progressive and democratic groups that can carry out appropriate measures to assert their legitimate demands.

We must propagate the call for the surrender of soldiers already pinned down in fighting. We must let them know about the NPA's policy of lenient treatment towards surrenderees and wounded combatants. We must call on soldiers directly used in the counterrevolutionary war and repression of the people to disobey the orders of their own officials.

We must encourage junior officers and ordinary soldiers we have contacted and enlightened, to completely repudiate the reactionary, rotten and losing course of the AFP. We must persuade them to uphold the tradition of Lt. Crispin Tagamolila, join the people's struggle or link up and cooperate with the revolutionary movement in various ways.

Even as we carry out political work within the reactionary military, we must not lose sight of our basic outlook that it is an armed instrument of the reactionary state. We use political means of persuasion on individual soldiers and officials, together with advancing armed struggle as the principal form of struggle to defeat and destroy the enemy armed forces step-by-step.

In the face of the continuing and deepening rift within the AFP, we must continue intensifying the revolutionary armed struggle and conduct more frequent and stronger tactical offensives. The NPA can thus better exploit and exacerbate the turmoil and demoralization besetting AFP ranks.

We can expect further splintering among the ranks of the AFP due to the further worsening of the crisis of the ruling system, the intensification of political infighting, and the advance of our work within the reactionary army. At the same time, we can expect the eruption of various actions and protests, both big and small, by junior officers and soldiers, directly or indirectly linked to the political maneuvers of rival reactionary groups.

All this will bring about a favorable situation for the revolutionary forces to intensify the revolutionary armed struggle and operate within the reactionary army. These various measures will bring about the disintegration of the enemy armed forces and hasten revolutionary victory.

07 August 2003
English Edition

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