Revolutionary struggle in Negros continues to advance
The armed struggle and the entire revolutionary movement in Negros are continuously advancing.
The guerrilla fronts in the island continue to expand. From a few hundred in 1992, the number of those organized and influenced by the movement has grown to thousands. As a result of its painstaking mass work and adherence to the mass line, the New People s Army (NPA) is able to mobilize the masses in building and consolidating the people s political power in the countryside.
Through antifeudal mass campaigns, the masses have achieved concrete gains from their struggle against landgrabbing and to reduce land rent and usury, raise wages and improve production. Campaigns in education, organization, health, defense, culture, arbitration and drives against criminality are likewise advancing.
The armed revolutionary movement unifies and strengthens the people and inspires the legal mass struggle against the US-Estrada regime in the island's urban centers. Since the last quarter of 1993, the advance of sectoral and multisectoral struggles has been sustained against the Ramos and Estrada regimes, both agents of US imperialism, the comprador big bourgeoisie and the big landlords. This year, the people's struggle for the ouster of Estrada has become more militant and vigorous. The workers along with the peasantry, the youth, women and other positive forces demonstrated their strength as they advanced their economic and political struggle.
The revolutionary movement in Negros achieved these victories amid the extreme suffering inflicted upon the people of the island by the schemes of Eduardo 'Danding' Cojuangco and his cohorts. Cojuangco and company use the local bureaucracy to further wrest control of various businesses and contracts and to intensify landgrabbing.
Thousands of families are starving. They often have to make do with nothing more than root crops. Large-scale landgrabbing by big landlords, mining companies and big bureaucrats has left the peasants with no land to till. More than 30,000 farm workers in the cities of Bago and Bacolod, as well as in the towns of Valladolid and San Enrique are expected to lose their jobs due to the construction of an irrigation system that will benefit an agribusiness corporation owned by Cojuangco and Negros Occidental Gov. Rafael Coscolluela. Meanwhile, thousands of workers have been victimized by retrenchment, underemployment, union-busting, low wages and other attacks on labor.
The sugar industry which is the main pillar of Negros' entire economy, continues to decline. Already quite a number of industrial, commercial and agribusiness enterprises have closed.
Local government funds earmarked for basic social services are being squandered on commercialized religio-cultural festivals and tourism-related businesses in an effort to attract investments. This is a result of tightened control over the local government by the Cojuangco clique which includes the Montilla, Alvares, Mara�on, Palanca, Garcia, Paras and Cardenas families.
The local economy's decline has also decreased the amount of local funds that members of the Cojuangco-Coscolluela clique could divide among themselves. In this regard, the clique has been intensifying its illegal drug operations and restrengthening the local warlords.
In Bacolod City, the situation has been the cause of intense conflict among local officials from the Cojuangco, Montelibano and Guanzon families. Nonetheless, despite such rivalries, they unanimously uphold counterrevolution under the US-Estrada regime's Oplan Makabayan. Big comprador-landlords all approve of close cooperation between the military and civil bureaucracy in containing and destroying the revolutionary and progressive people's movement.
Militarization and fascism in Negros have worsened with the turnover of the counterrevolutionary campaign to the Philippine Army through its 303rd Infantry Brigade. Human rights violations have become more rampant. Still unsatisfied with the present deployment in the island of three army battalions (excluding an engineering battalion), two Scout Ranger companies, a Special Forces company, two PNP Regional Mobile Group battalions, seven PNP Provincial Mobile Group companies, more than 2,000 CAFGU auxiliaries and the private armies and goons of warlords, the local reactionaries have been pushing for the reinforcement of their private armies and the CAFGU. | THE PEOPLE TURN TO THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT TO SEEK JUSTICE FOR THEIR OPPRESSION BY COJUANGCO AND HIS COHORTS. IN RESPONSE TO THE PEOPLE'S GRIEVANCES, THE PARTY AND THE NPA ARE CALLING FOR THE INTENSIFICATION OF THE ARMED REVOLUTION IN NEGROS AS THE ONLY WAY TO END THE COJUANGCO CLIQUE'S POWER, FRUSTRATE OPLAN MAKABAYAN AND LIBERATE THE PEOPLE FROM EXPLOITATION AND OPPRESSION. |
Combat and intelligence operations as well as civil-military operations continue in the countryside. Local reactionary officials join antipeople and counterrevolutionary operations in the countryside and in urban areas. Peace and Order Council meetings presided over by Coscolluela focus on developing coordination among the military, the local government and reactionary individuals and NGOs to achieve the objective of crushing the people's revolutionary movement by 2001.
Along with these, RPM-RPA-ABB leaders Arturo Tabara, Warren Calizo and Luisito dela Cruz continue to serve as reactionary psywar agents out to sabotage the legal mass movement in the cities and the armed struggle in the countryside. Their armed groups have been launching militarist provocations to justify militarization and the suppression of the people.
But instead of recoiling from the Cojuangco clique's blatant exploitation and Oplan Makabayan's terrorism, the revolutionary forces are strengthening their ranks. The Party and the NPA in Negros are closely linking up with the masses by painstakingly arousing, organizing and mobilizing them.
The people turn to the revolutionary movement to seek justice for their oppression by Cojuangco and his cohorts. The revolutionary movement is determined to frustrate Oplan Makabayan as it did the Oplan Lambat Bitag series in Negros. In response to the people's grievances, the Party and the NPA are calling for the intensification of the armed revolution in Negros as the only way to end the Cojuangco clique's power, frustrate Oplan Makabayan and liberate the people from exploitation and oppression.
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