Central Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines
July 1992

It is the outstanding achievement of the Communist Party of the Philippines that it has become a nationwide organization with deep roots among the broad masses of the people, especially among the toiling masses of workers and peasants. The Party and the masses it leads are in the urban areas and in the wide expanses of the countryside, in the plains, hills, mountain valleys and seacoasts.

In the entire history of the Philippines, never has there been a revolutionary organization of such national scope and depth among the broad masses of people as the Party. The Party membership is in the tens of thousands, consisting of cadres and members. Augmented by the revolutionary mass activists, the Party has surpassed the Katipunan of 1898 and far more the old Communist Party of the Philippines in national spread and in other significant respects.

The Party is present wherever exist the people's army, the underground and legal mass organizations and the organs of political power it has created. It is at the head and at the core of the revolutionary mass movement. It exists in new areas of growth as well as in traditional institutions and organizations.

The Party owes its strength to the cadres and members and to all martyrs who adhered to and implemented the correct line of the Party; and to the broad masses of the people who follow the leadership of the Party along the general line of the new democratic revolution against the imperialists and the local exploiting classes.

The Party is the advanced detachment of the working class and the Philippine revolution. Without this vanguard, the revolutionary mass movement along the new democratic line cannot arise and develop. Even the byproducts of this movement, such as petty bourgeois groups and trends of thought which are patriotic and progressive in varying degrees, cannot thrive without the growth and advance of the Party and the revolutionary mass movement. To attack the vanguard role and development of the Party is to try to defeat the revolution and bring back the worst forms of reaction.

The main organizational principle of the Party is democratic centralism. This is centralism based on democracy and democracy under centralized leadership. For further explanation, let us quote extensively from the Party Constitution.

The basic conditions of democratic centralism are the following:

1. Leading organs of the Party at all levels shall be elected and shall be responsible to the Party organization or conference that elected them.

2. After free and thorough discussion, decisions taken by the Party are implemented.

a. The individual is subordinate to the organization;

b. The minority is subordinate to the majority;

k. The lower level is subordinate to the higher level;

d. The entire membership is subordinate to the Central Committee and the National Congress.

3. Leading organs always pay attention to the reports and views of lower Party organizations and of the masses of Party members and constantly study concrete experiences and render prompt assistance in solving problems.

4. Lower Party organizations give regular and special reports about their work to the organization above them and request instructions promptly concerning problems which require the decision of a higher Party organization.

5. Party organizations follow the principle of collective leadership and all important questions are decided collectively.

However, democratic centralism is not just the democratic and collective process of decision-making. The decisions must adhere to the basic principles for which the Party exists. These points are declared in the Party Constitution and Program; and these are the guide to the definition of achievements, problems and tasks; to inner Party democracy and discipline and to the conduct of criticism and self-criticism.

Democratic centralism does not allow the violation of the Party constitution, diminution and destruction of basic Party life, the practice of bureaucratism as well as ultrademocracy or liberalism and disregard of one's own security and the security of others and the entire Party.

There must be a good account of the reasons for the failure of the Party to increase its membership and to further develop a comprehensive Party life, especially at the basic level. There are certain elements and certain trends of thought and action that prevent these.