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PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
Interview with Ka Roger
May 6, 2003
The staff of the Philippine Revolution Web Central visited the office of Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal last January to see how he was doing and to interview him regarding various issues and things. We hope that this interview helps clarify various issues facing the revolutionary movement, especially in the present time. The spokesperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) also indulged us and gave in to our request to get to know him a little better.
"Who are the real terrorists?
Ka Roger, why is it wrong to regard the CPP and NPA as "terrorists"?
First of all, the meaning of terrorism is harming the people in order to wreak havoc, coerce and intimidate them.
The Communist Party and the revolutionary movement in the Philippines have the New People's Army (NPA) which is a revolutionary army of the people. It was established to confront and destroy the reactionary Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) which are instruments of the ruling class to supress the revolutionary movement and the people who could not be coerced into following the wishes of the reactionaries.
The New People's Army has already been tested by the people in the last three decades as a revolutionary organization, as their very own army, and as their partner in their daily struggles not only in the military aspect, but in their livelihood struggle, in raising their level of education, literacy and culture, in developing other fields, and in self-governance. It is strictly forbidden to harm the people that they serve even in the slightest way. Thus, the NPA cannot become terrorist, especially the CPP that firmly leads and guides it.
The NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines), the alliance of the national-democratic organizations which includes the CPP and NPA, voluntarily declared in Switzerland, and registered the intention that the revolutionary movement will comply with the Geneva Conventions and all international humanitarian laws of the United Nations. The CPP-NPA-NDFP challenges the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) to respect these international humanitarian laws.
It is very clear that the real terrorist in the Philippines is the GRP, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. What it is maintaining is state terrorism because they are recklessly wreaking havoc on the people, killing civilians whose only "wrongdoing" is supporting the New People's Army or protesting their legitimate grievances. If we only examine what they are doing in Mindoro, for example, there is no doubt that the AFP is unleashing unbridled terrorism against the people.
Meanwhile, on a worldwide scale, the US is truly the biggest terrorist. The US has already killed millions in its insane wars-in dropping the atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, in imposing an embargo on food, medicine and other basic needs of Iraq, in its latest aggression in Afghanistan. And even in the Philippines, over 400,000 civilians were directly killed by the US army during the Filipino-American War. More than a million were killed if we include those who died from hunger and sickness as a result of saturation drives and food blockades.
How has the revolutionary movement been affected by the reported freezing of Ka Joema's assets? Is it true that it is losing funds because Ka Joema and the NPA have now been labeled "terrorist"?
The enemy - the reactionary government and its military - is proceeding from the mistaken belief that the revolutionary movement thrives and depends on help from outside the country. We have repudiated that long ago. In reality, one of the fine characteristics of the Philippine revolution under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines is its will and capacity to be self-reliant. It does not depend primarily on whatever support comes from outside the country. This characteristic is admired by fellow revolutionaries abroad.
The revolutionary movement primarily depends on livelihood and financial resources from within the country-contributions from the worker and peasant masses, help from allies, revolutionary taxes and its own production. We're not saying we do not need outside help. We are heartened and grateful for any help from the outside, whether material, political or moral. But this is only to supplement our resources, and not as something to be dependent on.
The government is laboring under the illusion that the movement has been greatly affected by the freezing of its supposed bank deposits. The Party, the NDF and the NPA do not have bank deposits overseas. Ka Joema has no money in the bank in The Netherlands, except for the allowances given by the Dutch government for his food, medicine and rental payments as a political refugee.
Therefore, the objective of the enemy to freeze whatever bank deposits Ka Joema and the revolutionary movement have is insane. The enemy has failed in its expectations to cripple the revolutionary movement and bring it to its knees in the peace talks they have been stalling.
What has the AFP's Oplan Gordian Knot accomplished? In your view, is there anything new in the steps being undertaken by the government in relation to its declaration of all-out war against terrorism?
Oplan Gordian Knot is just the new name that [former AFP Chief] Gen. Benjamin Defensor has given to the government's counterrevolutionary campaign-Campaign Plan Bantay Bayan Laya. Supposedly, they will at long last be able to unravel the knot of the revolution that they could not do over a long period. Gen. Defensor boasts that hundreds from the NPA have supposedly surrendered. Meanwhile, the military has made GMA, the chief puppet of the US, believe this, including their fabricated reports about hundreds of encounters supposedly on the initiative of the AFP and the confiscation of many rusting firearms of the NPA. I've been joking that they may find themselves in a bind with this Gordian Knot. Essentially, it is no different from the Oplan Makabayan during Erap's time, that later became Campaign Plan Balangai during the first year of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime.
The only difference lies in its more insidious and more unbridled use of psywar in a greater part of their counterrevolutionary campaign-like spreading spurious stories and fabricated slanders against the revolutionary movement, such as the labeling of the NPA and Ka Joema Sison as "terrorist." In any case, all their lies and slander have not been effective because the people, who have long been with the NPA especially in the countryside, do not believe them. They know that the NPA is a revolutionary army that is there to serve the people unstintingly and to fight for the welfare of the people. They participate in it and provide it with their best sons and daughters to become fighters of the New People's Army.
Oh yes, there is something new, well, old, just as its name suggests, but which they have revived as far back as the time of Campaign Balangai-their back-to-basics orientation. Relentlessly killing civilians-this is what Gen. Dionisio Santiago boasts about-the most brutal way for the military to suppress the people just like what we witnessed during the time of martial law under Marcos. Their most intense effort is in Mindoro.
The AFP is influenced by the back-to-basics doctrine of the US Army which they have been engrossed with since the defeat of the US in Vietnam, but which they have now developed. This back-to-basics orientation is due to the AFP's desperation, as it has failed to stop the growth of the NPA and the expansion of the revolutionary movement.
They take revenge on the mass base of the NPA with the aim of removing the water that the fish swims in. They have this insane belief that whenever they kill or terrorize the civilians, the latter will avoid supporting the revolution. During encounters, they forcibly incriminate the owners of houses that the NPA had stayed in. Or else, they abduct civilians and then they make it appear that they were killed in the crossfire. The worst is what they have been doing to activists and mass leaders of organizations actively fighting for their interests-such as those advocating human rights, the labor movement, those that expose corruption in government-the veterans of the campaign to oust Erap and to install GMA. It is the latter, and not the NPA, that are being targeted.
In Mindoro alone, they have killed no less than 30 activists and mass leaders within two years of their aggression. The victims are always from KARAPATAN, from Bayan Muna (People First); in Mindoro, from the Kalipunan ng mga Mamamayang Mindore�o (Association of Mindore�o People). They kill the mass leaders of the indigenous Mangyan. They have even dismembered the bodies of some victims.
Despite Col. Palparan's very mistaken declaration that 90% of Mindoro has been cleared of the NPA, they continue to target the people, especially the mass leaders. They argue that these people form the support network of the NPA. They are supposedly the base or are also members of the NPA. They say it is necessary to drain the water that the fish swim in. Thus, that is what they are focusing their attention on. This is what they have intensified during GMA's time.
We can therefore see that civilians have become ever more the victims of the all-out war. Regardless of who it has declared war on, the all-out war is really a war of the government against the civilians. But the reactionary government and the AFP are mistaken. Instead of losing support, the NPA is fast reaping more support because more and more people who are fighting openly and legally are being forced or obliged to head for the mountains, to join the NPA and to bear arms.
"Issues in waging revolution"
What can you say about the regime's so-called program of agrarian reform? What is the revolutionary movement doing in relation to the peasantry's land problem?
The Macapagal-Arroyo regime does not have a land reform program of its own. It is merely continuing the CARP (Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program) begun by the former president Mrs. Aquino. The peasants already know that this is not genuine land reform.
One reason is that the peasants are being made to pay for the lands of the landlords at prices that the peasants cannot really afford.
Despite the GMA regime's vaunted claims of having redistributed many parcels of land, whenever we talk to the peasants themselves, they complain about things that are the opposite of what the regime claims. The peasants have a term for this, "bigay-bawi" (give-retrieve)-referring to the certificates of land transfer that are first given away and then taken back because the farmlands are being converted to golf courses, tourist resorts, subdivisions and industrial parks.
With regard to the second question: just as what the tenants and the masses whose lives have been touched by the revolution know, the main content of the national-democratic revolution is the program for genuine land reform. This is the revolutionary movement's solution to the problem of the landless peasants. Genuine land reform or agrarian revolution has as its minimum goal the reduction of land rent or increasing the tenants' share of the harvest. This is already being carried out extensively throughout the entire country. Within the guerrilla fronts, this has already begun through the collective efforts of the peasants with the help of the people's army. We have also succeeded in raising the wages of farm workers and reducing the extremely high interest rates in usurious loans. In the same way, we have also encouraged small businesspeople to purchase the peasants' produce at slightly higher and more just prices.
The maximum goal of agrarian revolution is to confiscate the lands of the landlords, nationalize them and redistribute them so that the landless peasants can cultivate them for free. Before victory, the selective confiscation of a few lands may be carried out against certain despotic landlords who have committed grave crimes against the revolutionary movement and the people. But for now-and until victory is attained-it is generally the minimum program that is carried out more extensively.
How does the revolutionary movement address the workers' clamor for higher wages, lower prices of commodities, and a decent life?
In the cities, it is the revolutionary movement's priority to organize workers as the leading class and as one of the two largest sectors in the cities -the other one being the semi-proletariat. Advancing the workers' movement and the strike movement, setting up genuine unions and advancing the struggle for just wages and other workers' rights is done with wholehearted zeal.
Despite the intense repression of the reactionary state, the revolutionary movement strives to reach the greatest number of workers in the various enterprises throughout the country in order to advance their interests. The revolutionary movement has contributed to this effort immensely. Nevertheless, it still has to accomplish so much more in order to reach and to organize the greatest number of the masses of workers, and to mobilize them to further their class interests as well as those of the people.
How do we realize what you call "genuine and long-lasting peace"?
In order to achieve the cessation of the armed conflict, the civil war that is raging in the Philippines, we need to confront and resolve the roots of the conflict. This is the very bad system that exists, where a handful who own a large portion of the land and wealth rule, where the large majority of the people comprised of peasants, workers and other oppressed and exploited sectors are at the bottom and are trampled on by those who rule, where the entire country is plundered and oppressed by US imperialism. This rotten system must be changed. The new-democratic revolutionary movement was launched in order to realize the needed radical changes.
But because there is a reactionary army that props up and defends this rotten system, it is also necessary for the people to have a revolutionary army like the New People's Army. The people need an armed struggle to overthrow the rotten state and system and to establish a new one.
The peace that the regime, the reactionary government want, is a peace in which nobody objects, nobody speaks out-the peace of the graveyard. But that is not real peace. Genuine peace can be realized when the roots of the armed conflict are resolved. For as long as these roots are not eradicated, any cessation of the armed conflict now will only be temporary, and the conflict will once more intensify.
As long as we do not lay down our weapons, and as long as we do not surrender them, we remain ready to present the roots of the problems on the negotiation table and search for a solution through the talks as long as the enemy is truly open and sincere with regards to this process. We are also prepared to disengage from these peace talks once we prove the enemy's intention and their actions to be otherwise. In any case, any victory achieved from our participation in peace talks relies on our holding firmly to armed struggle.
"Expansion and advance
How big is the NPA now compared to when it first started? How did the movement attain its present number of guerrilla fronts?
The NPA started in 1969 with only 60 fighters and 34 long and short arms. And it was only operating out of one small district in Tarlac province.
After a few years, the revolutionary movement was able to expand throughout the country. Despite the hardships and errors, the movement has prevailed and is able to operate in more than 70 provinces and establish more than 120 guerrilla fronts nationwide. The people's army operates in all of the major islands of the Philippines.
Among these guerrilla fronts, the smallest has the strength of one army platoon. On the other hand, most are company strength. Those are full-time armed guerrillas. They do not include the people's militia - the reserves of the NPA - those called "fighters by night and peasants by day."
The process of establishing guerrilla fronts has been somewhat difficult because all of the regimes that existed in the Philippines launched cruel counterrevolutionary campaigns against the revolutionary movement. Marcos called his campaigns Oplan Pedro Taga, Oplan Mamamayan, and there was even an Oplan Kadena de Amor in Southern Luzon. Cory had her Oplan Lambat Bitag 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Ramos thought that the NPA had already been defeated, and therefore he shifted his priority to modernizing the military. He had his Campaign Plan Kaisaganaan. During Erap's time - they saw once more that they could not defeat the NPA - they launched Oplan Makabayan. And now, under the GMA regime, the newest - Campaign Plan Bantay Bayan Laya which Defensor now calls Oplan Gordian Knot. Although in the initial phases they had caused difficulties to the NPA, all of these oplans were eventually surmounted, frustrated and defeated by the revolutionary movement.
That was the struggle that the NPA had to go through before it reached its present strength of about 27 battalions. The NPA is also quite spread out throughout the country. More than half of all congressional districts are covered by the more than 120 guerrilla fronts of the NPA and these are bound to increase in the next few years.
Comrades assure that any new counterrevolutionary campaign plan launched by the government will likewise be completely frustrated, because it will have no essential difference from previous ones.
Aside from the number of guerrilla fronts throughout the archipelago, what else has the Party accomplished after 34 years?
In 1992, when the 10th Plenum of the Central Committee did a summing-up, it identified problems and reversals in revolutionary work and therefore decided to launch a rectification movement. It was necessary to pinpoint the errors and to rectify them. The leaders and members of the Party that could not accept the rectification movement and refused to recognize the errors, bolted the revolutionary movement. The handful that committed the biggest transgressions against the Party and revolutionary movement and the most active in carrying the erroneous and opportunist line proceeded to betray and sought to split and destroy the Party and the revolutionary movement. But they were frustrated, and they were the ones who disintegrated, eventually became irrelevant and ended up becoming mere special and paid agents and paramilitary forces of the enemy.
The Party and revolutionary movement meanwhile grew more lustrous in the furnace of thoroughgoing rectification and intense struggle against the opportunist renegades. As a result of the reaffirmation of basic principles, it is now stronger ideologically, politically and organi-zationally.
The NPA is now of higher quality. It has put a stop to military adventurism, which only wrought self-inflicted damage, resulted in gaps in relations with the masses, and invited excessive enemy retaliation. Militarist tendencies and coarseness were wiped out and the NPA grew even closer to the masses. The people's army was deployed according to the strategic line of extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare based on an ever widening and ever deepening mass base.
In urban areas, insurrectionism and reformism were corrected and the mutually supportive nature of revolutionary work in the countryside and cities and between armed and parliamentary struggle were once more put in order in accordance with the framework of protracted people's war and the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside.
The Party has also reached vast areas. It can proudly say that it is today the largest and most consolidated political party nationwide, especially compared to loose, intermittently active and bourgeois political parties that exist only for elections, such as the Lakas-NUCD, LDP and the like. And of course, the Communist Party of the Philippines has a people's army under its firm leadership.
Indications of the presence of the Party can be seen in all places. In the countryside, it is in the people's army, in the Party branches in the localities. In the cities, it is the same. Whenever I am asked about this by our friends in the media, I say, "You can see and feel the presence of communists in the factories, schools, marketplaces, government offices, and even in the churches." And perhaps even in the military camps, you will encounter communists, except that of course, they will not tell you they are communist. The Party operates in all places where there are people to arouse, organize and mobilize, especially among the ranks of the toiling masses and intellectuals.
How will we persevere in attaining even bigger victories in accordance with the call of Armando Liwanag?
In the Party's anniversary statement last December 26, it was pointed out that the situation in the Philippines as well as the world is exceedingly favorable for further advancing the revolution. The Party and the revolutionary movement are in an excellent situation to take advantage of these conditions because it is much more consolidated ideologically, politically and organizationally after the completion of the Second Great Rectification Movement in 1998 and after recovering from the damage it sustained as a result of the grave disorientation during the 1980s. In the last three years, it has already continuously made big strides in all leading arenas of revolutionary work.
The Macapagal-Arroyo regime is already thoroughly isolated, because of its excessive puppetry to US imperialism, its repressiveness and its corruption. The Party will lead the campaign to oust Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. There are forces who were with us then in ousting Erap that are ready to unite with the revolutionary movement in order to oust the present chief puppet, GMA.
Even if GMA is not ousted through a people's uprising similar to what toppled Marcos and Estrada, the revolutionary movement will take all the steps to ensure her defeat in the 2004 election in the event it pushes through and she still decides to run.
In the meantime, the revolutionary movement will give emphasis to further advancing people's struggles:
- foremost is the peasant struggle for land reform and against the government's anti-peasant policies, such as neo-liberalization which is resulting in greater hardship for them and is destroying the country's agriculture;
- the workers' struggle for a just, living wage and for democratic rights;
- the struggle of the urban poor, lower government employees, youth and students, small professionals;
- the struggle of small and middle entrepreneurs, from hog raisers up to cement manufacturers, who are also being squeezed dry by neo-liberalization and the flooding of the country with the surplus products of the imperialists;
- the people's struggle against the Arroyo regime's corruption, repression and violation of human rights;
- the struggle of patriotic forces against worsening US military intervention in the Philippines.
We will pay greater attention to advancing the armed struggle. This year and in the next succeeding years, one of the principal challenges facing the Party is the strengthening of the people's army in order for it to keep pace with and fulfill the firm demand of the people to intensify tactical offensives against the most detested units of the AFP and the PNP that now wreak havoc in the countryside and punish the hated plunderers, the leading violators of human rights and others who deserve to be meted revolutionary justice.
Together with this, we will carry out large-scale recruitment into the NPA; launch many training exercises for Red commanders and fighters; increase the number of firearms principally through arms confiscation in the field of battle; and strengthen and expand guerrilla zones, bases and fronts. We will strive to make the platoon the standard formation of the NPA and attain company strength in most of the guerrilla fronts. We can also expect tactical offensives to become more numerous, more widespread and stronger this year and in the coming years.
Why is the revolutionary movement confident of victory?
With the guidance of revolutionary theory and as a result of our grasp of history and social conditions, we are confident that the revolutionary movement will achieve victory sooner or later. The process of achieving complete social change is really a protracted one. It is unlike merely changing the president which can be done every four years. And because revolutionaries are conscious of this, they are prepared to be of service no matter how long it takes, even to the point of offering their whole life, and even if it is only the succeeding generations who will be able to fully enjoy the changes effected.
But, in truth, the much awaited victory will not take that long. The Party has been clearly confident even as early as 2000 that-because of the worsening isolation, corruption and collapse of the system on the one hand and the continuous strengthening of the revolutionary movement on the other-the revolutionary struggle in the Philippines will achieve victory within the first decades of the new millennium.
Especially now, the situation is most favorable. If Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is fast digging her own grave in the Philippines, in the international arena, Bush is likewise accelerating recruitment into the anti-imperialist movement as a result of his obsession to wage war on Iraq and others he accuses of being "terrorists."
The Party, the NPA and the revolutionary movement now have a great advantage in being well consolidated. The ranks of the people who embrace the aspirations being championed by the revolutionary movement are rapidly expandin | 