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On the diatribes of the AFP, the clerico-fascists and the likes of Akbayan against the CPP, NPA and the PTC policy

Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
April 26, 2004

Clerico-fascists, pseudo-reformists and NGO racketeers who fancy themselves as the so-called civil society have combined with psyops experts of the AFP, National Intelligence and Coordinating Agency and US CIA-funded offices to malign and cast aspersion on the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army's control and supervision of election-related political activities in revolutionary areas by means of the Permit To Campaign (PTC) policy.

The CPP denounces the AFP, phoney social democrats and pseudo-reformists in Akbayan and the Institute for Popular Democracy and their ilk for peddling lies, distortions and half-truths in their frenzied campaign to slander the CPP/NPA and the policies and authority of the revolutionary government.

We acknowledge that certain members of the clergy have raised particular concerns with regard to the PTC in a paid ad published on April 16. We take note, however, that the paid ad smacks of typical pseudo-reformist prejudices and anti-CPP/NPA rhetoric that take off from ultra-rightist AFP psyops.

We are aware that certain phoney social democrats with counterrevolutionary agenda used misinformation and deception to cajole others into participating in the paid ad as fellow signatories.

Through the paid ad, these phoney social-democrats and pseudo-reformists have demagogically posited the utterly myopic view that the PTC policy violates the people's right to information, abets corruption, imposes a burden on poor candidates while favoring rich candidates, and arrogantly uses its armed might to extort from electoral candidates.

It is a total distortion of fact and sense for the counterrevolutionary psyops experts of the AFP-PNP, the clerico-fascists and the likes of Akbayan to claim that the PTC policy violates the people's right to information. All political parties, candidates as well as other people who have the right of access automatically also have full freedom of expression in revolutionary areas.

In the past three and a half decades, the revolutionary forces under the leadership of the CPP have tirelessly worked to raise the people's political awareness and capacity to fight in order to break free from neocolonial and feudal shackles, including the reactionary illusions peddled by the ruling classes. These illusions, however, continue to be peddled by ordinary lip servers and pseudo-reformists alike, including their NGOist appendages.

Among the biggest of the illusions which the revolutionary masses have long dispelled is that elections under the current oppressive and exploitative system equal democracy.

With these illusions, pseudo-reformists have exposed themselves as sickening apologists of the ruling social system. They obscure the fact that the ruling political and electoral system is rotten to the core. They try to prettify and venerate the rotten system and, with extreme prejudice and mind-stretching logic, try to pass on to the CPP/NPA the blame for the ruling system's filth and corruption.

They obfuscate the fact that corruption lies within the very heart of the ruling system which they are now assiduously defending. The CPP/NPA has a record of standing solidly against corruption. On the other hand, the NGO racketeers among these phoney social democrats and pseudo-reformists were the ones who masterminded and benefited from the multi-billion PEACe bonds racket last 2001 in league with corrupt associates in high levels of the government bureaucracy.

The top leadership of the phoney social democrats within the ruling regime's inner clique are in fact using the tremendous funds in their hands from the intelligence, gaming and other unaudited government agencies as well as their NGO rackets for their political and personal use. They are a lot more hypocritical but no less corrupt than the typical big-time government officials.

They severely denounce the PTC access fees yet fail to condemn the billions of pesos spent by local and national candidates to grease their campaign machineries, buy votes, maintain their armed retinues including the police and military, and pay for expensive airtime ads and other campaign gimmicks.

They fail to mention the fact that of all the expenses that politicians spend during the election campaign, the access fees: (a) are comparably a most insignificant amount, and (b) are the only ones that provide substantial and direct benefit to the people in the form of support for socio-economic projects and the like in the revolutionary areas.

These anti-CPP pharisees falsely claim that access fees are a burden to candidates of lesser economic means. We state for clarification here that the permit-to-campaign which is required of all candidates conducting political campaigns in revolutionary areas is not to be equated with the access fees which are determined according to the political stand and economic status of candidates. . We also state for a fact that, in deference to their political stand and economic status, candidates who are pro-people, progressive and poor are not required to pay access fees. It suffices that many candidates give various forms of voluntary material support to the revolutionary movement and the socio-economic programs of the people in the revolutionary areas according to their ability.

The claim that the PTC perpetuates social iniquities is based on contorted logic and the sheer illusion that the reactionary electoral system provides fair chances for poor candidates in contention with those who have huge electoral war chests of hundreds of millions of pesos, fattened by contributions from imperialist and big bourgeois comprador interests.

Despite the frenzied propaganda which the AFP-PNP, the clerico-fascists and the likes of Akbayan have whipped-up against the PTC, its implementation has been generally accepted by politicians nationwide who respect the authority of and willingly cooperate with the revolutionary forces. In fact the PTC has become a venue to widely expand the tactical alliances and mutual cooperation with most of the candidates and their political parties.

Only a few diehard reactionaries have brazenly disregarded the strength of the revolutionary forces and insisted on relying on brute fascist force to force their way into power and prop up their political and economic interests.

It is not the policy of the CPP-NPA to punish with military force unarmed transgressions of the PTC policy. Unless there are grave criminal and counterrevolutionary offenses involved, the CPP-NPA employs more diplomatic and persuasive methods of encouraging compliance with the policy.

However, the NPA has to contend with the fact that the AFP uses electoral campaign sorties as a pretext for pursuing its "counter-insurgency" offensives against the NPA and the revolutionary mass base. Unfortunately, certain politicians with evil intent and in cooperation with the AFP bring along armed troops in their campaign sorties inside revolutionary areas. It is thus just for the NPA to face them with restraint and give them battle when necessary. In this regard, there may have been a few excesses which are the subject of corrective measures.

Behind all these pseudo-reformist illusions and diatribes against the CPP-NPA is the refusal to accept that the exercise of revolutionary political authority is a reality that is already widely accepted and recognized. The PTC which ensures the security and the economic and political interests of the people in the revolutionary mass base areas, is one example of the exercise of such revolutionary political authority. The fact is: revolutionary political power exists side-by-side with reactionary political power in vast swaths of the countryside.