Intensify
tactical offensives, frustrate the desperate Oplan Bantay Laya II
(OBLII) and make greater contributions to the national movement to
topple the Arroyo regime!
Concha Araneta
Panay Regional Committee
Communist Party of the Philippines
December 26, 2007
As we conclude 39 years of glorious struggle led by the
Communist Party of the Philippines, we congratulate the heroic courage
of our people and their people's army in their unmatched struggle in
the midst of a regime hellbent on hanging to power by hook or by crook.
Inspired by their noble example, the people in Panay are further
encouraged to bravely defend the people's interests and further
frustrate whatever schemes the regime might cook up along OBLII. We are
likewise inspired by the ultimate sacrifices of our revolutionary
martyrs to further our revolutionary cause.
2007 will be remembered by the people as the year of worsened
economic crisis, even more blatant corruption, and state terrorism
brandished all over the islands by the Arroyo regime. Despite the
regime's arrogant claims of a stronger peso, more factories and work
places closed down and agriculture declined, impoverishing almost four
million Panayanon and all Filipinos. Even families of the 62,000
overseas contract workers in Panay, who staked their middle class
future on the dollar remittance suffered a big slash off their dollar
income.
In the face of the worsening hunger, unemployment and rampant
price hikes of prime commodities, the callous Arroyo regime imposed the
Human Security Act and OBLII to suppress the people's anger while it
engorges itself in its evil lust for power, loot and blood. But the the Arroyo regime will never forget that 2006 was the
year when Oplan Bantay Laya I was finally scrapped. And 2007 will
remain in her memory as the year when her OBLII suffered its first
defeat in the face of the Filipino people's staunch resistance. At the
lead are the forces of the Communist Party, the Bangsa Moro
revolutionaries, and the whole gamut of Philippines society including
sections of the reactionary AFP ang state institutions such as the
Supreme Court, Senate and local government units. Outrageous claims by
the regime to the contrary, her military itself admitted to failure in
realizing the objective of OBL I and OBL II in its first year to crush
the revolutionary movement in the priority regions of the country.
In Panay, the 301st Infantry Brigade (301st Bde) under the 3rd
Infantry Division (3ID), in a year, launched around ten brigade and
about 100 battalion and company operations; wasted millions of pesos in
tax money for a war to keep the Arroyo regime in power and caused
further dislocation to the already suffering people. All they can claim
as accomplishments are photo opportunities and empty boasts about
abandoned camps of the NPA. In many instances, the reactionary military
was at the receiving end of sniping and ambushes, suffering casualties
from NPA counter-offensives. Not one NPA Red fighter was killed or
wounded in these encounters and all its officers and men became more
experienced in actual combat.
Thousands upon thousands of Panayanons participated in the
armed resistance and joined the NPA or the revolutionary masss
organizations, having realized the need to topple the fascist regime.
Many have seen the need to organize to collectively solve their own
problems through organs of political power. Membership of revolutionary
mass organizations in the countryside increased by 47%. The NPA
increased in numbers including a jump by 85% of its local militias. The
Communist Party itself expanded by 20% this year inspite of cruel
persecution by a desperate reactionary regime. Such expansion is
unprecedented since the Second Rectification movement in 1994.
Truly, the wild and desperate measures of a panicking regime has blown up on its face.
The blatant abduction of two respected mass leaders in Panay,
Luisa Posa Dominado and Nilo Arado, and the shooting of human rights
advocate LeeBoy Garachico by the death squad of the joint Internal
Security Group-3ID Military Intelligence Battalion reaped widespread
condemnation of the culprit, the Arroyo regime. This further broadened
the alliance and cooperation among all sectors of Panay society
including local government units to defend and uphold human rights and
further develop the open democratic mass movement in the cities and
towns.
Again the people of Panay demonstrated their capacity to
paralyze the whole island in righteous anger against the eleventh oil
price hike by foreign oil monopolies inspite of decreasing world oil
prices. They voluntarily stayed at home while public transport drivers
and operators grounded their jeeps, buses, motorcycles and even
trisikads. Island-wide rallies and marches have grown bigger and more
frequent in protest against rampant graft and cruel measures of the
regime, contributing to the nation-wide struggle to oust the regime.
Even Panay, claimed by the regime as its bailiwick, elected
anti-Arroyo candidates in the Senate and the local levels including the
much maligned progressive Party-Lists. The Communist Party in Panay has
developed the capacity to influence the results of bourgeois elections
at various levels despite serious threats by the AFP.
The determination and sustained efforts of the Communist party
to develop the armed resistance has encouraged other political forces
and sectors including the bourgeois opposition, the churches, the media
and even soldiers and officers of the reactionary AFP to struggle
against the vindictive measures of the regime. With its armed and
political strength, the Party has the capability to implement
revolutonary policies within and outside its guerrilla fronts and
execute revolutionary justice in a wide area of the island.
This influence will further strengthen and spread as the
people continue to develop consciousness and unity in the face of
sustained armed attacks by the Arroyo regime. The repressive policies
of Gloria herself continue to push people to the armed revolution.
Gloria herself continues laying the grounds for the inevitable failure
of Oplan Bantay Laya II. The Communist Party of the Philippines, the
New People's Army and the whole revolutionary masses are ever prepared
to unite in struggle to seize every opportunity to carry the revolution
to victory.
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!!!
Long live the masses of the Filipino people!!!
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