II. PROGRAMME FOR A PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION

The Communist Party of the Philippine is determined to implement its general programme for a people's democratic revolution. All Filipino Communists are ready to sacrifice their lives for the worthy cause of achieving the new type of democracy, of building a new Philippines that is genuinely and completely independent, democratic, united, just and prosperous. We are all keenly aware that the present bourgeois state and the reactionary classes that it serves will never surrender their political and economic power without a fight.

The Party is highly conscious that in rebuilding itself as the principal instrument of the leading class and in building a united front of all patriotic and progressive forces, it must build a strong people's army that can weld together the workers and peasants and destroy the local reactionary state and the interventionist forces of U.S. imperialism.

The Communist Party of the Philippines is the core of the revolutionary mass movement against foreign and feudal oppression and for the establishment and consolidation of a people's democratic state. In the exercise of its leadership, the Party hereunder states ten guidelines for its general programme:

1. Destroy the Forces of US Imperialist and Feudal Oppression in the Philippines

National sovereignty and democracy can never be obtained without the destruction of the forces of U.S. imperialism and domestic feudalism whose basic interests lie in the continued national and class enslavement and exploitation of the Filipino people. The overriding interest of the Filipino people now is to fight for national liberation and people's democracy. They must take the road of armed revolution to defeat the armed counterrevolution; and all patriotic and progressive classes, parties, groups and individuals must be aroused and mobilized to isolate and then destroy the power and influence of the U.S. imperialists, the comprador bourgeoisie, the evil gentry, the bureaucrat capitalists and all their political and armed agents. The political power and influence of these exploiters can be isolated, destroyed and replaced by both waging the armed struggle and building the national united front. As a proletarian revolutionary party, the Communist Party of the Philippines should not be tied down by legalist and parliamentary struggle. The Party should concentrate on building up the people's democratic power in the countryside before seizing the cities and, simultaneously, on discrediting the monopolization of political power by the bourgeois political parties, like the Nacionalista Party, the Liberal Party and others, which actually perpetuate the same single party of class interests.

2. Establish a People's Democratic State and a Coalition or United Front Government

The ultimate goal of the people's democratic revolution is the establishment of a people's democratic state and a coalition or united front government. The people's democratic state is under the leadership of the working class and it includes the participation of all democratic classes, i.e., the workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie. Its government is a coalition or united front of all democratic classes. In the course of the protracted people's war, a national liberation front may be created to combine all available forces and elements to isolate and destroy the enemy and prepare for a democratic coalition government. In the meantime, while a nationwide coalition government cannot yet be established, the masses of workers and peasants under the proletarian revolutionary leadership can establish an armed independent regime in the countryside where they shall learn to govern themselves, defend and advance their independence and democratic gains and manage well their relations with all friends and sympathizers. The armed independent regime is the nucleus of the People's Democratic Republic of the Philippines.

3. Fight for National Unity and Democratic Rights

The firmest national unity founded mainly on the basis of the class interest of the workers and peasants must be created. On this popular basis, all patriotic and progressive classes, groups and individuals shall enjoy political and economic rights that U.S. imperialism and feudalism have deprived them of. Individual initiative and enterprise on the part of fishermen, handicraftsmen, intellectuals, the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie shall be respected, encouraged and assisted. All efforts shall be exerted by the state, cooperative and private sectors to provide every citizen a decent livelihood. All democratic classes, groups and their members shall enjoy all such democratic rights as freedom of domicile, person, thought, belief, religion, speech and assembly in a democratic bill of rights. The interests and rights of overseas Filipinos shall be protected; they shall be allowed to have the amplest contact with their kith and kin in the Philippines or to return from the United States or elsewhere.

4. Follow the Principle of Democratic Centralism

The national government shall have central authority over the local government at various levels. The government, however, shall base its decisions on the needs and aspirations of the broad masses of the people and the lower levels of government. This is centralized leadership based on democracy guided by centralized leadership. At every level of the government (barrio, municipality, city or district, provincial, regional), there shall be elected representative bodies where decisions are taken democratically for every corresponding area. A lower representative body shall be subordinate to a higher representative body. Any part of the government shall be subordinate to the people's revolutionary congress which represents nationally the sovereign Filipino people. In all elections or voting on any question, the rule of the majority shall be followed.

5. The People's Liberation Army

There can be no people's democratic state without a people's army whose principal and most essential function is to defend and secure it. The people's army, composed mainly of fighters from the peasantry, must be under the leadership of the working class and the Communist Party of the Philippines. The most pressing task of the people's army now is to defeat and destroy the reactionary imperialist-created and imperialist-supported Armed Forces of the Philippines and all other kinds of armed power in the hands of the exploiting classes and the reactionary state at all levels. The people's democratic government can be established only with the triumphant advance of the people's army. The people's army shall be a fighting force, a propaganda force and a productive force closely linked with the masses of the people. It constantly strengthens itself ideologically, politically and organizationally with Mao Tsetung Thought. The armed strength of the people's army includes its regular mobile troops, the guerrilla units, and the militia and self-defense corps and armed city partisans. The Party should see to it that troops are well-provisioned and the welfare of the families of fighters are well taken care of.

6. The Land Problem

The main content of the people's democratic revolution is the struggle of the peasants for land. The people's democratic revolution must satisfy the basic demands of the poor peasants and farm workers for land. The agrarian revolution is the necessary requirement for the vigorous conduct of the armed struggle and the creation and consolidation of revolutionary base areas. Land shall be distributed free to the landless. Usury and all other feudal evils shall be wiped out. Plantations and estates already efficiently operated on a mechanized basis shall be converted into state farms where agricultural workers shall establish proletarian power and provide themselves with better working and living conditions. In the whole countryside, mutual aid teams and mutual labor exchange systems shall be created as the initial steps towards higher forms of agricultural cooperation. Through agricultural cooperation, production shall be raised and be well-planned, the sale of produce shall be assured at the best price possible and welfare services guaranteed. The higher purchasing power of the peasantry shall allow the ceaselss expansion of industrial production. The basis of the national economy shall be agriculture because it fulfills the food and raw material requirement of expanding industrialization and because it is mainly the peasantry that absorbs the products of industrialization.

7. The Problem of Industry

Foreign monopoly capitalism and feudalism which have hindered the growth of national industry are firmly opposed by the people's democratic revolution. All efforts towards the growth of national industry as the leading factor of the economy shall be mustered by the people's democratic government. There shall be three sectors in the national economy: the state sector, the cooperative sector and the private sector. All major sources of raw materials and energy, all heavy and basic industries and all nationalized enterprises shall be run by the state sector. The private sector run by patriotic entrepreneurs and merchants shall be given assistance and support by the people's democratic government. All peasants, fishermen and handicraftsmen shall be encouraged to organize themselves into cooperatives so as to increase their productivity and assure themselves of a ready market. While building up the state and cooperative sectors of the economy as factors of proletarian leadership and socialism, the people's democratic government shall encourage and support all private initiative in industry so long as this does not monopolize or adversely affect the people's livelihood. The people's democratic government shall exercise regulation of capital only to protect the people's livelihood and guarantee a people's democracy.

8. The Problem of Culture, Education and the Intellectuals

A people's democratic cultural revolution is necessary to rid the nation of the stultifying dominance of imperialist and feudal culture and education. It must advance instead a national, scientific and mass culture truly serving the interests of the people. It shall see to it that the educational system and the mass media are securely in the hands of the people's democratic forces. Education at all levels shall be free, irrespective of class, religion, creed, sex or color. It shall promote the national language as the principal medium of communication in Philippine society. It shall give full encouragement and support to scientific experiment and technological progress. It shall see to it that the national language, art and literature shall be given revolutionary content and relate the revolutionary struggles of workers, peasants, soldiers and other participants of the revolution. Old forms as well as foreign forms of art and literature may be adopted so long as these can be given revolutionary content and suit the national aspirations of the people. The working class assumes leadership in the field of culture and education in line with its leading revolutionary role. But it welcomes wholehearted support of intellectuals for the revolution. All democratic intellectuals are given all the opportunity to serve the people and remould their own thinking. While freedom of thought and religion shall be accorded respect, proper safeguards shall be taken to keep this freedom from being systematically employed to resist the people's democratic revolution or hurt the people's interests. In the course of the protracted people's war, the Party shall transform backward villages into cultural bastions of the Philippine revolution. Illiteracy and superstition among the masses shall be wiped out and the scientific spirit of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought shall prevail.

9. The Problem of National Minorities

National minorities in the Philippines have been abused and grossly neglected. U.S. imperialism, the local reactionary government and the Christian churches have too long regarded the national minorities as mere objects of bourgeois charity and Christian proselytization. The four-million people belonging to the national minorities, especially those of Mindanao and the mountain provinces, can be powerful participants in the revolutionary overthrow of U.S. imperialism and feudalism. The bourgeois government, reactionary scholars and Christian chauvinists talk loud about national integration but they stand in reality for the exploiting classes that are the main sources of abuse and oppression. The main concern of the national minorities is land; the abuses of landlords, loggers and landgrabbers; and exploitation in mines and plantations. A new type of leadership, a revolutionary one must be encouraged to rise among them so as to supplant the traditional leadership that has failed to protect them and has merely contributed to and participated in their exploitation. With regard to naturalized Filipinos and foreign nationals, the class approach must be firmly taken so as to do away with "Malay" racism and chauvinism. Residents or citizens of Chinese ancestry are very often the target of racist and chauvinist attacks launched by the U.S. imperialists, modern revisionists and other local reactionaries in line with their anti-China, anti-communist and anti-people policy. The Kuomintang comprador big bourgeoisie should be thoroughly exposed and attacked for its class position and for the fact that it is an accomplice of U.S. imperialism, modern revisionism and all reaction.

10. The Problem of Foreign Policy

The foreign policy of the Philippine bourgeois government is dictated by U.S. imperialism and the internal reactionary classes. The diplomatic relations and foreign trade of the Philippines is dictated upon by the United States, together with its reactionary allies like resurgent militarist Japan. Relations with the revisionist states have been initiated only because of the permission granted by the United States which recognizes modern revisionism as its chief accomplice in maintaining neo-colonialism throughout the world, including the Philippines. The imperialists and the modern revisionists are maintaining all-round cooperation to save puppet states like the reactionary puppet state in the Philippines. The only true basis for an independent and active foreign policy is the overthrow of the internal power of U.S. imperialism and its local lackeys in the Philippines, and the abrogation of all treaties, executive agreements and statutes that define "special relations" with the U.S. government and its imperialist allies. The people's democratic government shall truly broaden its foreign policy by opening diplomatic and trade relations with its powerful neighbor and friend, the People's Republic of China, and all other countries willing to have relations in the spirit of mutual respect for national sovereignty and on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. The people's democratic government shall give moral and material support to the revolutionary movements of oppressed peoples abroad and shall maintain the firmest alliance with genuine socialist states like the People's Republic of China and the People's Republic of Albania. It shall be inspired by the principle of proletarian internationalism and guided by the policy of the international united front. It regards the People's Republic of China as an iron bastion of the world proletarian revolution and as a reliable friend of all oppressed peoples, including the Filipino people.