1. 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?



2. How does the revolutionary movement address the workers' clamor
   for higher wages, lower prices of commodities, and a decent life?



3. How do we realize what you call "genuine and long-lasting peace"?

1. 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.TOP

2. 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.TOP

3. 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.TOP

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