PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

CPP sympathizes with AFP ordinary soldiers' and junior officer's grievances
July 20, 2003

The Communist Party of the Philippines today expressed sympathy with ordinary soldiers and junior officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines with grievances against the military leadership and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes in particular, and urged them to spurn the AFP and embrace the example of the late Lt. Crispin Tagamolila. Tagamolila, a revolutionary martyr, was a Philippine Military Academy graduate who joined the New People's Army in the early 1970s.

In a statement, CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said that the CPP has long been aware of grievances from the AFP's rank-and-file because many ordinary soldiers and policemen have approached the revolutionary movement for advice on how they could defend their rights and welfare.

Rosal said that the grievances reveal how "rotten, corrupt, undemocratic and antipeople" the military organization is. It is especially revealing how AFP generals and the DND leadership not only wallow in large salaries, luxuries and special privileges such as mansions, but also accumulate so much wealth from corruption as well as illegal drugs, kidnapping for ransom, bank holdups and other criminal activities, added Rosal. He also cited cases of misappropriation of soldier's funds and kickbacks from purchase contracts.

"These top officials of the AFP and DND do not have an iota of sympathy for their junior officers and common soldiers," Rosal said. "They use them as cannon fodder for the military's campaigns of suppression in both countryside and city."

Rosal said that the soldiers' measly pay is not worth dying for. "Their deaths are made even more worthless because they are defending a system that oppresses and exploits workers and peasants, the same classes which they also came from." He called on junior officers and ordinary soldiers not only to fight for their welfare against oppression from their generals, but to "uphold the Filipino people's patriotic and democratic aspirations."

"We urge them to turn their backs on the reactionary, rotten and losing course of the AFP, uphold the tradition of the Lt. Crispin Tagamolila Movement and join and support the revolutionary movement that serves the masses and marches on the road of people's liberation," said Rosal. #

Reference:
Anne Buenaventura
Media Officer
Cellphone Number: +63910-240-3553



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