Response to Mr Rigoberto Tiglao

Benito Tiamzon
Wilma Austria
Senior CPP Members
November 12, 2002

We reject outright Mr. Rigoberto Tiglao's feigned offer to talk peace with us while at the same time taking cheap shots against the revolutionary movement and its leaders, especially Comrade Jose Ma Sison, and denigrating our continuing and unwavering commitment to the people's democratic struggle.

Mr Tiglao's media play is merely a psywar ploy, a part of the job for which he gets paid by the Macapagal puppet clique. Peace and friendship are obviously the least of his concerns nowadays as he works hand in glove with the Blas Oples, Angelo Reyeses and Roilo Golezes to concoct psywar, demonize the revolutionary movement, scuttle the peace talks and intensify armed counterrevolution with increasing overt and covert assistance and intervention by US forces.

We firmly stand by the revolutionary movement's principled position that any serious and sincere effort to advance the peace process should abide by the agreements signed by the GRP and NDFP since 1992 regarding the conduct of peace talks. Among these are the The Hague Joint Declaration (September 1, 1992), The Breukelen Joint Statement (June 14, 1994), the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (February 24, 1995), Joint Agreement on the Ground Rules of the Formal Meetings Between the GRP and NDFP Negotiating Panels (February 26, 1995), and the Joint Agreement on the Formation, Sequence and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees (RWCs) (June 26, 1995). It should also honor the Comprehensive Agreement for Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and push for its implementation.

We maintain as the NDFP has consistently maintained that peace talks between the GRP and NDFP should be conducted at the highest levels through the authorized NDFP negotiating panel and any attempt to go around this smacks of using the peace talks for divide-and-rule tactics against the revolutionary forces, rather than seeking genuine solutions to the real roots of the armed conflict.

We deplore the media campaign of the Macapagal puppet clique to misrepresent as terrorism the legitimate exercise of the Filipino people of their right to rebel against imperialist depredation and oppression, fascist repression, and feudal backwardness and decay.

We are not disheartened by the threat of US imperialism and its local puppets to unleash even greater counterrevolutionary force and repression against the revolutionary forces. Their frenzy merely betrays their panic over the deepening crisis of the international capitalist system, the growing social discontent and unrest the world over, and the steady expansion of the revolutionary forces in the country as a result of the victorious Second Great Rectification Movement.

We do not regret the decades of hard struggle that we and other revolutionaries have had to go through nor are we discouraged by the long years of struggle that must still be pursued to achieve genuine national independence and democracy. We realize more than ever before that the road of protracted people's war is the only correct path toward national and social liberation. And being with the masses in the struggle to overthrow the oppressive and exploitative system infuses us with greater revolutionary life and vigor.###




Back to top