CPP reaction to the Malaca�ang statement "GMA bares links between CPP-International terror groups"

Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
October 20, 2004

1. On so-called links with international terrorist organizations
   a) The US-Arroyo regime has a fetish for quoting spurious "intelligence reports" as proof of unfounded allegations. So-called links between the CPP and revolutionary organizations with terrorist organizations are mere figments of Arroyo's imagination.

   b) The CPP and the revolutionary organizations of the Filipino people build healthy relations with other communist and anti-imperialist organizations around the world. The revolutionary movement in the Philippines establishes international relations on the basis of principles such as anti-imperialism, social justice, democracy and equality. This is in contrast to the foreign policy of the reactionary state that promotes mendicancy, dependence and blind obedience to the economic and political policy dictates of US imperialism.

2. On Malaca�ang's review of negotiations with the NDF
   a) Judging from its attitude and actions since December 2003, Malaca�ang has been conducting peace negotiations with the NDF only for political expediency. When she needed "ganda points" for the May 2004 elections, Arroyo vigorously pushed for negotiations and even agreed to the impelementation of the CARHRIHL (Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law). Through her negotiators, she agreed to take positive steps to address the issue of the US terrorist listing of the CPP, NPA and NDF Senior Political Consultant Jose Ma. Sison.

   Since the elections, however, Malaca�ang has been dragging its feet in meeting its obligations under the Oslo agreements of February and April 2004, specifically with regard to the issue of the terrorist listing. When the US insisted on renewing the inclusion of the CPP, NPA and Jose Ma. Sison in its so-called list of foreign terrorists, Arroyo kept silent and refused to invoke national sovereignty against the interventionism of the United States.

   Through its statements, Malaca�ang is proving to the world that it is incapable of seriously carrying out its obligations stipulated in past agreements; and is not sincere in addressing the root causes of the armed conflict. It is up to Arroyo to prove otherwise and show that she is not just using the peace negotiations with the NDF to gain political "ganda points".

   b) Malaca�ang wants the people to believe it is mulling a reversal of the way it addresses the revolutionary armed struggle�from peace negotiations to intensifying the counterrevolutionary war. In reality, however, even as it used the peace negotiations, never has the reactionary state relented in its attempt to crush the NPA and the other revolutionary forces through force of arms. The peace negotiations have never supplanted the state policy of all-out counterrevolutionary war. In fact, even during times when the military declared the NPA to be a "spent force", majority of the AFP�s combat troops continued to be deployed in the revolutionary movement�s guerrilla zones nationwide.

   The AFP can never defeat the NPA. The NPA will continue to grow as thousands of people are constantly drawn to it by their desire to end the present exploitative and oppressive social system. The AFP is wracked with internal disunity and dissent and is overly dependent on the military support of US imperialism. It does not enjoy the people�s support and is in fact loathed by them for oppressing the people and wantonly violating their human rights.

3. On so-called "unrelenting agitation" of labor, transport and other sectors

   Ultimately, it is Gloria Arroyo's callousness vis a vis the people's plight that agitates the people. It is Arroyo herself who incites the people to revolt against her regime through her adamant refusal to raise wages, her sympathetic concern for oil companies' ability to make superprofits and raise prices of oil products, her hardheaded insistence on compounding the suffering of the Filipino people through additional tax measures, her insulting and obscene "food coupon" scheme, and her defense of corruption and her corrupt officials, among others.

   Civil disobedience against a regime that is corrupt and protects only the interests of foreign and local big business is a just option for the people. It is 100% correct for the Filipino masses to revolt against the corrupt and antipeople US-Arroyo regime.

   We enjoin the people to carry out all legal and illegal forms of struggle against the US-Arroyo regime. They can join the New People's Army and advance the revolutionary armed struggle that aims to overthrow the present rotten economic and political system.

4. On the youth sector

   Malaca�ang says that "it should protect the youth from being recruited into underground organizations, as well as the scourge of illegal drugs."

   First, we�d like to point out that the "Join the NPA!" drive is attracting thousands of students and out of school youth, precisely because of the failure of the reactionary Arroyo regime to address the needs of the people, especially the needs of the Filipino youth for education and employment.

   It is not only the rural youth who are flocking to the NPA. In colleges and universities, and in urban communities across the country, students and youth are responding positively to the call to join the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside. Through our internet homepage, we receive daily emails from students and young professionals asking how to join the CPP and NPA.

   Second, one can easily observe that in schools and areas where the revolutionary movement among students and young people is strong, the evil influence of the illicit drug trade is weak. On the other hand, it is where the police and military are strong that drug addiction is widespread, as drug pushers either receive protection from their military and police sponsors or belong to syndicates run by military and police elements.