In the face of relentless terrorism being sown by armed minions of the US-Marcos regime and all-out oppression and violence against the toiling masses, the New People’s Army (NPA) and all revolutionary forces are even more bound by the duty to fight to defend the rights and welfare of the Filipino people.

More than ever, the people and their Red fighters are fully determined to firmly hold the gun and advance the armed struggle, as the main form of the people’s resistance to the fascist, puppet and oppressive ruling reactionary regime. They know that if the people do not fight with their army, nothing will stop the oppressive and exploitative landlords, big bourgeois compradors and their foreign capitalist cohorts from trampling on the interests of the masses, seizing their livelihood, plundering the nation’s wealth and destroying the environment.

The US-Marcos regime is pouring tens of billions of pesos into the ongoing campaign of armed repression and terrorism with the malevolent but futile aim of defeating the people’s army and crushing the people’s resistance. Armed repression is most brutal in areas being aggressively invaded and where land is being seized by plantations and mining operations, ecotourism projects, energy, construction of dams and other infrastructure, in complicity with bureaucrat capitalist and military officers. In these areas, massacres, extrajudicial killings, torture, secret detentions, hamlets, food blockades, bombings and shelling are rampant.

In the face of the US-Marcos regime’s all-out attacks, the Filipino people are firmly determined to strike back against the armed agents of Marcos and Duterte as means of attaining justice for the thousands of victims of the state’s fascist terrorism. The masses, especially peasant victims of the AFP, thus broke in applause upon hearing news of the successful tactical offensive of the NPA in different parts of the country.

In Quezon, the NPA’s successful tactical offensive in Tagkawayan, Quezon on the morning of September 1, dealt a major blow to the AFP. Five M16 rifles were seized, and at least five fascist personnel of the 85th IB and paramilitary CAFGU were killed in an ambush by an NPA unit.

A few weeks earlier, on August 9, the NPA successfully ambushed a Philippine National Police (PNP) vehicle in Calatrava, Negros Occidental, seizing three automatic rifles and killing a police combat trooper. That same day, the NPA in Uson, Masbate, successfully ambushed paramilitary troops who were sowing terrorism to secure the expansion of mining operations in the province.

In Sultan Kudarat, a province in Far South Mindanao, at least 22 troopers under the 37th IB were killed in a series of four tactical offensives by the NPA in June and July. These tactical offensives were in response to the brutal all-out offensives launched in the province since June 15 by at least four battalions under the 6th ID.

These victories show that at the tactical level, the NPA guerrilla units remain superior against the enemy’s armed forces. This is due, primarily, to the deep and wide support of the masses and familiarity with the terrain. Units of the NPA employed tactics of concentrating larger forces against isolated and weaker enemy units. This was combined with the secret and silent dispersal and transfer of NPA units to avoid the larger enemy forces, to keep the adversaries deaf and blind, and make them punch the wind.

All this shows the NPA’s determination to defend the welfare of the masses and resist the fascist violence of the US-Marcos regime, and belies the enemy’s psywar line that the people’s armed resistance “will soon be defeated.” Under the correct leadership of the Party, the people’s army is ever determined to carry on along the path of protracted people’s war and promote guerrilla warfare with the broad and deep support of the masses.

These victories shine light on the path of further advancing the revolutionary armed struggle. It inspires the people and all revolutionary forces, especially the workers and young intellectuals, to go to the countryside and tread the difficult path of armed struggle.

These victories must be reciprocated. Under the Party’s leadership, all NPA commands in different parts of the country must develop a plan to launch small or large tactical offensives which they can win to deal blows and defeat the enemy piece by piece, and capture its weapons to arm the growing number of new Red fighters of the NPA. Mobilize and arm the peasant masses in their numbers, and carry out widespread guerrilla warfare to surround the enemy with the blazing fire of the people’s war.

The NPA will continue to reap successes in launching tactical offensives because the unity of the army and the peasant masses continues to expand and deepen. Mass struggles for genuine land reform are being vigorously carried out, especially in the face of widespread land grabbing, plunder, and armed suppression. Party branches should be established in as many places as possible to serve as core and leader of the masses. Thoroughly strengthen the mass organizations of farmers, youth and women, to consolidate the power of the masses and establish the foundation of the new democratic people’s government.

Under the leadership of the Party, the NPA and all revolutionary forces are determined to advance the armed struggle throughout the country and exert all effort to persevere on the path of the the people’s war to fight and frustrate the campaign of fascist terrorism by the US-Marcos regime, and attain the aspirations of social justice and national freedom.