Regional committees of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) from different parts of the country clearly responded to the Central Committee’s call for a rectification movement. The leading committees have expressed their determined and continuous efforts to rectify the weaknesses and errors they made in recent years to decisively advance in various areas of work in their respective areas of operation.

Southern Tagalog victories

“The achievements of the current rectification movement in the region should be celebrated,” the Southern Tagalog committee secretariat stated. The committee shared that the Party in the region affirmed, held and implemented its duties in the rectification movement. These include completing the party course campaign for nearly five thousand Party members, in both rural and urban areas.

It said most of the Party committees have successfully summed-up their respective practice over the past five years. “These summings up further deepened understanding of the previously identified issues from the authorized assessments at the regional committee level,” the Secretariat said.

The summings up in subregions/provinces and fronts from 2019 to 2022 also helped to more sharply pinpoint specific forms of empiricism from the analyzed and identified errors and weaknesses. The secretariat added, “We pinpointed the superficial, external and one-sided grasp of conditions and things; the erroneously static view applied to things and acquired data rendered it obsolete and inapplicable to the objective conditions affecting developing policy plans.”

The Secretariat declared “it is determined to further deepen and expand and achieve the current rectification movement’s success.” However, it also declared that while it achieved important advances, it has yet to attain a decisive turning point in mitigating the damages and regressions in revolutionary work and forces in the region’s rural and urban areas while some parts continue to regress.

Achievements in Negros Island

The Negros Island Regional Committee continues to uphold the Central Committee’s call for a rectification movement. In the past year, the Party and its members reportedly reviewed its assessment of the revolutionary struggle on the island spanning 22 years from the middle part of the 1990s. They shared how the Committee used this as starting point for a 5-year summing up of the years 2017-2022.

“We have accumulated golden lessons as solid basis for formulating the overall plan and direction that will further strengthen the foundation of our Party,” the committee stated regarding the summing up, referring to their positive experience of collectively assessing each committee’s activities up to the level of the guerrilla front.

The committee directed the campaign of continuing study of the documents of the Central Committee. This includes the three-level Party course conducted in various organs and mass membership based on the region’s education plan. New instructors and new Party members emerged among them.

They further share that while studying these theoretical works, the collective study of the Party’s theoretical journal Revolution, and Central Committee memoranda helped the region overcome erroneous practices and ideas. They said that Hiligaynon translations of the documents, courses and reading materials greatly helped members, especially those from the basic class, to better understand.

Amid the US-Marcos regime’s focused military operations, the Party and the people’s army in the region prevailed with the help of the rectification movement. It was able to expand the five guerrilla fronts’ area of operations on the island compared to last year. “Amid sacrifices and hardships in advancing the armed revolution, the ‘trend’ of regression was prevented. Instead, the NPA grew this year compared to last year,” the committee said.

The Red fighters gained renewed strength with confidence due to the consolidation they reached and the politico-military exercises. The Red army launched at least 36 tactical offensives in the past year. It confiscated 17 weapons, ammunition and other military equipment to arm new NPA recruits. This was the NPA’s response to the call for justice for so many victims of human rights violations perpetrated by the military and police.