Celebrating the 57th New People’s Army anniversary, Larab interviewed Eastern Visayas guerrilla front Party cadre Ka Handum, who has lived through both the second and current rectification movements inside the people’s army. He shared his observations on their similarities and differences and his deep inspiration in confronting today’s distinct challenges.

The rectification movement is a study movement, carried out through criticism of major errors and deviations in advancing the revolution in the ideological, political, and organizational arenas. The Party and all revolutionary forces—the people’s army and mass organizations—lead this effort. Errors that bore into our work prove the necessity of the rectification movement.

For Party members and cadres, the life-and-death duty of leading the revolution to victory is never easy. In this process, we have passed through the first and second rectification movements, and now we again face a third. All these reflect the natural law governing the development of the revolution and the Party.

Facing the disorientation during the second rectification movement was far heavier and more difficult than today. For me, the big problem then was that the Party’s ten basic principles were not yet fully laid down or consolidated. This led to unparalleled retreats and collapses. Key cadres in higher levels introduced revisionist lines that influenced even the lower ranks.

The difference now is immense. The Party’s ten basic principles have been clearly laid out. We have gained richer guidance and experience. The problem is that we failed to use them correctly, neglected study, and became uncritical of our own limitations. We also neglected bourgeois-feudal influences that at first seemed like small details in our leadership and practice—but the enemy exploited them, inflicting significant damage on the movement.

Key questions now are: How do we carry out our long targetted remolding? How do we forge and firmly practice the Party’s all-sided leadership amid the intensifying and brutal counterrevolutionary campaign of the state and US imperialism?

Firmly grasping, comprehending, and practicing our basic principles is indispensable. The concrete practice of revolution must always be elevated to the level of theory. This is urgently necessary, especially as war rapidly develops and evolves (for example, in technology, techniques, and tactics of the enemy’s warfare). Every level of struggle requires higher knowledge and practice.

We have not summed up positive and negative lessons since the second rectification movement. In particular: how do we advance the struggle from strategic defensive—completing the requirements of the middle substage toward the advanced substage—until we reach the next strategic stage?

This is the challenge confronting the revolutionary forces, most of all the Party. It is a reality that our strength and level of warfare have receded. In the face of this, each of us must strengthen our determination to continue, persevere, and forge optimism. We must tirelessly return to the revolutionary lessons history has taught us. We must constantly remold ourselves against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois mentalities and habits in every aspect and field. We must ceaselessly revolutionize ourselves as individuals, collectives, organizations, the Party, and the entire movement.

The correct “disposition” is key. One of mine is my personal conviction since deciding to go full-time in the NPA and become a Party member. Since then, my confidence and faith in the correctness of the revolution and the cause I fight for have been constant.

Another is that the semicolonial and semifeudal society is extremely stressful, with its chronic economic and political crises keeping the people in desperate conditions. But in the revolutionary movement, I fulfill my desire to build a revolutionary family and forge a free society.

Above all, I draw strength from my love for the masses and comrades—the revolutionary martyrs, great leaders, cadres, and collective members I lead and serve with—who offered their lives for our cause and shared aspiration.

The Party’s declaration of the third rectification movement is a major victory. It shows the Party’s fidelity to itself and the revolution. It is crucial that we boldly aim at, criticize, and repudiate the illnesses and tendencies that blunt our struggle against the enemy. The rectification movement is a life-and-death obligation to study seriously, to lead, and to implement the Party’s call to recover, advance, and triumph in the revolution.

—translated from the original Waray, first published in Larab, April 4, 2026