The Katipunan ng mga Gurong Makabayan (Kaguma) national leadership is calling for the aggressive chapter building both public and private schools. It urged its members to intensify arousing, organizing, and mobilizing efforts of the masses of teachers, employees, and other sectors being reached by the revolutionary actions and tasks of the people’s democratic revolution.

According to Kaguma, as long as the big comprador bourgeoisie and landlord classes continue to reign in society, in collusion with corrupt bureaucrats subservient to imperialists, particularly the US, the Filipino people will continue to experience unparalleled crises and sufferings. “This cycle of misery and suffering will not end except by directly participating, and at the very least actively supporting, the armed struggle to win the democratic revolution of the people,” the group stated.

Teachers and workers in the education sector are greatly affected by the intensifying economic and political crisis under the US-Marcos regime. They bear the burden of rising prices of basic commodities, primarily rice, petroleum, and other basic needs. Amid all this, workers’ wages, both in the private and government sectors, including public school teachers, are continually pegged below non-living standards and poor living conditions.

The salary of Teacher 1 in public schools is currently pegged at ₱27,000 per month and is expected to increase to ₱30,024 in 2025. This is far from the ₱50,000 entry-level or basic salary teachers demand to enable them to support their respective families.

The sector also faces political suppression and violations of their right to organize. Led by the National Task Force-Elcac and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, cases of repression, surveillance, threats, red-tagging, and other forms of human rights violations against teacher-leaders are relentless.

“The entire membership of Kaguma continues to believe that the long-term welfare of teachers and the entire people can be achieved only through the victory of the democratic revolution, primarily through the advancement of the armed struggle in the countryside,” it stated.

It urged its members to directly contribute their strength and abilities to further strengthen the revolutionary teachers’ movement and Kaguma, which will serve to strengthen and invigorate the armed struggle primarily in the countryside. “Let us multiply the resources and material support for our people’s army,” it said.

Kaguma chapters should properly and systematically plan for members to work fulltime and link with the basic sectors, primarily the peasants and indigenous peoples in the countryside.

Finally, Kaguma expressed its commitment to the rectification movement the Communist Party of the Philippines is advancing for the greater political consolidation of the entire membership to be able to contribute sustainably to the overall advancement of the people’s war until its victory.

In the Central Committee statement on December 26, the leadership declared that “There are steady efforts to rebuild the underground revolutionary organizations allied with the NDFP” have been continuous in the past year. According to the Central Committee, this comes from the almost complete neglect of building the underground revolutionary movement arising from the error of legalism and reformism.

The Central Committee said that there are “plans and target for recruitment, building new chapters, promoting and supporting the revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside. Efforts are being exerted to reinvigorate enlistment campaigns for Red fighters and political officers for the New People’s Army.” Despite this, a lot more has to be done in order to respond to the urgent need for more recruits, especially from among young workers and intellectuals.

Kaguma is one of the allied organizations of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. It was established on March 28, 1971.