How are you? Is the bed you’re sleeping on comfortable enough after cooking, cleaning, and washing the dishes for the AFP? Or is there any left from the P60, 000 they promised, or did any amount arrive at all? Maybe a little, or maybe none at all, after passing by how many pockets of corrupt military superiors.

Is the life you’re having right now what you had in mind? They are showering you with all the promises of a ‘better future’ – food, a piece of land, a job, a house, or an education for you and your family. Did any of it arrive? What about the rest of the people? And will that be sustainable in the long run? Your answer is most probably, also no.

It is no secret that the AFP and the reactionary government have been desperate in trying to defeat the armed revolution going on for over 5 decades. As the sun sets on Duterte’s reign, their last resort is to intensify their attacks which include psychological warfare and lies to try and persuade the people to stop supporting the NPA. And just as how history taught us, this will prove to be unsuccessful. Unless the roots of the problem are genuinely addressed, more and more people will take up arms to topple the semicolonial and semifeudal system.

Aside from that, the AFP is characteristically an organization, like their US models, built on brutality and deception. They make it appear that they are humane but they quickly unmask themselves as barbaric charlatans. While they preach peace and progress, their bloodied hands of the massacres in Sagay, Oplan Sauron, Southern Tagalog, Mindanao, and other parts of the country say otherwise. They no longer see the distinction between a combatant and a civilian, and are trigger-happy so long as it serves their interests and that of their masters. Cooperating with them boldly enables fascism even more, even merely memorizing the scripts for their propaganda, effectively making you mouthpieces of a murderous regime.

Like what transpired in the 1980s where people were forced to cooperate with the AFP, ‘surrenderees’ and capitulationists where discarded like disposable objects after the Marcos regime. They were left behind with none of the promises they gave materialized. Your situation right now is no different from that.

After the Duterte regime, the AFP will surely treat you like trash. They cannot even give the proper salaries of their CAFGU and SCAA troops, nor will they treat you any better. The billions of taxpayer money have already been squandered for military overspending and their lavish lifestyles. As they deem their troops as cannon fodder, they will likewise regard you as useless and abandon you and their promises of land, money, or whatnot. Besides, they probably already treat you like garbage anyway. What more when they can no longer sustain the NTF-ELCAC?

With this, I hope you pause and take your time to think about the choice you made, and the better option to take: reject the fascists and their promises that will never come, and tread the path of armed revolution where we collectively take back what is ours and establish a society where we get the life we deserve. We have the same message for you and patriotic elements in the AFP: it is not too late to change course and join the NPA. ###