“We extol all the heroes and martyrs of the NPA who gave all their lives to the people’s cause. Today, we give exceptional honors and tribute to Comrade Julius Soriano Giron, our beloved Ka Nars, member of the Political Bureau and Executive Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, who selflessly served the Party and the Filipino people for over five decades.”

[This is the second edition of the statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines on the occasion of the 51st anniversary of the New People’s Army. Reissuing (28 August 2020) this statement aims to set focus on the urgent tasks drawn from lessons in waging armed resistance against the US-Duterte regime’s brutal war against the Filipino people as well as highlight key aspects of the current socioeconomic situation. Leading Party committees and commands of the NPA are expected to collectively discuss these points in order to assess their specific experiences and come up with their plans of action. The formulation of some questions and principles were tightened and the flow and presentation in some parts were improved. Footnotes have also been introduced in order to provide some pertinent updated information to aid discussions of Party members and revolutionary forces.]

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) firmly salutes all Red fighters and commanders of the New People’s Army (NPA) on the occasion of the NPA’s 51st founding anniversary. The Party and the Filipino people recall and celebrate all the brilliant achievements of the NPA accumulated over more than five decades of waging revolutionary armed struggle.

We extol all the heroes and martyrs of the NPA who gave all their lives to the people’s cause. Today, we give exceptional honors and tribute to Comrade Julius Soriano Giron, our beloved Ka Nars, member of the Political Bureau and Executive Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, who selflessly served the Party and the Filipino people for over five decades. Together with two companions, he was murdered in cold-blood by the Duterte fascist regime’s combined forces of the PNP and AFP last March 13 in their place in Baguio City. Ka Nars played a leading role in successfully convening the Party’s 2nd Congress.

We honor as well the veteran fighters who tirelessly and indefatigably continue to give their all for advancing the people’s democratic revolution to fight imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism in the country.

The NPA wages a just revolutionary armed resistance to overthrow the reactionary rule of imperialism and the local ruling classes of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords. Through the NPA, the basic alliance of workers and peasants is forged in the countryside as foundation of the revolutionary struggle, as the broader unity of other positive forces—the pettybourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie—is built to attain victory.

For 51 years, the people’s army has firmly carried out the revolutionary program for genuine land reform in the countryside. Guided and inspired by the NPA and the Party, the broad peasant masses and their democratic organizations wage struggles to reduce land rent, raise wages, lower interest rates, seek fair farmgate prices, and other agrarian reforms. The basic alliance of workers and peasants are being established in the countryside.

On the basis of mass organizations of peasants, women, youth, children, cultural workers and others, organs of political power are established where local democratic power prevails and land is freely distributed to the tillers.

Red fighters are tightly linked with the masses whom they serve. They are ever-ready to learn from the people their needs and demands and perform the most difficult and dangerous tasks in serving the people. They are also recognized by the masses as their defenders, cooperators, teachers, doctors, as well singers and artists, always attending to the people’s well-being and needs. People always approach the NPA to seek advice or assistance whenever they demand redress from an injustice done, or seek intercession to iron out disputes among the people.

With the NPA on their side, the Filipino masses have been able to achieve great feats in the last 51 years — from the struggle against the Chico River Dam project and other despoilers of the environment, to the struggle against US military bases; from the heroic resistance against the US-Marcos dictatorship, to the overthrow of the Estrada regime and the ongoing struggle against the tyrannical and terrorist US-Duterte regime.

We mark today the 51st anniversary of the New People’s Army as the Filipino people and peoples across the world confront the Covid-19 pandemic. It is thus, appropriate, that the NPA celebrate this day by reaffirming its pledge to serve the people and mobilize its forces, together with the revolutionary mass organizations, in a public health campaign to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease and help treat those infected.

The Party has also directed its members in the cities to carry out similar mass campaigns, while raising demands for mass testing and other public health measures. Beyond the field of public health, the Filipino people must also take action in the arena of political struggle. It is as important to resist the militarist restrictions imposed by the Duterte regime, and raise their call for the ouster of Duterte to make him answer for his criminal sabotage of the public health care system.

In fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, the Filipino people must draw lessons and inspiration from the victories and achievements they have accumulated through collective action. Despite the gross incompetence of the Duterte government, the Filipino people can surely surmount the Covid-19 pandemic by acting as one, as they have accumulated numerous victories in their revolutionary struggle for national and social liberation.

The need for the Filipino people to wage the national democratic revolution has become even more urgent as they suffer from worsening forms of oppression and exploitation. Under the Duterte fascist regime, the crisis of the ruling semicolonial and semifeudal system has grievously worsened.

The worsening domestic crisis is tightly bound with the prolonged crisis of the global capitalist order. Across the world, there is a rising tide of mass resistance against extremely exploitative economic policies, corruption and authoritarian­ism. Conditions are ever favorable for proletarian revolutionaries to expand and consolidate their ranks, strengthen communist parties, raise the social and political conscious­ness of the working class and other oppressed classes, in order to lead their revolutionary struggles now and in the future.

1. Sharpening contradictions amid worsening global economic crisis and pandemic

The world is now being afflicted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The failure to cope with this pandemic has exposed the deterioration of the public health system in both industrial and non-industrial countries due to privatization and austerity measures under the neoliberal policy regime. The emergence of the Covid-19 and other zoonotic pathogens also exposes the impact of unbridled destruction of forests by large-scale capitalist agriculture and livestock farming.

The repressive measures adopt­ed to control the spread of the Covid-19 are causing greater hard­ships on the toiling people. The lockdowns imposed around the world have confined two billion peo­ple in their homes, and suspended the operations of factories, malls, transportation and various enter­prises. This has resulted in tem­porary mass unemployment (which can become permanent) as a result of the disruption of local production and international trade and supply chains.

The Covid-19 pandemic is causing the world economy to further slow down. Even prior to the outbreak, however, the global capi­talist system was already going through several years of economic stagnation after around one decade of protracted depression in the period following the financial crisis of 2008. Analysts have been anti­cipating a far worse financial crisis as a result of mounting debts and continuing decline in production.

Total global debt by the first quarter of 2020 is expected to climb to a record $257 trillion, 322% of the world’s GDP. Global government debt is at $70 trillion. The total debt of the US and Europe is 383% of their GDP, while that of China is almost 310%. Global debt has surged a result of low interest rates and loose financial conditions set by state finance managers in an attempt to spur production. The world economy, however, grew by only $28 trillion since the 2008 financial crisis, while global debt increased by $84 trillion during the same period.

Last year, the world gross domestic product grew at a slower rate of 2.9% from 3.6% the previous year. The US economy grew by a mere 2.3%; the UK and French economy, by 1.3%; Japan, by 1%; and the German economy, by a mere 0.6%. Distinctly, China’s economy grew by 6.1% last year which, however, was its slowest since 1990. Bourgeois economists anticipate zero-growth or contraction of the world economy this year as the impact of the Covid-19 further deepens the crisis.

Slow economic growth of the past several years, despite low interest rates and increase in the debt stock, is a result of the persistence of the underlying problem of capitalist overproduction. There is an oversupply in almost all key commodities mainly oil, natural gas, steel, automobiles, memory chips, smart­phones, televisions, textile, gar­ments, corn, soybean, wheat, rice and so on.

Production cannot further expand without adding to the glut of commodities, pulling down prices and capitalist rates of profit, and resulting in bankruptcies and closures. Saudi Arabia’s refusal to cut oil production earlier this year pulled down its prices to $30 per barrel, forcing US shale oil com­panies to stop production. In Ger­many, production of machinery and cars have been cut as a result of lower demand, resulting in a 5.3% drop in industrial output last year. In China, small steel manufacturers have been ordered closed since 2016 in order to curb the oversupply which has pulled down the profits of its biggest steel manufacturers.

There have been persistent fears among big banks that a meltdown similar to the 2008 crash of the financial system would happen within the year or in the near future. This is likely to come as a result of the inability of corporate borrowers (such as oil companies, car and aircraft manufacturers) to service their debts in the face of further economic slowdown. A chain of defaults similar to that of 2008 is likely to start off the crash. The Covid-19 pandemic is now accelerating the process leading to a financial meltdown in the face of production shutdowns, canceled orders, travel restrictions and so on.

The global economic stagnation has resulted in the massive destruction of productive forces. Last year, US companies announced plans to lay off at least 595,500 workers, 10% more than the previous year. Banks worldwide laid off close to 78,000 workers, 82% of which in Europe. More than 100,000 workers were also laid off last year by German manufacturing companies including Siemens, Daimler, Audi and Airbus. There are estimates that as many as 25 million workers would lose their jobs this year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Workers and toiling people in the capitalist centers are suffering gravely from the effects of the prolonged crisis of the capitalist system. They are oppressed by low wages, unemployment, indebtedness, homelessness, drug abuse, lack of public health care and other social services, and rising cost of living. Migrant workers and refu­gees suffer even worse oppressive conditions.

Wealth and capital continue to be accumulated and concentrated in the hands of a few monopoly capitalists, as corporate bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions continue to rise. In 2018, around 2,200 billionaires owned as much as the 3.8 billion people. Inequality further worsened last year with fewer billionaires (2,153) owning as much as 4.6 billion people or 60% of the world’s population. The world’s rich­­est 1% now own 44% of the world’s wealth, while the bottom 56.6% hold less than 2%.

The prolonged state of economic stagnation is resulting in heightening inter-imperialist conflicts in the economic and military fields. Monopoly capitalists and their national states are seeking to expand their global spheres of investment, influence and control.

The United States, once the unipolar imperialist power, is challenging and destabilizing the multipolar world. Under the Trump government, it has taken unilateral measures in the economic and geopolitical fields. The US is becoming increasingly aggressive in fending off the challenges of China and Russia to its economic and military dominance.

The US and China have been engaged in a trade war since the end of 2018, imposing tariffs and counter-tariffs on each other’s export products. The US government has also threatened to impose tariffs on commodities imported from Europe, denouncing the German car industry, in particular, as a threat to its national security.

Rising economic conflicts are also heightening military conflicts among the major imperialist powers. While they have so far avoided direct confrontation, the imperialist powers have waged wars of aggression and proxy wars to expand or secure their spheres of influence. They have mounted such wars in the Middle East (Iraq, Syria, Iran), Central Asia (Afghanistan) and Eastern Europe (Ukraine, the Balkans). The US has maintained strategic military presence around the world through its 800 military bases, especially in the Middle East and Europe to counter Russian influence.

There are rising conflicts in international waters as the US strengthens military power projection in what it calls the “Indo-Pacific” area with the aim of encircling China, which on the other hand, builds its presence in the South China Sea, as well as in Eastern Africa, to protect its strategic economic interests. The assassination of the top military officer of Iran by a US drone attack earlier this year indicates the extent to which the US imperialists are willing to escalate international military conflicts.

Military spending is on the rise. The global defense budget increased by 4.2% in 2019, the highest annual increase in a decade. There is a brewing arms race as the US seek to retain its position as the number one military power. After withdrawing last year from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the US has stepped up efforts to build its nuclear arsenal, testing an intercontinental ballistic missile last year. In response, Russia and China are also stepping up efforts to develop their own nuclear weapons as well as new generation hypersonic weapons.

Prolonged stagnation and economic protectionism is causing the rise of nationalism and fascism in the US, Russia, China and Europe, as well as in Brazil, India and other countries. Fascist demagogues take advantage of working class discontent over their dire economic conditions. They employ populist rhetoric to promise workers protection and prosperity, and draw their attention away from the capitalist roots of the crisis. They whip up bigotry against immigrants, refugees, religious and other minority groups, women, victims of drug abuse and others. They openly advocate dictatorships and military rule.

Even as there are rising conflicts among the imperialist powers, they are united in terms of imposing neoliberal policies on underdeveloped countries such as the Philippines. These policies seek to further open mineral and other natural resources to foreign capitalist plunder and tighten the integration of these countries into the international assembly line of big multinational corporations. These perpetuate the non-industrial and backward agricultural economy of these countries, as well as their dependence on imports and foreign borrowings.

There are some underdeveloped countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea which assert national sovereignty and the socialist cause. They have stood up against US imperialism and have taken advantage of the contradictions between the imperialist powers to defend themselves against military aggression and economic sanctions and continue to improve the lives of their people.

The continuing crisis of the international capitalist system is generating mass resistance both in the industrial centers and in the underdeveloped countries. In the US, around 500,000 went on strike last year, one of the highest in the past four decades. Notable among these is the strike of 49,000 factory workers of General Motors who mounted a six-week strike, one of the longest in past decades. French rail and air transport workers, truck drivers, as well as teachers and public sector workers have been on strike since December last year. They are resisting pension reforms that among others will raise the retirement age of many jobs. Major strikes were also launched by workers in Germany, the UK and other countries, including the Europe-wide strike of Amazon workers demanding pay hikes and better working conditions.

Strikes and massive protest actions have also been mounted in the underdeveloped countries. Early last year, around 200 million workers and farm workers in India mounted a national strike to oppose privatization, and demand wage increases and permanent jobs. Major strikes and mass actions have also been mounted by workers in Brazil, South Africa, Russia and other countries over such issues as wage increases, repression and others. A wave of mass protests by millions of people have swept Hong Kong, countries in Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, demonstrating mass disenchantment over austerity measures, depressed wages, rising prices, worsening socio-economic conditions, repression and bureaucratic co­rruption.

Conditions around the world favor the consolidation and strengthening of communist parties ideo­lo­gi­ca­lly, politically and organ­iza­tio­n­ally. Proletarian revolu­tion­aries are striking deep roots among the working class and oppressed masses, building mass organizations and leading anti-imperialist and de­mocratic mass struggles. In India, as in the Philippines, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist communist party is at the helm of the people’s war, waging armed struggle through the people’s army, carrying out land reform and building Red political power in the countryside.

2. Duterte’s brutal war of suppression aims to preserve the crisis-stricken semicolonial and semifeudal system

The Duterte regime is waging a bloody war of suppression under its National Task Force-ELCAC. With its declared aim of “ending the local communist armed conflict,” the regime has carried out relentless attacks against the people and their democratic mass organizations, with the aim of preserving the ruling semicolonial and semifeudal system and perpetuate the exploitation and oppression of the toiling masses and the plunder of the country’s wealth by foreign big capitalists and the local big bourgeois compradors.

Like those of the previous regimes, Duterte’s economic policies have not altered the non-industrial and backward agricultural base of the economy. He has further libe­ralized trade and investment policies to favor foreign big capi­tal­ists to the detriment of local production. The Philippines remains dependent on imports, foreign debt and invest­ments. It suffers from chronic trade deficit. The Filipino people continue to suffer from high rates of unem­­ployment, insecure work, low wages, rising prices of food and basic com­modities, poverty and homelessness.

The country remains without an independent steel industry, has no machine-building industry nor the capacity to produce computers, machine tools, vehicles, medicines and other major manufactures. Local manufacturing remains depen­dent on imported machines and raw material inputs. Industrial activity is largely limited in so-called economic zones which are detached from the rest of the domestic economy, engaged in semi-processing and assembly, and are mere appendages of the inter­national assembly line of multinational companies. On the other hand, agricultural production remains largely backward, non-mechanized, non-irrigated, and with low output. Large-scale agricultural production with some amount of imported mechanical equipment is carried out only in foreign-owned plantations devoted to crops for exports.

The Duterte regime has made no effort to build an industrial base or create the conditions for agri­cultural modernization. It con­tinues to implement neoliberal economic policies which have caused the des­truction of local productive forces. The regime implemented last year the liberalization of rice importation which threatens to wipe out local rice production and dislocate 350,000 rice farmers. Sugar is being smuggled in and is targeted for import liberalization. Widespread con­version of agricultural land to real estate, tourism, mining and energy projects continue unabated and is causing the displacement of millions of peasants and farm workers.

The country’s export-oriented economy continues to totter in the face of global economic slowdown. Philippine GDP growth last year slowed to 5.9%, the lowest in eight years. This is marked by an 8.6% drop in factory output volume of local manufacturing, and a slow 0.7% agricultural growth. Overseas remittances and BPO operations, which have kept the economy afloat over the past years, have slowed down. The Duterte government’s budget deficit ballooned to ₱660.2 billion last year, 18.27% higher than the previous year.

Duterte is wasting billions of pesos to feed the corruption of the military and big bureaucrats, to favor graft-laden contracts with business cronies and to finance debt servicing. Billions are spent on corruption-ridden infrastructure pro­jects under the Build, Build, Build program including the unnecessary expansion of provincial roads and bridges, seaports and airports, as well as dam projects that will displace thousands and destroy lowland agricultural production.(1) To finance its spending, the Duterte government has accelerated bor­rowing to ₱43 billion a month, more than twice as fast as the previous regimes, bringing the country’s total outstanding debt to ₱7.7 trillion.(2) The country’s total foreign debt has shot up to $83.6 billion from $78.96 billion last year, more than half of which is government debt which now stands at $42.8 billion, 7.8% higher than the previous year.

Around 10.6 million Filipino workers (nearly 24% of the total labor force of 45 million) are un­employed or underemployed. Of­fi­­cial un­employment figures are under­stated and unreliable. In addition, there are around 12 million over­seas Filipino workers who have gone abroad for employment because of lack of domestic job opportunities. Under Duterte, export of cheap la­bor remains a key employment stra­tegy of the Philippine go­vern­ment. Annual job creation under the Du­terte regime has dropped to de­ca­des low, failing to keep up with the growth of the labor force. The grave state of joblessness is obs­cured by Duterte’s economic ma­na­gers who claim a grossly incredible 5.1% un­em­ployment rate by chang­ing the de­fi­nition of unemployment and re­moving millions from the total labor force count through statistical fiat.

The Duterte regime masks the real state of poverty in the country by setting a ridiculously low threshold of ₱75 per person a day, and claiming that 5.9 million Filipinos were lifted out of poverty since 2015. In reality, the daily cost of living in the Philippines is now around ₱205 per person to cover for food, transportation, housing, medicines and other necessities. At least two thirds of Filipinos survive on less. At least 12.4 million Filipino families survive on ₱132 per person a day. The current minimum wage of ₱537/day set for the National Capital Region is less than half of the ₱1,025 family living wage for a family of five. Millions of Filipinos suffer from homelessness and are forced to live in urban slums, sidewalks and under bridges. They lack access to clean water and electricity, sanitation, as well as public health facilities, schools and other social services.

The Filipino people are facing more economic hardships in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic because of the restrictive and oppressive measures adopted by the Duterte regime. The military lockdown in Luzon and other parts of the country has denied people of their right to travel, to work, make a living or seek employment. The measures add to the people’s outrage over Duterte’s refusal to close the country’s borders with China, when he allowed the entry of more than 500,000 Chines tourists, including close to 5,000 from Wuhan, Covid-19’s ground zero, to enter the country in December 2019 to February 2020.

The people are also indignant over the health budget cuts ordered by Duterte to favor increases in military spending. Left with insufficient funds, the public health system is being stretched beyond its limits, with public hospitals lacking in supplies to handle the testing and treatment of patients, and to protect health workers from being infected with the virus. According to latest bulletins, more than 800 have been infected by the virus, with more than 50 deaths, including at least 10 doctors.

The militarist measures adopted by Duterte is underscored by the appointment of former military generals to lead his Covid-19 task force. The regime addresses the Covid-19 pandemic as a matter of “peace and order” and security, more than a public health issue. Indeed, as the weeks pass, and the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread in the country, millions are becoming increasingly hungry and restive. They are bound to explode in protests, especially in the face of the regime’s failure to address the daily socioeconomic needs of the people, and protection of health workers, while its officials enjoy economic and medical entitlements.

The Covid-19 pandemic will have a severe impact on the local economy and drag it deeper into crisis. Duterte’s economic planning officials are already anticipating a contraction of the economy,(3) with hundreds of billions of pesos of losses in production, transportation and tourism; as well as in overseas remittances. The number of job losses are set to shoot up.(4)

The Duterte ruling clique is taking advantage of the Covid-19 crisis to further advance its scheme to impose authoritarian rule. The emergency powers granted to Duterte gave him hundreds of bil­lions of pesos to squander, and the power to take over private com­panies in the guise of public health response. These extend Duterte’s previous maneuvers to undermine and take control over business ope­rations of the Lopezes, Ayalas and Pangilinans and other “oligarchs” in favor of the “Dutertegarchs.”

With the military lockdown, Duterte is putting the entire country under tighter military and police control, further strengthening his undeclared martial law regime and boosting his scheme of fascist dic­ta­torship. On the other hand, these mea­sures are also deepening the crisis of the ruling political system and further isolating his regime from the people.

The ruling Duterte clique further consolidated its power last year by placing key Duterte minions in the Senate and House of Repre­sentatives through ma­ni­pu­la­tion of the electronic counting system. The Philippine congress is now a Duterte rubber stamp and willing accomplice of the Duterte authoritarian regime. The elite opposition forces have been effectively disenfranchised.

The Duterte regime is increa­singly isolated internationally over its record of mass killings and hu­man rights abuses. Last year, the US congress issued a resolution prohi­biting entry of Duterte officials to the US, particularly those regarded as responsible for the unjust deten­tion of Sen. Leila de Lima. Travel papers to the US of Duterte boot­licker and butcher Sen. Bato dela Rosa was canceled afterwards.

In a fit of pique, Duterte sent the US a notice terminating the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in February, styling it as an act of patriotism. By itself, the VFA termi­nation, however, does not comprise a change in the unequal military relations between the US and the Philippines. The Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951, the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement of 2002, the VFA and the Enhanced Defense Coo­peration Agreement (EDCA) of 2014 remain in place. These agree­ments give the US extraterritorial rights in the country, used by the US to establish its dominance in the Philippines and cover to conduct military interventionism. In fact, the Duterte regime is secretly pleading the US for minor amendments in the VFA or negotiate a new agreement with assurances of political support and increased military aid.

Duterte has made no move to cancel more than 300 military exer­cises and activities to be conducted by US forces in the Philippines this year. If not for the Covid-19 pan­de­mic, the 2020 Balikatan war exer­cises would have been conducted in April. It would have involved at least 6,500 American troops, the lar­gest ever since it started. The US also continues to supply the AFP with ₱45 million worth of surplus war materiél under the Foreign Mili­tary Financing program of the Depart­­ment of State. Under the Operation Pacific Eagle-Philippines, the US also continues to carry out military operations in the guise of anti-terrorism, beyond the oversight of the US Congress.

Since May 2017, the Duterte regime shed its peace pretensions when it imposed martial law in Min­danao and de facto ended nego­tia­tions with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). It for­mally ended the peace nego­tia­tions on November 23, 2017 thro­ugh Proclamation 360, ten days after Duterte pledged to Trump to wipe out the CPP and NPA. It fur­ther issued Proclamation 374 which declared the CPP, NPA and NDFP Chief Political Consultant Prof. Jose Ma. Sison as terrorists and filed a case to formally proscribe the afore­mentioned under the Human Security Act.

Hoping to repair his reputation as an international pariah and under pressure from the international and national peace community, Duterte authorized teams of the erstwhile GRP negotiating panel to engage in backchannel informal talks with NDFP representatives abroad. Keep­­­­­­ing its peace doors always open, the NDFP welcomed the over­tures but made clear that the impediments put up by Duterte must be done away with. These include the pre­vious proclamations and executive orders which have served to propel his brutal war against the people.

Since last year Duterte’s bloody campaign of suppression has esca­la­ted in the name of anti-communism. This follows the issuance of Exec­utive Order 70 in December 2018 and the setting up of the NTF-ELCAC in May 2019.

In line with the NTF-ELCAC’s plans, the fascist regime aims to rapidly intensify military offensives and fascist terrorism in the hope of ravaging the revolutionary move­ment, pushing it back, forcing it to bow, and crushing it. A key element is incessant dishing out of anti-com­munist stigmatization and threats, and widespread repression against the democratic mass movement in the urban and rural areas.

Duterte’s military and police forces and death squads have car­ried out a wave of killings, including the February 2019 murder of NDFP consultant Randy Malayao, the recent assassination of Party leader Julius Giron (Ka Nars) and his com­panions, and the killing of scores of others in Negros, Samar, Bukidnon, Masbate, Sorsogon and other pro­vinces­.(5)

The military and police are car­rying out red-tagging, surveillance and intimidation, mass arrests, slap­ping of trumped-up charges based on planted evidence with impu­nity. There are now more than 600 political prisoners, most of whom were arrested under Duterte. Worst of the enemy onslaughts are the extrajudicial killings and the bombing of and artillery shelling on rural communities to grab the land from the peasants and indigenous people and deliver it to mining, logging, plantation and real estate corporations.

Under the so-called “whole-of-nation approach,” Duterte has required all government agencies and local government units to cooperate with the NTF and focus their efforts to counterinsurgency. Under the NTF, counterinsurgency has openly become the central task of the entire state machinery. Using public money, the regime has been conducting a heavily-funded cam­paign of disinformation and mani­pulation of public opinion using paid surveys, social media trolls, paid columnists and PR specialists.

In line with the aims of the NTF, Duterte is seeking to further rein­force his tyranny and state ter­rorism by pushing for amendments to the Human Security Act and enactment of an Anti-Terrorist Law which broadens the definition of “terrorism” to cover all forms of dissent and which gives the state the right to arrest anyone without a warrant, detain anyone for 14 days or more without charges or evidence and remove police and military liability for wrongful detention.(6)

Under the NTF-ELCAC, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has mounted all-out military offensives nationwide. Since 2017, it has formed nine new battalions (from its original target of 10-30 more battalions) and deployed these primarily against the NPA. The AFP is assisted by the US military in establishing and training new combat units such as the Light Reaction Regiment, the 1st Brigade Combat Team and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team which are all based in Fort Magsaysay, where the US maintains facilities under the EDCA.

In all, the AFP has 140 maneu­ver battalions, of which, 35 are dep­loyed in Luzon; 19 in the Visayas; and 83 in Mindanao (19 battalions in Moro areas, and 64 in NPA areas). Thus, close to 85% or 118 battalions are deployed against the NPA. Close to 55% of AFP units deployed against the NPA are in Mindanao, mainly in the eastern regions. Combined AFP and PNP troop deployment is highest in South­ern Mindanao, followed by Southern Tagalog, Eastern Visayas, North Central Mindanao, Far South Mindanao and Negros. The aim of the AFP is to concentrate one bat­talion of troops for every NPA guer­rilla front, in the vain hope of crus­h­ing the NPA through intelligence, psywar and combat operations.

Despite the additional units, the AFP’s forces are spread thinly. At the national level, there are regions where the enemy could not deploy a full battalion against every NPA guerrilla front. On the ground, AFP combat battalions cannot saturate the territory and population of a guerrilla front, where there are wide­ly spread revolutionary mass organizations, militia units and or­gans of political power which active­­ly carry out mass campaigns and struggles. This leaves large areas open for NPA units to maneu­ver, recruit, and strengthen them­selves. When AFP brigades or divi­sions mount focused military ope­rations in one or several guer­rilla fronts in border areas, it combines several battalions pulled-out tem­po­rarily from their assigned areas of operation, giving the NPA units in other areas leeway to conduct poli­tical and military work.

Units of the AFP conduct so-called “community support pro­grams” (previously called Peace and Development Operations) under which fascist troops are deployed in the communities. The armed pre­sence of military troops disrupt the people’s lives and livelihood. They intimidate the peasant masses, arbi­trarily accuse them of being “NPA supporters” to force them to cooperate. The AFP stages fake sur­renders, put up checkpoints and impose population control mea­sures. They conscript people to be­come paramilitary forces, force civilians to render unpaid labor, and other violations of democratic and civil rights. They carry out artillery shelling and aerial bombings in the vicinity of communities, terrorizing and traumatizing the civilian population, especially children, forcing people to flee their homes and farms.

At the same time, they carry out psywar operations such as so-called “community integration programs” and “delivery of service” which are riddled with corruption. These prog­rams aim to conceal the fangs of Duter­te’s fascist troops. Under Duter­te’s “enhanced com­pre­hensive local integration program,” “sur­ren­derees” are promised ₱60,000, which more often than not is pocketed by brigade and battalion officers of the AFP. To fool the masses, Duterte has gone on a publicity campaign styling himself as land reform advocate in a vain attempt to convince the peasant masses that “you do not need the NPA.”

Duterte has conducted his cam­paign of suppression against the peasant masses with utter violence. The onslaught has been most vicious in areas where the people have actively resisted the entry of mining, plantations, tourism, energy and other big corporate projects. Full-scale terrorism has been employed to force the masses to surrender their democratic rights and their struggles to defend their land and economic well-being. To enforce the suppression, the AFP has frenziedly constructed military, paramilitary and police detachments in and around rural communities, with more than 700 in Mindanao alone.

The all-out war of suppression is a futile attempt by the Duterte regime and the AFP to pacify the peasant masses’ struggle for land and deny mass support for the people’s army in order to force NPA units to withdraw and be isolated in rough terrain, and subject them to focused military offensives employ­ing large number of troops with aerial and artillery support. They conduct one offensive after another in the hope of wearing down NPA units. The terrorist methods used by the AFP in their base denial ope­ra­tions, however, are proving coun­terproductive as the peasant and minority masses are roused to resist by the regime’s fascist cruelty, and to seek the NPA to defend their rights and their lives.

Since 2017, Duterte and his military officers have made declarations of crushing the NPA, first by end of 2018, then by end of 2019, and later before Duterte’s term ends in 2022. Almost daily, AFP commanders make false public announcements claiming NPA “surrenderees,” typically recycling old firearms from their armory and presenting these as surrendered weapons. A manipulated photograph claiming to be that of “sur­ren­der­ees” was recently exposed. Duterte has even bragged that the NPA will be defeated “sooner” as the AFP announced having destroyed or weakened 15 NPA guerrilla fronts. All these are empty boasts as the NPA continues to strengthen and wage revolutionary armed struggle alongside the democratic mass struggles of the Filipino people to end the reign of terror of the US-Duterte regime.

Mass organizations, alliances, unions, institutions, councils and other formations assert their legal and democratic rights. They are vigorously opposing the regime’s red-tagging and efforts to make them illegal. They are bravely standing up to Duterte and his military officers, despite being subjected to surveillance, threats of arrest or murder. Student groups have resisted the regime’s efforts to clamp down on campus activism.

The all-out state terrorist attacks of the US-Duterte regime have failed to cow or pacify the Filipino people. They are ever deter­mined to carry forward the national democratic revolution. The worse­ning forms of oppression and exploi­tation engendered by the continuing crisis of the semicolonial and semi­feudal system rouse them to wage armed revolution and all forms of mass resistance.

They are actively exposing the fascist abuses perpetrated by Duterte’s military and police forces. They have mounted protest actions against killings and mass arrests. They denounce the fake “sur­ren­ders” of civilians, the closure of Lumad community schools, artillery and aerial shelling near com­mu­nities, and other abuses perpetrated in the course of Duterte’s “coun­terinsurgency” campaign. They have firmly denounced threats against the media. They have exposed Duterte’s “war on drugs” as a fake and denounced the mass killings against the poor. They have filed cases before the International Criminal Court to have Duterte stand trial for his crimes against humanity.

The democratic forces are exposing bureaucratic and military corruption. They denounce the appro­priation of a bigger slice of public funds to fatten the military and police, while the allocation for education and health services, as well as agricultural support, remained low or were cut. They have denounced the regime’s relentless foreign borrowing. They have exposed the false picture of economic development. They de­nounce the tax burdens imposed by Duterte and the liberalization of rice importation. They have denounced Duterte’s puppetry to the US and subservience to China.

Workers have mounted strikes and other forms of collective action demanding wage increases, better working conditions and job regu­lar­ization. The peasant masses have carried out mass actions demanding lower rent, higher wages for farm workers, lower interests, fair prices for their produce and other reforms. They oppose wide­spread land-use conversion. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, they have called out the regime’s inutility in addressing the people’s needs in the event of natural calamities such as the eruption of the Taal Volcano and earthquakes in Mindanao.

A wide range of patriotic and democratic forces, including the conservative political opposition, as well as disgruntled military and police officers, are arrayed against Duterte. They are bound to unite more firmly in a broad united front as the ruling regime is confronted by a worsening political crisis. The worsening socioeconomic conditions are pushing the broad masses of the people to rise up in large numbers in mass protest and demand an end to Duterte’s brutal, puppet, corrupt and oppressive regime.

Fascism under Duterte is generating armed resistance. The necessity of taking up arms to defend the people’s rights is made manifestly clear by the abuses and bloody suppression carried out across the country by Duterte’s armed agents. In putting down the people’s resistance with armed force, he is actually inciting the people to fight back. Like Marcos before, Duterte has become the Number 1 recruiter of the New People’s Army.

The US-Duterte regime’s all-out terrorist attacks have failed to cow or silence the Filipino people. Its plan of paralyzing the revolutionary movement is impeded by the worse­ning economic and political crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic is further hindering its counterrevolutionary scheme.

The biggest deterrent is the Filipino people who are determined to advance the national democratic revolution. The worsening forms of oppression and exploitation as a result of the continuing crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system is compelling them to wage armed revolution and all other forms of struggle.

The Party’s correct leadership is urgently needed in order to take the edge off, drive back and frustrate the fascist offensive, strengthen revolutionary initiative in various fields and levels, and intensify armed and unarmed resistance. Conditions are ever favorable for waging and advancing people’s war.

3. Prospects and tasks for waging people’s war

Firmly resist and frustrate the Duterte fascist regime’s total war and exert all-out effort to strengthen the people’s army, expand and consolidate the guerrilla zones and bases and intensify guerrilla warfare. Tactical offensives must be intensified to punish the worse of the fascist animals. These are needed to render ineffective and frustrate the widespread fascist attacks, repression and intimidation, and strengthen the people’s courage to fight.

Over the past three years, the New People’s Army has successfully withstood the all-out offensives of the Duterte regime. The NPA has further strengthened its militance and determination to frustrate again the self-imposed dead­line of the Duterte fascist regime and its cabal to crush the revo­lutionary move­ment before President Duterte’s term end in May 2022.

The NPA continues to operate in more than 110 guerrilla fronts in 73 of 81 provinces across the country. It has several thousand guerrilla fighters. They are armed with high-powered weapons and small fire­arms seized from the enemy, secu­rity forces and other sources. The NPA employs grenades and com­mand-detonated explosives. They also use indigenous methods of warfare such as booby traps and punji sticks.

Units of the NPA operate under 14 regional operations command, which in turn are under the National Operations Command (NOC). The NOC is under the absolute leader­ship of the Communist Party of the Philippines through its Central Com­mittee and Political Bureau and its Executive Committee and the Mili­tary Commission of the Central Com­­mittee.

The New People’s Army firmly upholds the line of protracted peo­ple’s war, of encircling the cities from the countryside, and accu­mu­lating strength during the strategic defensive stage through extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever-widening and deepening mass base.

The platoon is the basic NPA formation for extensive and inten­sive guerrilla warfare and for widening and deepening the mass base across the entire country. Majority of the guerrilla platoons are horizontal forces deployed in guerrilla fronts established on the basis of company-strength. This deployment serves to attain the correct balance between extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare at the front, subregional, regional and national levels.

The past years have proven that platoons in company-sized guerrilla fronts can sustain coordinated and back-to-back tactical offensives, attend to both military and mass work, and expand while conso­li­da­ting and fighting against the ene­my’s combat, intelligence and psy­war operations.

There will be over-dispersal of forces if work in a district-sized guerrilla front will be shouldered by a platoon or small platoon. One platoon is not enough to effectively cover 60-100 villages in a guerrilla front with a correct balance of expansion and consolidation.

There are regions which made the necessary adjustment in some guerrilla fronts: reduced forces were brought together to con­cen­trate an under- or full-sized com­pany, cadres were redeployed to strengthen the leadership of squads and platoons and front command, and vertical forces were wisely deployed to continue invigorating exten­sive and intensive guerrilla war­fare.

Flexible deployment of forces must be mastered in line with the force structure guide for extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare. The layout of forces must be promptly assessed: whether there is a drastic reduction in the forces of one or several fronts resulting in area constriction or overdispersal of units and diminished centralized strength; whether small forces are too spaced out; whether forces are overconcentrated and forced into narrow corridors when there are wider and more favorable areas to reach; whether there are problems among the corps of cadres, limited options in the effective use of vertical forces and others.

On the basis of the breadth and depth of the guerrilla front, vertical forces are built step by step at the regional and subregional level, from a platoon, to an oversized platoon or undersized company until a full company is established. Vertical forces can only be sustained if we have achieved sufficient strength and spread in the fronts and subregions.

Widening and intensifying guer­rilla warfare depends not only on the strength of the army and its tactics. Intensive mass work is an integral component to forge a wide and strong revolutionary mass base mainly for advancing the antifeudal movement and the revolutionary program for genuine land reform, as well as other mass campaigns. Through this, people’s democratic power is established in the coun­tryside on an ever widening scale.

The New People’s Army, besides being primarily a fighting force, is also a full-time organizing force for carrying out extensive and intensive mass work. Its horizontal forces in the guerrilla fronts are the basic force for this purpose.

The tit-for-tat and elbow-to-elbow struggle with the enemy has highlighted the limitations of having only an undersized platoon to cover a guerrilla front; and the absence of full-time NPA units in a cluster of villages or front subdivisions, leav­ing it to be administered by weak section committees and part-time units that lack capability. In the face of even a slight pick up in ene­my operations, weak section com­mit­tees are cut to pieces, poor­ly-armed, undertrained and inex­perienced section guerrilla units are paralyzed or scamper off, links with the masses are cut off, and the mass­es become disunited and pass­ive in the face of the enemy’s fascist attacks and repression.

To quickly overcome this situa­tion, some regions have the positive experience of deploying ver­ti­cal units to immediately increase the NPA strength in the guerrilla front, putting into place a rotation system where the most reliable local forces go on three- or six-month tour-of-duty in NPA units to prepare them for full-time work, assiduously con­duct­ing propaganda and education work among the youth for mass recruit­ment, getting youth organi­za­tions involved in defense and mili­tia work including undertaking nece­­s­sary military train­ing, invi­go­ra­ting mass cam­paigns, particularly key antifeudal campaigns, engaging in tit-for-tat propaganda to im­me­diate­ly fight the enemy’s threats, decep­tion and lies, and ensuring close and detailed involvement of leading front and subregional cad­res in local work.

As basic formation, platoons are built with enough strength, capa­bility and experience in order to work independently and exercise initiative in seizing the opportunity to strike against the enemy’s weak points, and with relatively strong squads which master squad tactics of concentration, dispersal and shift­ing to raise both political and military initiative. It guards and promptly rectifies over­con­cen­tra­tion and overdispersal which weak­en the platoon’s initiative and result in losses.

Vertical forces serve as centers of concentration for tactical offen­sives requiring additional strength from horizontal forces, allot more time to mount tactical offensives—mainly annihilative basic tactical offensives, and have enough capa­bility to seize at opportunities to strike the weak parts of the enemy’s mobile and stationary forces. Pre­sently, vertical forces serve mainly to further invigorate and intensify tactical offensives in their own areas. Vertical forces also serve as point of concentration and main force for striking the enemy’s head when the opportunity arises.

Vertical forces must avoid being obsessed with hitting hard targets which forces long periods of con­centration lasting 4-8 months or longer, and involving not only its own forces but those of guerrilla fronts as well. As a result, guerrilla fronts are left vacant for extended periods. Large concentrations are also easily exposed which in the end derail the planned tactical offensive. Another matter altogether is the level of difficulty and unknown fact­ors in striking hard targets which frus­trate the tactical offensive. In sum, it goes against the line of mount­ing extensive and intensive tactical offensives.

Firmly grasp the offensive and decentralized characteristic of guerrilla warfare and master its application at the guerrilla front level. Guard against some pull of centralization that weaken or limit initiative. Guerrilla front platoons are under the territorial army com­mand. They are capable of operating independently and mounting tactical offensives on their own initiative. When necessary, they can be tac­ti­cally merged with vertical forces for mounting a tactical offensive. The number of annihilative tactical of­fen­sives increased from the ini­tia­tive of squads and guerrilla pla­toons, as well as by squads or pla­toons of vertical forces that were purposely spread out tactically.

The people’s militia and self-defense teams in villages are reserves for NPA recruitment. As active auxiliaries, they conduct internal security, intelligence and reconnaissance operations, assist the masses in cases of evacuation and other emergencies, and assist the NPA in performing its functions.

People’s militias also play an important role in the spread, inten­sity and overall intensification of tactical offensives. They supplement and augment full-time NPA units for mounting attritive military actions against weak points of the enemy, and when opportunity arises, for mounting their own annihilative tacti­cal offensives. Their mastery of terrain and of the enemy’s move­ments puts the people’s militias in an advantageous position to carry out an explosives movement for de­p­loying command-detonated bombs against the enemy. People’s militias also play a big role in throwing off and frustrating the enemy’s Oplan Sauron-type operations. People’s militia units help NPA units in opening secret routes for maneu­vers, monitoring the enemy and sus­picious elements, facilitating food and medical supplies, securing NPA camps, and serving as a reserve force for recruitment into full-time NPA units.

We must strive to increase the number and percentage of victo­rious annihilative tactical offen­sives. Tactical offensives where ene­my forces are annihilated and its weapons seized effectively weaken the enemy’s force, cause rapid demoralization, inspire further the masses fighting in the countryside and cities, draw in more friends and sympathizers and neutralize the less despotic class enemies.

Important questions in this regard include concrete analysis of and investigation into the nature, objectives, tactics, routes and patterns of enemy operations to choose the right time, place, force and tactics to be applied; high level of readiness to grab the opportunity to strike at the enemy’s weak points; skilled intelligence work, planning and command; ensuring the materials for command-deto­na­ted explosives and continuous military training of NPA units.

The NPA was able to mount at least 710 military actions of various sizes last year. These include harass­ment, disarming, demolition, sapper and partisan operations, puni­tive actions, raids against ene­my detachments and ambus­cades. Most of these actions are not reported in the bourgeois media. At least 651 enemy troops were killed, while more than 465 were wounded in action, the equivalent of around 30 platoons or two battalions of enemy troops. All regions across the country were able to contribute to these tactical offensives. Among the most significant victorious tactical offensives were those in Southern Tagalog in Luzon, in Eastern Visayas and Negros in the Visayas and in North Central and Northeast Mindanao.

With lessons drawn from waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base, the New People’s Army is determined to double or surpass the number of military actions and increase the number of victorious annihilative tactical offensives.

To also augment the arms of the NPA, ordnance and other special units must be assigned to manu­fac­ture and repair short and long firearms, in addition to producing mines and other types of weapons.

Company-strength guerrilla fronts and vertical forces will serve as the main force, platoon-strength guerrilla fronts will contribute what they can, while others in the process of rebuilding and tactical retreat and recovery will take measured efforts.

A basic requirement of succ­ess­ful guerrilla warfare is having a high level of clandestine style and meth­ods of work of the NPA, as well as the revolutionary masses. As such, the element of surprise can always be used against the enemy, the enemy is kept blind and deaf, battles where we do not have initiative are avoided and the enemy’s advantage in heavy weapons and technology is cancelled out.

On trek, in camp or in daily work, always consider plans to ensure secrecy. These include using secret routes, forging reliable paths to borders, employing darkness and favorable terrain, avoiding patterns in movements, observing discipline in policies for safe use of electronic gadgets, preparing a network of man­euver areas with stored sup­plies and other needs, strict obser­vance of anti-drone and anti-bomb measures in camps, covert and sec­ret methods of linking with and bri­nging the masses to meetings, secret meeting places, system of codes for communications, and so on.

The NPA observes basic security standards to avoid being boxed in by the enemy, but they are ready anytime to defend themselves in the face of enemy attacks. It is basic for guerrilla forces to always remain alert and ready for possible defen­sives or for mounting offensives anytime there is an opportunity.

The NPA always conducts counterintelligence operations to promptly identify and dismantle the enemy’s intelligence network, pun­ish the most despotic and neutralize those who can be neutralized. Slack­ening in this regard will result in losses to the NPA, as well as to revolutionary masses. In line with this, local organs of political power must use their power to gather useful information and provide the NPA with timely reports. At the same time, the people’s militia and the revolutionary mass organization and self-defense teams must surveil on enemy forces and possible targets for tactical offensives, and conduct trainings and exercise in connection with internal security and self-defense.

It is important to counter the enemy’s tactics in exerting armed intimidation to compel barangay officials and related personnel to gather information against targets for murder and liquidation. These must be neutralized primarily by availing of united front tactics with local village officials and relying on good relations which we have cultivated in the past. Careful consideration must be done to judge whether punitive action are neces­sary against hostile elements among village officials.The revolutionary mass base in the countryside, espe­cially those in the enemy’s focus, are constantly under a military situa­tion. Secret methods of work adap­ted to a militarized situation must be practiced widely. Secret methods are adapted by the revolutionary masses in their work, including preparing areas of retreat, holding meetings away from the enemy’s sight and monitoring, assigning secret means of ensuring security and so on.

Strengthen the Party’s leader­ship over the NPA and in the overall effort to carry forward the people’s war and in waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base. Launch theoretical studies on Mao’s writings, particularly his “Strategic Questions on the Matter of Waging Guerrilla Warfare Against Japan” and learn how to apply it on the concrete situation in the Philippines.

It is important that we improve the following methods of leadership: prompt analysis and summing-up of the enemy’s tactics based on concrete experiences; prompt sum­ming-up and drawing lessons from positive and negative experiences and sharing these lessons with the forces without delay; detailed exchange of information regarding the situation and experience bet­ween guerrilla fronts and sub­regions; prompt assessment and ana­lysis of the overall situation and coming up with appropriate policies or amending existing policies; con­duct­ing military and political-mili­tary confer­ences at different levels; and train­ing large numbers of cadres.

The Party shoulders political, educational/ideological and organi­zational tasks for leading and strength­ening the NPA. It provides the NPA with political guidance on the urgent and long-term political issues confronting the Filipino people and sets forth the line and program of action. The Party provides the NPA with politico-military training at various levels in order to strengthen the capacity of NPA commanders and officers to lead the people’s war in their respective scope. It conducts Marxist­-Leninist-Maoist education pro­grams to train its Red commanders and fighters in scientific methods of analysis and planning. Orga­ni­za­tion­ally, the Party must continue to strengthen its branches and com­mittees to serve as core and leader of every command and unit of the NPA and help strengthen the unity and discipline of their forces.

Shorter training courses are conducted more often. Long training courses have been cut using shorter modules. Thus, the previous system of concentrating large numbers of trainees for long periods is avoided.

The NPA has a clear record in firmly implementing the policies and programs of the people’s democratic government to protect the environment and oppose foreign plunder of the country’s patrimony. It is at the forefront of the struggle against illegal logging, destructive mining, poisonous spray in large foreign-owned plantations, fighting the causes of floodings and protecting endangered animals and plants.

The NPA is always prompt in assisting the masses in their areas which are affected by such cala­mi­ties as earthquakes, ty­phoons, vol­cano eruptions, floo­ding and other natural disasters. Units of the NPA and revolutionary forces have been mobilized to assist the people in rebuilding their homes and farms, distributing emergency aid, and coordinating and facilitating the entry of resources for the people.

As a way of responding to the call of the United Nations Secretary General for a global ceasefire in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Party’s Central Committee uni­laterally declared a ceasefire, which covers the period March 26 to April 15. The Party has directed the NPA, especially its medical units, to carry out a public health campaign in coordination with village health committees to help prevent the spread of the disease, give special attention to the elderly and preg­nant women, help care those who have been infected and pro­mote personal hygiene and community sanitation.

While all NPA units must cease and desist from mounting offensive actions, they must remain alert and ready to act in self-defense against offensives or maneuvers carried out by the AFP, despite the earlier ceasefire declaration of the AFP. All hostile acts of the AFP must be reported to the public, and to the higher commands of the NPA and leading committees of the Party.

Ceasefire or not, it is the NPA’s constant policy to recognize humanitarian work of all the forces helping the masses during calamities. However, those who are only pretending to help the masses but have the intention of subjecting the masses to even greater terror and injury worse than any calamity, will be firmly opposed by the NPA and the revolutionary masses.(7)

In the coming year, the Party directs the NPA to further strengthen itself in order to frustrate the enemy’s strategic plan of crushing the armed revolution, and to advance the people’s war in an all-sided manner. The NPA must quickly overcome the internal weak­nesses and limitations and con­ti­nually strengthen the army in order to shoulder the difficult task of reach­ing the broad masses and spread­ing guerrilla warfare in the guerrilla zones and guerrilla base. Party branches and branch groups must be strengthened in the NPA down to the basic platoon and squad levels, in order to raise their capa­bility during periods of concen­tration and dispersal.

The Party must be rapidly expanded by recruiting the Red fighters and mass activists and providing them with the Basic Party Course. The NPA must also be rapidly expanded and politico-military training must be provided promptly to the NPA recruits. Tac­tical offensives must be intensified to accumulate arms, create more NPA units, inflict defeats on the ene­my and to make the revolu­tio­nary message resound with gunfire. The clandestine revolutionary mass organizations of all types must be expanded rapidly to anticipate the outlawing of the aboveground organizations. Those in danger of being killed by the regime’s assassination squads are encou­raged to glide into the underground. At the same time, the legal demo­cratic forces must be encouraged to intensify their resistance before the enemy can successfully suppress them with the Anti-Terror Law and with mass murders.

Be always ready to seize the opportunity generated by the wor­sen­ing crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic to further arouse, organ­ize and mobilize the broad masses in the countryside, accelerate efforts to establishing large numbers of guerrilla fronts and NPA units, put forward the national democratic program in propaganda and edu­ca­tion work, and prepare our minds and body in order to strike blows against the enemy through exten­sive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base.

Carry forward the people’s war!

Frustrate the war of suppression and fascist scheme of the US-Duterte regime!

Long live the New People’s Army!

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Long live the proletariat and the Filipino people!

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(1) Corruption has worsened under the Covid-19 pandemic crisis after Duterte was granted extra powers to realign the national budget. There has been no accounting of hundreds of billions of pesos that went to the distribution of subsidies and purchase of overpriced medical equipment and personal protective equipment.

(2) By end of June 2020, the country’s total outstanding debt stood at ₱9.9 trillion, after a ₱1.7 trillion borrowing binge in the first half of 2020 alone on the pretext of spending for Covid-19 response.

(3) According to official statistics, the Philippine economy contracted by as much as 16.7% in the second quarter, the sharpest decline in 36 years. It contracted by 0.2% in the first quarter of the year.

(4) It is estimated that the number of unemployed and underemployed Filipinos now stand at 20.4 million, with 14 million without jobs. Despite efforts to downplay the gravity of the crisis of joblessness, the Duterte government recently admitted that the unemployment rate now stands at an unprecedented 17.7%.

(5) The campaign of killings has intensified with the successive killing of Jory Porquia, coordinator of Bayan Muna- Iloilo City last April 30; the abduction and killing of Carlito Badion, secretary-general of Kadamay last May 28; the brutal torture and murder of Anakpawis Chair and NDFP peace consultant Randall Echanis, last August 10; and the killing of Negros activist Zara Alvarez last August 18.

(6) The enactment of the Anti-Terror Law was accomplished with the railroading by the House of Representatives last June 3. The law took effect on July 18.

(7) The Duterte regime has rendered impossible reciprocal ceasefires as it insists on prioritizing counterinsurgency and funding its brutal war in the countryside. The lack of a ceasefire, however, gives the NPA more leeway to launch tactical offensives while the enemy overstretches itself in imposing repressive measures such as population control, checkpoint extortions, fake CSP projects, and intelligence and psywar operations, thus drastically reducing the personnel for combat.