The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) salutes the revolutionary masses and the valiant forces of the New People’s Army (NPA) and cadres of the Party in the Mindanao regions and across the entire country for their perseverance and iron-determination to defend the interests of the oppressed and exploited masses, in the face of relentless and brutal attacks of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). They are making great sacrifices in the struggle to fight imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism and for the cause of national democracy and socialism. Let us pay tribute to Jorge Madlos (Ka Oris), Menandro Villanueva (Ka Bok) and all revolutionary heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice in fighting the monsters that prey on the people.

The enemy continues to squander billions upon billions of pesos in its drive to terrorize the people and their revolutionary forces. The fascist attacks have been especially vicious in Mindanao, but are also relentless and ruthless in Bicol, Eastern Visayas and Negros, as well as in other regions across the country. The fascists are obsessed with ending the people’s resistance and armed revolution before the end of Duterte’s term through sheer military superiority, firepower and state terrorism, but is succeeding only in inciting greater resistance.

Civilian communities, farms and mountains are being bombed from the air, shelled and strafed without letup. Villages are turned into hamlets and placed under military control. Mass organizations are relentlessly attacked to disunite the people. The masses are subjected to incessant harassment and forced to parade as “surrenderees.” They are turned into milking cows for the corrupt military officials and their so-called “development projects” which have nothing to do with their lives and livelihood. The fascists have furiously dismantled the community schools and other achievements of the organized people. For standing up for their communities, leaders of the people are hunted down like criminals, killed or thrown into prison. Farmers are prevented from raising production and improving their livelihood on the absurd basis that their higher income goes to the NPA. The fascists have resorted to the most ferocious tactics to make the broad masses of peasants and Lumad people kneel before their oppressors and exploiters.

The Filipino people are outraged at how big profit-hungry landlords, mining companies, plantation owners and other big capitalists and multinational companies are grabbing productive land to turn the peasant masses and Lumad people into beggars. The big banana plantations owned by Duterte’s cronies are expanding. The big mining companies are marching just behind the fascist troops who are marauding and driving the Mindanao Lumads, Mangyans, Tumandoks, Igorots and other ethnic minority people out of their communities. They are made to relocate to “housing projects” away from their land and resources. The broad masses of workers continue to suffer from low wages and oppressive working conditions. Their unions are being attacked to take away their power to assert and defend their rights.

Duterte’s war against the people is an unsustainable and unwinnable war. It only aggravates the people’s socioeconomic conditions that give rise to armed resistance. It is exhausting limited public funds that should instead be going to public health and education, especially as the country faces the continuing pandemic. It exposes the rotten core of the semicolonial and semifeudal system and heightens the people’s aspiration for national and social liberation.

The fascists brag of having won over a few renegades who have given up their principles and the people’s cause. Although just a handful, some make so much noise on the behest of the AFP and now serve as paid hacks of the NTF-Elcac using the people’s money. They have betrayed the trust once given them by the peasant masses and minorities. Some of them chose convenience and comfort, overawed by the enemy and bedazzled by its promises for their selfish personal benefit. Some were captured by the enemy but subjected to intense pressure to turn against themselves. A few of them have turned outright traitors and are actively helping the enemy in its brutal campaign of suppression against civilian communities and people’s organizations. They are opportunists and negative examples who are rejected and denounced by the people.

The Party firmly salutes its cadres and leaders and NPA commanders and fighters in Mindanao and across the country who continue to shun personal interests, selflessly make great sacrifices and persevere along the path of serving the Filipino people and waging revolutionary struggle for national and social liberation. They are exemplars of heroism. They exude revolutionary optimism and militancy even in the face of great adversity and some setbacks.

Together with the revolutionary masses, the Party and NPA grieve the deaths of Ka Menandro Villanueva (Ka Bok) and Ka Jorge Madlos (Ka Oris), both important leaders of the Party and NPA in Mindanao and the entire country. Their immense contributions to the people’s cause will forever be cherished, nurtured and further advanced. They are both victims of the enemy’s fascist crimes and outright contravention of the rules of war and international humanitarian law. Ka Oris, 72, together with an NPA medic, was captured by the enemy in Impasug-ong, Bukidnon, while en route to seek medical treatment last October 29, 2021 and then killed in cold-blood. Ka Bok, 70, and Ka Sandra Reyes (Ka Kaye), 53, were captured by the enemy after a battle last December 24, 2021 in Mabini, Davao de Oro, and were subsequently murdered by the fascists. Ka Bok was an hors de combat when captured but was made to suffer severely by his fascist captors.

The revolutionary forces draw inspiration from their martyrdom. They are fully aware of the gravity of the loss of Ka Oris and Ka Bok, but also know that these losses are not insurmountable and will be overcome in due time. They are ever conscious that when giant trees fall, it provides space and nourishes the ground for new trees to sprout and grow. The deaths of Ka Oris and Ka Bok and other giants of the revolutionary movement have allowed new cadres to rise and perform the tasks of leadership. In their memory and by way of tribute, thousands of Party cadres and NPA commanders are picking up the cudgels of their heroes.

The Party firmly salutes the toiling masses in the Mindanao regions and across the country. In the face of the enemy’s attacks, the people’s determination to support and join the armed resistance has become stronger than ever before. Even in areas under the AFP’s most brutal attacks, the masses continue to build and expand their revolutionary organizations, cherish their people’s army, take part in the armed resistance, and join the Party. The workers, peasants, minority people, the semiproletariat and pettybourgeois intellectuals in Mindanao and across the country remain unwavering in their determination to unite and fight for their national and democratic aspirations.

Far from pacifying the people, the ruthless attacks of the enemy against their communities and organizations are only stoking greater hatred for the fascists, their oppressors and exploiters. The Filipino people are determined to unite and fight to put an end to Duterte’s tyrannical, corrupt and puppet regime, which for the past years have brought them nothing but great misery and poverty.

In the coming months and years, Party cadres, NPA fighters and the revolutionary masses must steel themselves as they will have to make more difficult sacrifices, shoulder more critical tasks and take on heavier responsibilities. Party committees and NPA commands must regularly take stock of their strengths, and identify past weaknesses and shortcomings, in order to achieve the aim of consolidating, strengthening and expanding the ranks of the Party, the NPA and the revolutionary mass organizations.

The NPA must continue to master guerrilla tactics of concentration, dispersal and shifting to maintain initiative at all times and frustrate the enemy’s offensives. It must continue to wage extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever expanding and deepening mass base. The NPA must further expand its guerrilla fronts and build new ones to cause the enemy to stretch its forces, overcome its strategy of gradual constriction and take away its ability to mount focused military operations to encircle units of the NPA. The NPA must continue efforts to link together the rough mountainous areas with the highly populated plains, build more guerrilla base areas, and mount tactical offensives on a wide area on a nationwide scale. The NPA must target, especially, the fascist and criminal AFP units whose hands are bloodied by the deaths of the Filipino people’s heroes and martyrs.

The Party and the New People’s Army across the country will continue to strengthen the bonds between the people’s army and the masses, especially the poor peasant masses and minority people. The broad united front must continuously be expanded and strengthened against Duterte’s fascist tyranny.

In the face of the deep socioeconomic crisis, hardships and oppression of the people, the revolutionary forces are ever determined to arouse, organize and mobilize the people in their numbers to wage widespread mass struggles to demand genuine land reform, oppose the expansion of plantations, resist the entry of mining companies, demand fair prices for farm produce, demand higher wages, demand relief and more decisive response amid the current public health crisis, resist fascist attacks against communities, demand a stop to the bombing and shelling of their farms and villages, demand an end to military occupation of communities, demand respect for people’s rights and principles of international humanitarian law, and hold the Duterte accountable for all his crimes even beyond his term.

The Party fully trusts the revolutionary forces across the entire country will persevere and grow in strength together with all the democratic and patriotic classes. Through untiring efforts to arouse, organize and mobilize the masses, it is certain that we shall frustrate the enemy’s all-out war, relentless attacks and declared aims of crushing the armed revolution, continue the people’s resistance and bring it to ever greater heights.

Overthrow the terrorist, corrupt and puppet US-Duterte regime!

Carry forward the people’s democratic revolution!

Carry forward the people’s war!

Long live the New People’s Army!

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Long live the Filipino people!