With the most ardent revolutionary spirit, revolutionary forces in Eastern Visayas today greet the entire membership of the New People’s Army (NPA) on its 57th year of existence. We salute all the Red commanders and fighters for unwaveringly carrying forward the people’s war against all fascist puppet regimes in nearly six decades and against the current US-Marcos regime.

As is tradition, let us salute all the revolutionary martyrs who have laid their lives for the freedom of the Filipino people. We owe to them not only the invaluable lessons that guide us in continuing the revolutionary struggle, but also their enduring example that inspires us in our darkest, most difficult days.

The NPA in Eastern Visayas, just as in the other parts of the country, has defied the most insurmountable odds to keep burning the flame of people’s war. Year after year guerrilla fighters—armed only with weaker weapons against a more powerful enemy, and with an indomitable spirit of liberating the Filipino masses from the evils of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism—have thwarted all the strategic campaigns and deadlines declared by each puppet regime. Such campaigns, in line with US imperialist doctrine, brutally targeted the civilian mass base through blatant state terror, massacres and extrajudicial killings, abductions and illegal arrests, bombings and hamlets, with the aim to subdue the NPA to a purely military situation.

The sustained campaign of suppression reached unprecedented levels with the Duterte and Marcos Jr puppet regimes. Due to internal weaknesses combined with the sheer scale of the enemy’s counterrevolutionary war, the Party and the NPA in the region incurred losses. Since then, big business, landlords and local bureaucrat capitalists have further opened the floodgates to destructive mining, “renewable energy” projects, road and infrastructure projects, land conversion, and ecotourism. They line the pockets of military officials the 8th Infantry Division tasked to pave the way for such activities that plunder the environment and destroy the livelihoods of the peasant masses.

But the NPA remains. The armed struggle that the NPA wages serves as a beacon of inspiration to the downtrodden masses in the Philippines and in the entire world who thirst for revolutionary change, especially in the midst of rising inter-imperialist conflict and imperialist aggression, worsening economic conditions, and degradation of human rights and dignity. The NPA is also imbued with a renewed fervor by the rectification movement initiated by the Party, which seeks to study and identify the errors that not only stunted progress but caused casualties in the past years.

Two years since the rectification movement began, NPA units including those in Eastern Visayas have made great strides in adjusting their mode of operations. These were made to ensure that the NPA remains closely linked with the masses, upon whose depth and breadth widespread guerrilla warfare can be waged. Such adjustments also help the guerrilla units evade enemy encirclement and decisive engagements, making the enemy punch through the air. Young, bright sons and daughters of the people continue to be recruited for the NPA and are trained to handle greater political and military tasks.

Revolutionary forces in Eastern Visayas urgently calls on the NPA to continue strengthening itself and attain greater victories. It must seize the opportunities presented by the third rectification movement to further its study, strengthen itself in an all-rounded manner (ideologically, politically, and organizationally) and recoup its losses. The Party relies principally on the NPA to wage armed struggle, which is very important to strengthen the united front and steadily build the organs of political power upon which the People’s Democratic Government can be founded.

More than ever, the NPA must link itself even closer with the masses. It should help the peasant masses wage agrarian revolution—the only way that the masses can fully understand the rottenness of the prevailing semicolonial and semifeudal system, and thus appreciate the program of the people’s democratic revolution. It must help build peasant associations by which the masses can wage anti-feudal struggles to bring down land rent, raise farm wages, increase cooperation and productivity, and even confiscate land from despotic landlords. The armed guerrilla actions by the NPA serve to defend the gains made from the mass struggles, by asserting Red political power and defending them from retaliation by the landlords and their mercenaries.

Most urgently, the NPA must attain revolutionary justice for the people. It must conduct annihilative offensives against the smaller, tired, and separated enemy units to overpower and confiscate their weapons, as well as attritive actions to harass and confuse the fascist troops entering the guerrilla zones. It must also implement the decisions of the people’s court against those found guilty of crimes against the people, including environmental crimes. These armed actions can only be achieved through the strong cooperation of the NPA and the masses.

The NPA can greatly benefit from the revolutionary youth of Eastern Visayas heeding the call to support and join the people’s army. In the vast countryside, the youth can use their skills and talents in service of the oppressed masses.

The revolutionary movement in Eastern Visayas has full confidence that the NPA can fulfill its tasks and bring the people’s war to greater heights. Weak and small it may be today, for as long as it enjoys the wide and deep support of the masses, in due time it will be a powerful force that will smite the armed state machinery and achieve genuine freedom and democracy for the Filipino people. Its ultimate victory shall be the Filipino people’s contribution in the worldwide struggle against imperialism and all reaction.

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines! Long live the New People’s Army! Long live the Philippine revolution!
Wage people’s war against the corrupt, fascist and puppet US-Marcos regime!
Wage people’s war against counterrevolutionary war! Wage revolutionary war against imperialist wars!
Oppressed peoples of the world, unite against US imperialism!