On 27 June, 2023 the Agustin Begnalen Command-NPA-Abra launched an attack on operating troops of the 24th IB, in Sitio Mangmangga, Barangay Naguillan, Sallapadan, Abra. One soldier was killed.

This military action by the NPA serves to punish the mercenary AFP for its continuing crimes against the people. The 24th IB continues to conduct combat operations that disrupt the people’s production activities. They are constantly harassing and threatening civilians whom they suspect are NPA supporters. The AFP also continues to pocket public funds from its bogus surrender program.

In his second State of the Nation address this July, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will do his best to paint a rosy picture of his regime’s ‘accomplishments’. But the people cannot be fooled. Every day is a struggle to feed their families, amidst the never-ending increases in the price of oil and basic commodities. The farmers know that Marcos Jr. has no intention to support local agriculture. His real intention is to push further trade liberalization through the RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership), as he hands over local agriculture to the comprador-bourgeoisie through the Kapatid Angat Lahat sa Agri (KALAP) Program. Its Masagana Rice Industry Development Program will further enrich the capitalist agrochemical suppliers.

In Abra, the state’s fake Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) has done nothing to break the politician-landlord-warlords’ monopoly of thousands of hectares of agricultural, including pasture, lands. Meanwhile the farmers bear the burden of high land rent, the high cost of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and usurious rates of interest on their debts. They grieve as their children are forced to take dangerous and low paying jobs in the town centers and abroad.

The people know that the only solution to end poverty and state fascism is through their continued support and participation in the national-democratic revolution. Thus the people continue to join and support the New People’s Army.