Recruitment by the New People’s Army (NPA) continues steadily and is certain to rise in the coming months and years in the face of worsening oppression and political repression. People are determined to fight for their rights, defend their livelihood, and fight for a better future for their children, in the face of the increasingly brutal, corrupt, and oppressive Marcos puppet regime.

Declarations by Gen. Carlito Galvez that the country will be “insurgency-free” in three years is pure wishful thinking. This is a simple rehash of declarations made in the past thirty years. As before, such pronouncements will be proven hollow brags.

The Filipino people and the New People’s Army are ever determined to wage revolutionary armed struggle in the face of people’s acute sufferings under the Marcos regime.

Majority of the Filipino people are mired in poverty as prices continue to rise and wages remain low. Unemployment is widespread. Land and other sources of livelihood are being taken away from the masses by foreign companies in connivance with Marcos crony big business. Poverty is particularly acute in rural areas, where an average of 1.1 million jobs have been lost every month.

Marcos has resorted to martial law tactics to suppress the people’s resistance to his regime’s anti-people, anti-national and anti-democratic policies. He rules with an iron-fist across the country, especially in the countryside. His power-intoxicated and often drug-crazed soldiers carry out extrajudicial killings and other crimes. In the past two years, at least 175 people have been killed by Marcos’ armed minions, most of whom were peasants.

Last July 8, 2nd IB soldiers opened fire and killed siblings Robert and Ronel Monsanto, 18 and 22, while tending to their farm animals in Barangay Aguho, Esperanza, Masbate. On June 5, the 74th IB opened fire on 11 farmers, including seven minors in Sitio Canonghan, Barangay Osmeña, Palapag, Northern Samar. They were later rounded up and brought to a military camp, and falsely linked to the NPA. These are just some recent examples of the brutal forms of armed suppression perpetrated by Marcos against the people.

Marcos’ tyrannical rule teaches the people that only by taking up arms and joining the NPA can they effectively defend their lives and fight for their rights and aspirations.