“It is laughable that the NTF-Elcac is boasting of using former rebels who have betrayed the masses, sold out the people’s aspirations for national freedom and democracy, and who are now paid instruments of the Marcos puppet government and its fascist affiliates, to sell the illusion of ‘peace.”

This is what Marco L. Valbuena, chief information officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines, had to say to the news that NTF-Elcac has formed a “national federation” of “former rebels.”

“It is pitiful that NTF-Elcac has picked up these discarded remnants of the revolutionary movement,” Valbuena said. “In the eyes of the masses they have abandoned, these traitors have zero credibility.”

“If these traitors are to be the flag bearers of Marcos’s peace program, it is clear that the ruling regime has no intention of addressing the real roots of the civil war in the Philippines—primarily the issue of land and the lack of genuine industrialization due to foreign dominance in our country,” Valbuena stated.

These traitors now sit as leaders of a “national federation” of “former rebels” that is reliant on the handouts and favors provided by the military. They are selling their supposed expertise in the revolutionary movement to NTF-Elcac and the AFP.

According to Valbuena, “These traitors make themselves useful to the fascist Marcos regime in exchange for a comfortable life far removed from the status of the masses who once sheltered them.”

“They even beautify their self-designation as ‘former rebels’ when in truth, they are simply traitors to the toiling masses, especially to those in the communities of farmers and minorities who supported them when they were still aligned with the interests and aspirations of the people for democracy and freedom.”

“Some leaders among these traitors are favored and showcased by NTF-Elcac, while many of the farmers paraded as ‘surrenderers’ who were promised a better life are now imprisoned in military camps and are used as slaves by the soldiers,” added the CPP official. “Some have been repeatedly forced to surrender so that battalion and division commanders can profit. Some have been completely imprisoned or killed after losing their value to the military.”

“The federation of traitors they have formed is a fraud, just like the entire peace program of NTF-Elcac,” Valbuena said. “For NTF-Elcac, there is peace only if the oppressed masses are silenced, chained, and not fighting back.”

“In reality, there are rampant human rights violations in the forced surrender of civilians and the imposition of martial law in many villages controlled by the AFP under the guise of RCSP,” Valbuena stated. “This brings endless suffering and hardship to hundreds of thousands of farmers, minority peoples, and the rural poor, including infants and small children, whom the AFP fears will support the armed revolutionary movement.”

“To this day, the military still holds Baby Marx, who was kidnapped by soldiers in Negros to force his father, a Red fighter, to surrender. His martyr mother, Ka Jandy, never had the chance to see him again,” Valbuena recounted.

“It is not new in the history of the Filipino people’s struggle that some have committed the act of betrayal and sided with the oppressors and colonizers, like those who betrayed the Katipunan and embraced American colonialism, and the ‘makapili’ who collaborated with the Japanese invaders. In every chapter of history, they have been rejected by the people for turning their backs on the sworn principles to dedicate everything to the welfare of the masses,” Valbuena said.

“In the history of the revolutionary movement, they are often elements of the petty bourgeoisie who have not fully remoulded, stopped developing as revolutionaries, went back to their own dreams, abandoned the people’s aspirations, feared sacrifice, refused to correct their mistakes, and ultimately became tools of the military as paid agents,” Valbuena added.

He further stated, “Unlike the ‘makapili’ who wore bags on their heads to hide their identities, these new traitors openly service the puppet and fascist Marcos regime in oppressing and torturing the people.”