As the country and particularly the island faces the devastation wrought by supertyphoon Odette, such divisiveness is unhelpful to the plight of the affected. It is high time that Pasaporte should avoid baseless comments and instead focus on genuine relief efforts to help the people, like what the masses alongside with their People’s Army and revolutionary organizations all over the island and the entire archipelago are focusing on, as directed by the CPP.

Pasaporte should read the several statements released by the CPP-NPA-NDF that call on aiding the victims in guerilla fronts to recover from lost homes and livelihoods, contradictory to his claim that ‘only members’ will be helped, most probably due to their practice of incessant red-tagging the people. It can be noted as well that the most nondiscriminatory things the AFP can do is indiscriminately firing and bombing at hapless civilians and livelihoods like what happened this year in Guihulngan, Binalbagan, and most recently in Miag-ao.

Even before the calamity, the disaster of the worsening socioeconomic conditions, the Covid-19 pandemic, and relentless attacks & intensified militarization in the countryside has pushed the masses to rely upon their unity through revolutionary organizations working hand-in-hand with the CPP-NPA, not on inconsistent government aid and social services – if any ever reach them. Even so, most are only for electioneering and corruption-laden schemes like what transpired during the pandemic, the E-CLIP and enforced fake surrenders of civilians of the NTF-ELCAC, and many others.

They cannot hide under the facade of ‘serving the people’ when just recently in Canlaon the 62nd IB stole a cellphone and tortured a farm worker that they red-tagged as an NPA supporter who was just bringing along with him hard-earned rice to feed his family. The 303rd Brigade and 3rd ID also are fond of red-tagging dagyaw-alayon and bayanihan systems – collective efforts of the masses, even to the point of hijacking legitimate peasant cooperatives and dismantling communal farms.

This is also why it is expected that the reactionary government will not declare a yuletide truce amid the holiday season and calamity brought by the supertyphoon, as the fascist US-Duterte regime and its machineries like the AFP/PNP/NTF-ELCAC combine are fixated on their illusion in destroying the revolutionary movement and perpetuating the oppressive ruling system.

If they are truly interested in helping the people, they should be willing to address the fundamental problems of Philippine society – imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism – as the roots of the armed conflict. A just and lasting peace is attainable when no person is deprived, oppressed, poor, or hungry; when the elite few and their cohorts in the AFP like Pasaporte no longer serve only themselves. But that is not the interest of imperialists, big landlords and big comprador bourgeoisie at all. Their self-serving aims will only result to the oppression of the majority of the people that can only lead to social and political unrest and the inevitable advancement of the People’s War. ###