The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and all revolutionary forces
vehemently denounce Duterte’s Proclamation No. 374 declaring the CPP and New
People’s Army (NPA) as terrorists, in a vain effort to strong-arm the
revolutionary and progressive forces and the Filipino people to submit to his
fascist puppet rule and, thus, pave the way for establishing a fascist
dictatorship.

**Terror proclamation to heighten state terrorism**

State terrorism under the Duterte regime is set to further heighten with its
issuance of a terror proclamation. With it, Duterte is poised to make full use
of the Arroyo-era Human Security Act (HSA) in order to employ its draconian
provisions to criminalize forces opposed to his fascist and puppet rule and
flagrantly attack their democratic and civil rights.

By terror tagging the CPP/NPA, Duterte has set the stage for an escalation of
his all-out war against the Filipino people and their revolutionary and
democratic forces.

He is also set to use the HSA against the legal democratic organizations which
he has recently subjected to the worn-out Cold War-style terror- and red-tagging
by accusing them of being “fronts” of the CPP and, by implication, as
“terrorists” themselves, making them open to arrest and violent attacks.

Duterte’s terror proclamation desperately aim to malign the revolutionary forces
which have long fought for the Filipino people’s aspiration for national and
social liberation. Contrary to the proclamation, it is Duterte, with the backing
of the US and the AFP, who is the real terrorist for having unleashed a campaign
of mass murder and state terrorism: from Oplan Tokhang to the Marawi Siege,
Mindanao martial law to all-out war. After only one year under Duterte, the
number of people killed by state and state-affiliated forces (estimated to be at
13,000), more than three times greater than those killed under the 14-year
Marcos dictatorship.

By issuing his terror proclamation, Duterte has completely turned his back on
the peace negotiations and its signed agreements. He has revealed his foolish
reliance on a purely militarist solution to resolving the civil war and his
complete disregard and contempt for the people’s just demands for basic
socio-economic and political reforms especially amid worsening poverty,
joblessness, landlessness, starvation wages and incomes, rising prices and the
overall crisis of the ruling system.

The US imperialists applaud Duterte’s terror proclamation which apes the
long-standing terror-listing of the CPP, NPA and Prof. Jose Ma. Sison by the US
State Department. The US military is eager to bring in their weapons of mass
destruction in the vain hope of crushing the anti-imperialist revolutionary
forces.

**Fascist terror on a rampage**

Duterte’s terror proclamation against the CPP/NPA will surely result in a rising
staccato of abuses and violations of human rights by his fascist minions in the
military, police and paramilitaries.

Soon after arbitrarily and treacherously terminating the NDFP-GRP peace talks
last November 24, Duterte ordered the escalation of his brutal all-out war
against the NPA as well as against peasant and minority peoples communities
which the AFP suspect of supporting and sympathizing with the NPA and the legal
democratic organizations. He aims to drown in blood the Filipino people’s
aspirations for genuine national freedom and democracy.

In the countryside, the AFP conduct aerial bombings and shelling against peasant
and minority communities, while its units occupy civilian homes and
infrastructure, impose food blockades, carry out arbitrary arrests, searches and
interrogations resulting in forced mass evacuations and grave hardships on tens
of thousands of people. There has also been no let up in the militarization and
military offensives by the AFP in Bangsamoro areas in accordance with the AFP’s
pompous claim to finish off all armed Bangsamoro resistance by the end of the
year.

He has issued orders to “shoot to kill” any suspected member of the NPA who will
not surrender. Such blusters will surely embolden the fascist thugs of the AFP
who have been racking up the body count with extrajudicial killings against
peasant activists and captured NPA fighters who are already hors d’combat.

He has ordered the mass arrest of all members of the CPP as well as NDFP
consultants to peace negotiations. This is bound to be used against the legal
democratic forces and will surely lead to more widespread and worse atrocities
against political prisoners. Duterte himself has led a crescendo of vilification
and threats against Bayan and its affiliate organizations. By tagging them as
“fronts” of the CPP, Duterte aim to use the HSA to clamp down on progressive and
independent trade unions, peasant groups, community associations, teachers and
student organizations, human rights advocates and others.

The armed forces have unleashed death squads against unarmed activists of the
legal democratic movement. Last December __, its armed minions carried out an
ill-concealed daylight attack against human rights advocates and peasant leaders
in Negros Oriental. This was followed soon after by the ruthless killing of a
73-year old retired priest in Nueva Ecija known for supporting people’s causes.

The Duterte regime has also vented its fascist ire against jeepney drivers and
operators for having carried out nationwide peaceful protests against
corporatization of transport services which would forcibly displace hundreds of
thousands of drivers and small to medium-sized operators.

Since declaring all-out war, Duterte has completely and openly thrown away all
leftist and pro-people pretensions and has fully assumed the role of an out and
out and blood-thirsty defender of the decadent and despicable rule by the big
bourgeois compradors and big landlord classes and their US imperialist master.

**Revolutionary forces will never surrender to Duterte’s fascist thuggery**

It is Duterte’s pipedream that the NPA and all revolutionary forces will
surrender to his fascist rule. The NPA is the people’s army. Red fighters as
well as all true communists and revolutionaries have committed their lives to
serving the people’s cause and would readily choose death than submission to
Duterte’s fascist and puppet tyranny.

Duterte is set on using people’s money to purchase from the US military new
surveillance and attack drones and helicopter gunships as well as other
armaments, to the delight of his military cronies who are drooling over the
opportunities for bureaucratic loot. The AFP is set to complete early next year
the recruitment of 10,000 additional troops to compose ten more combat
battalions.

Having deep and wide support of the peasant and other toiling masses, the NPA is
unperturbed by Duterte’s threat to do more and worse harm against the NPA, nor
by the latest declared aim of the AFP of crushing the NPA by the end of 2018.
This is a mere recycle of the same old bluster which accompanied all the failed
“oplans” from the Marcos dictatorship onwards.

Duterte’s fascist war is an unjust war. It is cruel and brutal in its
desperation to suppress the people’s resistance. It serves the interests of a
small number of exploiters and oppressors while most of its foot soldiers and
rank-and-file police come from the ranks of the exploited and poor people. It
will surely be frustrated by a determined revolutionary war, which is just, aims
for genuine national and social liberation and draws strength from the
organization and mobilization of the people.

Through his all-out armed counterrevolutionary war and fascist attacks against
the people, Duterte himself is unveiling for all the world to see the ruling
state’s turn to the naked use of force to impose its anti-national, anti-masses
and anti-democratic rule. Intensified fascist repression will surely meet with
even more widespread and more determined armed and unarmed resistance by the
people. It will only further accelerate Duterte’s complete political isolation
and hasten his ignominious downfall. It will not save the rotting ruling system,
but will further hasten its destruction.

To frustrate Duterte’s all-out fascist war and defeat the AFP’s offensives, the
NPA must continue to persevere in waging people’s war and carry out widespread
and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever-widening and -deepening
mass base. It must continue to arouse, organize and mobilize the broad peasant
masses and inspire them to wage all-out armed and unarmed resistance against
their armed oppressors and exploiters.

The NPA must mount more and more tactical offensives. It must ensure victory for
these tactical offensives by relying on the support of the people, taking
advantage of the physical and social terrain and by mastering guerrilla tactics
to preserve its forces and inflict deadly blows against the fascist troops. No
amount of high tech weaponry and fascist brutality can defeat a people and their
people’s army who are determined to cut out the national destiny with their own
hands.

Against an enemy that is overweening and militarily still far superior, we
should avoid hitting hard targets, employ different tactics to divide the enemy
forces, force him to defend and attend to so many points so that his small and
weak units become soft targets that are vulnerable to attack and annihilation by
the guerrilla forces of the NPA. We should combine many body blows with well
selected head shots in which victory is assured by concentrating a superior
force that is well prepared to overcome the defenses, fortifications and target
denial moves of the enemy.

We must adapt to the increased intensity and ruthlessness of the war due to the
prolonged focused operations against priority target guerrilla fronts and the
increased use by the enemy of drones, electronic surveillance and other
high-tech means of area monitoring and surveillance. We need to continuously
build and develop a wide intelligence network that covers our guerrilla fronts
and surrounding areas to effectively monitor any enemy troop build up and
movement.

The NPA will continue to gain strength in the course of fighting Duterte’s
fascist all-out war. It will never be defeated because it is fully and
completely dedicated to fighting for the liberation of the nation and people and
defeating all fascists and imperialist puppets. In the same way that the Marcos
dictatorship stirred up the people to wage revolutionary armed struggle, so will
Duterte’s fascist attacks and dictatorial ambitions inflame the people to join
to NPA and carry forward the armed revolution to even greater heights.

The Party calls on the broad masses of workers, peasants, youth, women, the
religious, professionals, patriotic businessmen and other democratic groups and
individuals to unite and resist the Duterte regime’s fascist terror. In the face
of Duterte’s rampage and attacks on all fronts, there is urgency for all to come
together in a broad united front against fascism and state terrorism. It can
enjoin as well the patriotic-minded soldiers and police to refuse becoming
cannon fodder and stand against the fascist orders of Duterte and the AFP and
PNP echelon.

The Party calls on the Filipino people to wage mass struggles against Duterte’s
fascist and puppet regime. They must not allow their basic rights and freedoms
to be taken away. They must continue to organize and mobilize and push forward
with their democratic struggles. They should mount bigger and bigger mass
demonstrations in order to draw in the people in their large numbers.

By unleashing an all-out war of suppression and aiming to establish a fascist
dictatorship, Duterte is stupidly ignoring the lessons of history which his idol
Marcos learned through his downfall: No amount of fascist brutality will silence
and defeat the people’s determination to resist and be free.