New People's Army Anniversary Statement

PREPARE AGAINST FURTHER US MILITARY INTERVENTION,

INTENSIFY AND ADVANCE THE PEOPLE'S WAR!

Message on the 33rd Anniversary of the New People's Army 

 



By Armando Liwanag, Chairman

Central Committee

Communist Party of the Philippines

March 29, 2002 

 



On the 33rd anniversary of the establishment of the New People's Army 
(NPA), we salute all the Red commanders and fighters and pay tribute 
to the revolutionary martyrs and heroes for all their hard struggle 
and sacrifices in the service of the people. 



The New People's Army today stands as the brilliant revolutionary 
instrument of the proletariat and the people for seizing political 
power and defending the democratic organs of political power. The 
people's army ensures the development of the people's democratic 
government in the countryside even while the reactionaries are still 
entrenched in the urban areas.


The Filipino people fought for more than three centuries to liberate 
themselves from Spanish colonial domination. They have fought US 
imperialist domination and the local reactionaries for more than one 
century and will continue to do so. 



In the last 33 years, they have nurtured and developed their own 
revolutionary army. This is an army outstanding in frustrating the 
attempts of US imperialism and the local reactionaries to suppress 
the revolution. It has become one among the best people's armies in 
the world. 



I. Victories of the New People's Army  



We congratulate the New People's Army for all the political, military 
and organizational victories it has won under the leadership of the 
Communist Party of the Philippines in the people's democratic 
revolution against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes of 
big compradors and landlords. 



These victories have been the result of the Second Great 
Rectification Movement and the reaffirmation of the general line of 
new-democratic revolution through protracted people's war against the 
semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. The perspective is to 
establish and build socialism in the Philippines until mankind has 
defeated imperialism and reached the ultimate goal of communism.  



The rectification movement has frustrated and defeated the 
counterrevolutionary offensives of the imperialists and the local 
reactionaries, the incorrigible "Left" and Right opportunists, the 
revisionists and liquidationists and all sorts of other petty-
bourgeois anticommunists, including bourgeois liberals, populists, 
Trotskyites and so on. 



The few incorrigible opportunists and revisionists and the 
unrepentant criminals, especially those responsible for bloody witch 
hunts and grave malversation of funds, have been removed from the 
revolutionary movement and some of them have exposed themselves as 
traitors to the revolutionary cause by openly becoming agents of the 
reactionary government, especially in psy-war and intelligence 
offices. 


Thanks to the rectification movement, the people and the 
revolutionary forces have won resounding victories in all forms of 
struggle, legal and illegal, nonarmed and armed. The most significant 
of the victories are in further building the people's army and waging 
the people's war. The advances of the people's army have guaranteed 
the advances of the entire revolutionary mass movement.  



In pursuing the current stage of the strategic defensive, the NPA is 
carrying out extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis 
of an ever widening and deepening mass base. The integral combination 
of the revolutionary armed struggle, land reform and mass-base 
building (including building the organs of political power and the 
mass organizations) has laid a strong antifeudal basis for the new-
democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat. 



The total number of Red fighters runs into thousands, equivalent to 
several regiments or brigades. It has increased by 222 percent from 
1980 to 2001 and by 53 percent from 1994 to 2001. The number of high-
powered rifles also run into thousands and has increased by 197 
percent from 1980 to 2001.  



The ratio of Red fighters to high-powered rifles is 1.5 to one 
(1.5:1). The full-time Red fighters of the NPA are augmented by the 
militia units, acting as the local police force of the revolutionary 
government and serving as the auxiliary and reserve force of the 
people's army. They are further augmented by self-defense units, 
consisting of all able-bodied men and women in the mass 
organizations. 



To exaggerate its claim of victory over the people's army in the 
second half of the 1980s, the enemy bloats the number of Red fighters 
with high-powered rifles to 25,000 then. This figure is false. The 
NPA had no more than 6000 rifles in 1985 before any accounting of the 
self-destructive effects of Kampanyang Ahos in Mindanao could be 
made. 



The fighting capacity of the full-time Red fighters ought to have 
been augmented by the local militia, self-defense units and the mass 
base in general. Instead, it was undermined by the "strategic 
counteroffensive" line, the "Red Area-White Area" line in Mindanao 
and other "Left" opportunist currents in various regions at various 
times. 



The growth of the NPA is necessarily related to the growth of the 
Party. Latest figures show that the Party has increased by 235 
percent from 1980 to 2001 and by 129 percent from 1994 to 2001. For 
every Red fighter there are 3.5 Party members who are located within 
and beyond the guerrilla fronts. 



The Party has developed the mass movement in both rural and urban 
areas. From the rural mass movement, the NPA has drawn its 
predominantly peasant Red fighters. From the urban mass movement, the 
NPA has attracted the workers and educated youth to serve in its 
ranks and the people in the countryside. 



The NPA is now operating in 128 guerrilla fronts. These cover 823 or 
around 54 percent of the total number of Philippine towns and cities. 
They number 8500 barrios or 18 percent of the total number of 
Philippine barrios. The number of barrios where the NPA operates has 
increased by 71 percent from 1980 to 2001 and by 28 percent from 1994 
to 2001. 



Membership in mass organizations (organized mass base) has increased 
by 71 percent from 1980 to 2001 and by 235 percent from 1994 to 2001. 
However, there is a crying need to increase membership in mass 
organizations relative to the unorganized supporters and 
sympathizers. There are several times more mass supporters and 
sympathizers than those who have become members of the mass 
organizations. 



On the average, two platoons of the NPA operate in every guerrilla 
front. Older guerrilla fronts have at least three platoons, while 
newer ones have less. A platoon covers on the average the scale of at 
least three municipalities and the squad covers an average of eleven 
barrios. 



In a guerrilla front, there is usually a platoon as center of gravity 
and one or more platoons in a more dispersed mode. The platoon 
serving as center of gravity is relatively concentrated, so that it 
can carry out effectively the tasks assigned to it by the guerrilla 
front command. 



In tactical offensives, the main guerrilla unit can augment its armed 
strength and mastery of the terrain by combining with the more 
dispersed secondary guerrilla units. The size and frequency of the 
tactical offensives have taken into account the need for increasing 
the armed strength of the NPA and for expanding and consolidating the 
mass base beyond the capacity of the enemy to destroy it.  



The most consolidated barrios have regular and elected organs of 
democratic political power on the basis of full-fledged revolutionary 
mass organizations. The less consolidated barrios have barrio 
organizing committees as provisional appointive organs of political 
power and have people's organizing committees and organizing groups. 
In barrios along the path of expansion of the people's army, 
underground contacts, liaison groups and organizing groups are 
nurtured and developed. 



The key campaign for land reform has been vigorously and successfully 
carried out in the consolidated areas. Other campaigns include those 
for mass education, developing production in agriculture and side 
occupations, looking after the health of the people, promoting 
cultural activities, training the militia and self-defense units, 
settling disputes among the masses and so on. 



The people cherish the people's army. They give their best sons and 
daughters to serve in this army. They make contributions for its 
maintenance and expansion. They assist the families of the Red 
fighters. Their willingness and capability to support the people's 
army increase when they benefit from land reform and other mass 
campaigns.  



The NPA undertakes production for a portion of its needs in addition 
to the contributions made by the masses. The need of the NPA for 
firearms and other war materiel is met through successful tactical 
offensives against the enemy forces. The NPA is also the effective 
instrument for enforcing the taxation policy of the people's 
democratic government. 



More than ever before the New People's Army has raised the level of 
its revolutionary consciousness and fighting capabilities. Never 
before in the history of the Filipino people has there been a 
revolutionary army as resolute, resourceful and vigorous as the New 
People's Army in waging the people's war to complete the new-
democratic revolution.  



The New People's Army has gained rich experience and armed strength 
in people's war. It is well-prepared against the military campaigns 
of suppression carried out by the local reactionaries as well as 
against direct US military intervention. It stands ready to wage a 
war of national liberation against a US war of aggression.


II. Favorable World Conditions 



The objective conditions in the world are exceedingly favorable for 
the advance of the Philippine revolution. The US policy bias of "free 
market" globalization has proven bankrupt. It has aggravated the 
problems that the imperialists could not solve through its Keynesian 
policy bias up to the late 1970s. In a matter of two decades, since 
1980, the current neoliberal policy bias of "free market 
globalization has brought the world capitalist system to the worst 
crisis since the Great Depression. 



At an unprecedented rate, it has overconcentrated and overcentralized 
finance capital in the chief imperialist country, the US. And yet 
this country is now wracked by the crisis of overproduction in all 
types of goods and by financial meltdowns. From the bursting of 
the "high-tech bubble" to the biggest ever corporate bankruptcy of 
Enron, the US finance oligarchy has been exposed as a monstrous 
swindler, stealing the pension funds and savings of multitudes of 
people.  



The collapse of the US "new economy" in the last two years has 
resulted in a contagion of economic and financial destruction at the 
expense of the proletariat and the people in the US itself and 
throughout the world. The longrunning crisis in Japan has worsened. 
The Euro zone is also now afflicted by a severe crisis. The most 
victimized are the people in the third world and the former Soviet-
bloc countries. 



The Bush ruling clique is unable to offer any solution to the 
worsening crisis other than giving more doses of the 
same "neoliberal" poison, topped by the scheme for massive increase 
in military production and in public spending for the military and 
for home defense. The US has become even more paranoid and bellicose 
after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the 
Pentagon. 



Under the pretext of waging a global war against terrorism, the US 
has adopted the Patriot Act and other repressive laws and measures 
and has pushed similar fascist laws throughout the world. US 
propaganda is trying to whip up and sustain a hysteria aimed at 
promoting fascism and supporting US wars of aggression. 



The grave crisis of the US and world capitalist system inflicts 
terrible suffering on the broad masses of the people. But the very 
escalation of oppression and exploitation drives the people to carry 
out more mass protest actions and revolutionary resistance. 



Four major contradictions are intensifying at various rates. These 
are between the imperialist powers and the oppressed nations and 
peoples, between the imperialist powers and the countries or states 
that assert independence, among the imperialist powers themselves and 
between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the proletariat in imperialist 
countries. 



Under the misleading slogan of "free market" globalization, the 
global market has actually shrunk in the last two decades. Direct 
investments and trade has become more and more concentrated among the 
US, Western Europe and Japan. Capital has flowed from the global 
economic hinterland to these centers of capitalism, chiefly to the 
US, in the form of profit remittance and debt service. 



A massive destruction of the forces of production has occurred in 
Asia, Africa, Latin America and in the retrogressive countries of the 
former Soviet bloc. These have long been squeezed by the crisis of 
overproduction in raw materials and basic industrial products and 
crushed by mounting foreign debt and further on by speculation in 
currencies, stocks and bonds. 



The few "newly industrializing economies" of the 1970s as well as the 
few "emerging markets" of the 1990s (engaged in the production of low 
value-added semimanufactures for export or simply selling consumer 
manufactures from the imperialist countries to the upper 10 percent 
of society) have gone into economic collapse and stagnation.  



More than 80 percent of humanity are in the third world and in the 
retrogressive countries of the former Soviet-bloc. They bear the main 
brunt of mass unemployment, extremely low incomes, heavy indirect 
taxes and crushing debt burden. They suffer the worst conditions of 
poverty because of oppression and exploitation by the imperialists 
and local reactionaries. They are now increasingly launching mass 
protests and waging revolutionary resistance. 



Revolutionary armed struggles are raging in Columbia, India, Mexico, 
Nepal, Palestine, Peru, Philippines, Turkey and elsewhere. However, 
in certain countries, reactionary cliques engage in internecine 
warfare and raise the most reactionary slogans?chauvinist, religious 
fundamentalist, tribalistic or ethnocentric, racist and the like. 
Where they arise, the proletarian revolutionaries can take advantage 
of the bitter split among the reactionaries to advance the 
revolutionary movement. 



During the Cold War, the US armed and used the most reactionary 
forces in order to attack the revolutionary forces and people. Some 
of these reactionary forces, especially certain religious 
fundamentalist groups, have now turned against the US as the big 
devil after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The US accuses 
them of being responsible for the September 11 attacks.  



The US is suspicious of or averse to certain states. One point in 
common among these states is their being assertive or the tendency of 
being assertive of national independence in varying degrees. Among 
these are China, North Korea (DPRK), Cuba, Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia 
(in the 1990s), Afghanistan (under Taliban rule), Iran and Syria. 



Sometimes such states take an overt anti-imperialist position as a 
matter of principle or as a matter of practicality in the face of 
domestic popular demands. At other times though, such states are 
openly interested in seeking accommodation with the imperialist 
powers in certain respects, especially in economic and trade 
relations.  



In recent times, particularly after the end of the Cold War, the 
biggest wars of aggression have been launched against Iraq, 
Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. One point in common among the aforesaid 
US wars of aggression is the drive of the US to tighten its control 
over sources and supply routes of oil and gas.  



In the wake of the September 11 attacks and what appears to be 
success in the US war of aggression in Afghanistan, the US is now 
openly threatening other states under the guise of combating global 
terrorism and preempting the use of nuclear, biological and chemical 
weapons against the US. 



The US has several lists of potential target-states for preemptive 
attacks. One such list is the so-called "axis of evil" which includes 
Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Another is the list of 11 states 
(including the Philippines) which are supposedly either unwilling or 
incapable of eliminating terrorism. Still another is the list of 
states that either have nuclear weapons (China) or have the potential 
of having them (North Korea, Iraq, Iran and so on) and supposedly are 
likely to use them against the US or US allies. 



The US has so far managed to form coalitions among the imperialist 
powers to attack states targeted for aggression. But the US is 
increasingly taking positions and actions unilaterally. The 
unilateralism of the US today reflects the increasing contradictions 
among the imperialist powers. 



It is in the nature of the imperialist powers to align themselves 
against a common enemy (like the peoples and nations that they 
oppress and exploit, anti-imperialist states and socialist states) or 
realign themselves against each other as on the eve of World Wars I 
and II in the 20th century in the fight for economic territory and 
spheres of influence, in the struggle for a redivision of the world. 



The current extent of the crisis of the world capitalist system is 
already bringing to the fore the economic competition and political 
rivalries of the imperialist powers. The imperialist pretenses and 
the petty-bourgeois illusion of a borderless and stateless global 
economy under the banner of neoliberalism are being negated by the 
protectionist policies and acts of the chief imperialist protagonist, 
the US itself. 



The political contradictions among the imperialist powers will 
further surface and come to the fore when the polarization of 
economic and social conditions sharpens in each of the imperialist 
countries and when pressures rise abruptly from conflicts in 
semicolonies, dependent countries and independent-minded countries. 
The monopoly bourgeoisie prepares the way for war by fomenting and 
using chauvinism, racism and fascism to deflect the people from the 
anti-imperialist and class struggles or to rationalize the brutal 
suppression of the people.  



The contradiction between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the 
proletariat is simmering in imperialist countries as the economic 
crisis worsens. The working class is being forced to accept high 
levels of unemployment, loss of income, erosion of hard-won social 
benefits and the assault on trade union and other democratic rights. 
Thus increasingly, the workers are driven to fight back and engage in 
class struggle, in the form of strikes and other forms of mass action 
in concert with the nonproletarian masses.  



We have witnessed the cumulative growth of general strikes and mass 
protest actions in the imperialist countries since the 1989-91 period 
when the imperialists celebrated the disintegration of the Soviet 
Union and the revisionist regimes and the great reduction of 
unionized workers from 1945 to 1990.  



But now, as a consequence of the massive destruction of productive 
forces even in imperialist countries, in the form of rising levels of 
unemployment, bankruptcies and production cuts, employed and 
unemployed workers, the women, youth and immigrants at the bottom 
jobs are in deep social discontent. The most recent convergence of 
two million people in Rome from different parts of Italy to protest 
neoliberal antipeople policies is so far the largest demonstration of 
revolutionary potential in an industrialized capitalist country. 



The monopoly bourgeois magnates and politicians cannot meet today in 
any imperialist country without arousing mass protest actions. 
Meetings of the Group of 8, the OECD, European Union, IMF, World 
Bank, WTO and other similar imperialist dominated entities have 
engendered mass protest actions. The Battle in Seattle in November 
1999 continues to inspire people to undertake mass actions against 
imperialist globalization. 



The class struggle between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the 
proletariat in the imperialist countries is bound to intensify as the 
oppression and exploitation of the proletariat increases. It is bound 
to interact positively with the revolutionary struggles of anti-
imperialist struggle of the oppressed nations and peoples. All the 
revolutionary struggles in both developed and underdeveloped 
countries are bound to gain more room for growth and maneuver as the 
imperialist powers struggle against each other and as they also find 
themselves at odds with countries and states assertive of national 
independence. 



Amidst the grave crisis of the world capitalist system, which 
features chiefly the crisis of the US, threats made by the US 
imperialists and their puppets in the Philippines to use US military 
might against the revolutionary forces and the people in the 
Philippines are futile. The Filipino people see through such threats 
and recognize the rottenness of the world capitalist system and the 
domestic ruling system and the vulnerability of these as targets of 
revolutionary struggle. 



III. Favorable Domestic Conditions 



The Philippines is a semicolonial and semifeudal part of the world 
capitalist system. It is an impoverished, preindustrial country. The 
overwhelming majority of the people live on less than two US dollars 
per day and 40 percent on less than 75 US cents per day. More than 85 
percent live in abject poverty. As a consequence of the crisis of the 
world capitalist system, the domestic ruling system of the big 
compradors and landlords is far more severely crisis-stricken than 
the industrial capitalist countries. 



The shift from the Keynesian policy bias to the neoliberal one under 
the auspices of the US and such multilateral agencies like the IMF, 
World Bank and WTO has meant less official concessional loans. The 
thrust is to let foreign direct investments take over profitable 
lines of business and let loose foreign private lending to benefit 
the foreign monopolies and the big compradors.


Since the late 1970s, the raw-material exports of the Philippines 
have been yielding less and less income for the country. Since the 
1990s foreign orders for one type of low value-added semimanufactures 
after another (garments in 1994 and electronic assemblies in 1996) 
have fallen. Trade deficits have been countervailed by remitted 
earnings of overseas contract workers and by increasing injections of 
foreign commercial loans. 



The Philippine economy has not recovered from the 1997 financial 
crisis of Southeast Asia, which resulted from the overproduction of 
semimanufactures for export, excessive private construction of 
offices and residential towers and unrestricted luxury imports and 
outflow building of foreign exchange. 



The contribution of agriculture to gross national product is usually 
undervalued by the reactionary government. But now it is being 
overestimated in order to come up with a fantasy figure of 3.7 
percent growth. In fact, import liberalization in agriculture has 
undercut and undermined agricultural production for domestic 
consumption as well as for export. 



The Macapagal-Arroyo regime clings to the policy bias of "free 
market" globalization, dictated by the US and the multilateral 
agencies (IMF, World Bank and WTO), despite the devastating effects 
of such a policy. Denationalization, privatization, deregulation and 
liberalization have weakened the economy and likewise the puppet 
state. The latter is reduced to being a mere tax collector amidst 
economic and social ruin. 



The budgetary deficit is growing. Social spending for education, 
health, housing and infrastructure is being cut down as debt service 
and military spending are given higher priority. 



In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the US has easily 
manipulated the Macapagal-Arroyo regime to deck itself out as the 
most rabid campaigner for the US policy of aggression and military 
intervention under the pretext of waging a global assault on 
terrorism. 



In exchange for promises of more US direct investments and some 
measly amount of US military and economic assistance, the regime has 
gone so far as to allow US combat forces to engage in combat 
operations in the Philippines. US combat forces have moved into the 
Basilan combat zone, under the pretext of fighting the Abu Sayyaf 
bandit gang.  



The regime is trying to prepare public opinion for the entry of more 
and more US troops under the guise of an indefinite series of joint 
military exercises. The highest officials of the regime have in fact 
threatened to use combined US and puppet forces against the New 
People's Army and the revolutionary forces of the Bangsamoro.  



The Macapagal-Arroyo ruling clique has contempt for the people and 
views them as lacking in respect for their own national sovereignty 
and the territorial integrity of their own country. It considers as 
very popular Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo's pro-imperialism and 
anticommunism. 



It thereby hopes to remain in power up to and beyond 2004 by playing 
the role of rabid puppet to the US and submitting to all its 
dictates, especially in matters concerning the military. Thus, the 
clique is now increasingly under the control and manipulation of 
rabidly pro-US military officers. 



As their number increases, the US military forces in the Philippines 
are bound to suffer casualties and to inflict the wanton destruction 
of Filipino lives and property. They are also bound to commit rape 
and other outrageous crimes. They are a time bomb that can explode in 
the face of the regime. 



Under the direction of US military advisers, military and police 
psywar and campaigns of suppression are escalating against the 
revolutionary forces and people in and outside the guerrilla fronts. 
Even the legal activists and mass organizations of the national 
democratic movement are being subjected to various physical attacks, 
including kidnapping, torture and murder. Human rights violations are 
rampant. 



Following the footsteps of the Estrada regime, the Macapagal-Arroyo 
regime is blatantly pursuing an all-out war policy against the 
revolutionary forces led by the Communist Party of the Philippines 
and represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines 
in the peace negotiations. 



It has brazenly demanded that "back-channel talks" replace formal 
peace negotiations conducted by the negotiating panels. The sole 
purpose of the regime is to dictate the terms of capitulation to the 
NDFP. It is talking and acting arrogantly in a vain attempt to cover 
up its increasing weakness, isolation and desperation.  



The economic and social crisis of the ruling system is generating an 
unprecedented political crisis. The bitter strife among the 
reactionaries in business and politics and in the military is 
sharpening. 



Since the late 1960's, the inability of the reactionary classes to 
rule in the old way has deepened and aggravated. The fascist 
dictatorship of Marcos was a desperate attempt to preempt the rise of 
the revolutionary forces. But it merely served to put the entire 
ruling system in jeopardy and incite the growth of the armed 
revolutionary movement. 



The US and the local reactionaries thought that the anti-
authoritarian overthrow of Marcos would conjure the illusion of 
restoring democracy. But the chronic socioeconomic and political 
crisis of the system has worsened from one regime to another due to 
puppetry, corruption and repression. 



The stagnation of the semifeudal economy, the ever-rising trade 
deficits, the rapid increase of local and foreign public debt and the 
ever-increasing resort to high-interest commercial loans have limited 
the amount of loot for division among the reactionary political 
factions.  



Many among the military and police officers are factionalized by 
conflicting political loyalties and by running competing criminal 
syndicates involved in kidnap-for-ransom, smuggling, illegal drugs, 
prostitution and gambling. They are emboldened and abetted by their 
political superiors and patrons. They consider their salaries too 
small, even as they get salary increases more often than the civil 
bureaucrats. 



Like Marcos, Estrada was removed through political mass action rather 
than by any stipulated constitutional and legal method, i.e., 
resignation, impeachment or periodic elections. The unconstitutional 
and illegal position of the current regime merely becomes more 
obvious as it stresses the point that it has been put in power not by 
direct action of the sovereign people but by the military, the church 
and a hyperactive supreme court.  



Fearing that the broad masses of the people will take action against 
it, the regime has solicited statements from ex-presidents Aquino and 
Ramos, Cardinal Sin and other entities that they are opposed to any 
mass movement to remove an incumbent president.


The regime is having nightmares over the call of the Party for 
developing a broad united front against it as the current enemy. The 
most rabid reactionaries are also frightened by the statement of the 
Party that the revolutionary forces and people can accumulate 
strength by overthrowing one ruling clique after another until they 
gain enough strength to overthrow the entire ruling system, in 
concert with a people's army that has reached the strategic stage of 
the general offensive. 



Even if the current regime were to survive up to 2004, because there 
are not enough unstable and temporary allies from reactionary ranks 
to realize a broad united front that can overthrow it, the 
revolutionary movement would still be in an advantageous position 
because it would gain more merit and initiative in opposing a regime 
that continues to stink.  



The contradictions among the reactionaries will persist and sharpen. 
It is necessary to persevere in developing a broad united front 
against the regime, no matter how near or far in time is the 
overthrow of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. The efforts at building a 
broad united front can facilitate the defense and advance of the 
revolutionary forces. It is of utmost importance that the basic 
revolutionary forces strengthen themselves in order to assure and 
increase their independence and initiative in the ever developing 
broad united front. 



While the Macapagal-Arroyo regime continues to stink by being 
subservient to the US, by aggravating the economic and social crisis 
and by being corrupt, deceptive and repressive, the Party coordinates 
the revolutionary armed struggle and the united front in order to 
deliver lethal blows on the regime. 



IV. Intensify and Advance the People's War 



Because they have a people's army, the Filipino people have the 
instrument for advancing their national and democratic rights and 
interests. They have the prospect of liberating themselves from the 
clutches of US imperialism and the exploiting classes and winning 
great victories, from the new-democratic stage to the socialist stage 
of the Philippine revolution. 



The US and the local reactionaries unwittingly do a service to the 
Filipino people whenever they viciously and ferociously attack the 
revolutionary forces and the people and threaten to unleash further 
attacks. 



The Party, the people's army, the united front, the organs of 
political power and mass organizations respond to the armed 
counterrevolution with armed revolution. They raise the level of 
their fighting will and capabilities against escalating enemy 
attacks, including the threat of further US military intervention and 
aggression. 



As in Vietnam and the whole of Indochina where the US war of 
aggression was defeated, we must be ready to use the social and 
physical terrain of the Philippines to inflict severe casualties on 
the invading US forces and to take punitive action against US 
economic and related interests. 



We must do everything to uphold the national sovereignty of the 
Filipino people and Philippine territorial integrity. We try to 
prevent US military intervention and aggression. But if we cannot 
prevent it, we must fight well and realize by a war of national 
liberation the long-delayed justice for the 1.4 million Filipinos 
murdered by the US when it conquered the Philippines from 1899 to 
1916 and for the countless Filipinos victimized by exploitation and 
plunder by the US for so long. 



The revolutionary forces and people have never feared the military 
might of the US, including extensive US military bases in the time of 
the Marcos fascist dictatorship, because in the first place they have 
the New People's Army, led by the Party and pursuing the strategic 
line of protracted people's war. 



The NPA has already proven that it can preserve and increase its 
strength against such tremendous odds as the fascist dictatorship of 
Marcos, the existence of US military bases and the rising supplies of 
weapons from the US from 1972 to 1986. We have more strategic 
contempt than before for US imperialism because it is more crisis-
stricken and overextended and for the local reactionaries because 
their system is more bankrupt and weaker.  



The high-tech military power of the US is effective for threatening 
and actually destroying fixed and exposed structures of its foreign-
government targets. But it is ineffective against a protracted 
people's war, as carried out victoriously in China, Indochina and 
elsewhere. To seriously fight the Filipino people, the US has to send 
more and more combat troops to the Philippine ground and let them 
take the risk of suffering casualties. 



The Party and the people wield the NPA as the principal instrument 
for defeating the enemy, for building the mass base in the 
countryside, for encouraging all the mass organizations and mass 
campaigns for the social benefit of the people and for guaranteeing 
the development of the people's revolutionary self-government through 
the democratic organs of political power. 



The Red fighters must be recruited from the local militia and mass 
organizations. The politico-military training of the Red commanders 
and fighters must be carried out systematically. The personnel needed 
for the various departments of the NPA must also be increased and 
trained as the people's war expands and intensifies.  



The NPA must deliver lethal blows against the US imperialists and the 
puppet military and police forces, whatever extent that the US 
intervenes or aggresses against the people,. The way for the NPA to 
strengthen itself is to wipe out the enemy forces and seize firearms 
and other war materiel from them. 



Right now, the Party should put forward a general plan and issue 
guidelines for the NPA in guerrilla fronts to increase its armed 
strength through tactical offensives such as arrests, raids and 
ambushes.  



The NPA must continue to wage extensive and intensive guerrilla 
warfare on an ever-widening and deepening mass base. Under the 
centralized leadership of the Party, there must be decentralized 
operations of the people's army. 



The NPA must wage only those tactical offensives that it can be sure 
of winning. It must increase its armed strength through tactical 
offensives and at the same time develop a mass base that is so wide 
and deep that the enemy would be incapable of destroying. 



To consolidate and expand the mass base, the Party and the people's 
army must develop the local activists for further arousing, 
organizing and mobilizing the masses. The number of Party cadres and 
members can never be enough for revolutionary work, unless the local 
Party cadres, mass activists and the masses augment their efforts and 
work self-reliantly. 



As the people's war intensifies and advances, the need for Party 
cadres and members who are workers and educated youth rises in the 
people's army and the countryside. The Party cadres must motivate and 
assign such cadres to the countryside from the cities. Someday these 
cadres from the cities will facilitate the seizure of the cities upon 
the success of the strategic line of encircling the cities from the 
countryside.  



The Party is developing and coordinating all forms of struggle, even 
as it considers the armed struggle as the principal form for seizing 
political power. All forms of struggle are needed to put into play 
all kinds of forces for fighting and defeating the enemy. 



The Party hopes that by continuing to build the NPA and wage people's 
war other peoples in the world are encouraged to intensify and to 
wage armed revolution and other forms of struggle. The exploitation 
and oppression of the peoples of the world have become so severe and 
so intolerable under conditions of "free market" globalization and 
imperialist wars of aggression. Thus, armed revolution will spread 
faster than ever before. Socioeconomic ruination, political turmoil 
and wars of aggression are the prelude to social revolution. #  

 

 

 

 

 





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