Negros Island Regional Party Committee
December 26, 2023
The Negros Island Regional Party Committee (NIRPC) offers felicitations to all Party cadres and members on the island, all Red commanders and fighters of the five guerrilla fronts under the Apolinario Gatmaitan Command-New People’s Army Negros Island Regional Operations Command (AGC-NPA), allied forces of the National Democratic Front (NDF)-Negros and the entire oppressed and exploited Negrosanons on the 55th anniversary of the reestablishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for their courageous participation and contribution in the life and death struggle to overcome the counterrevolutionary campaign of the inutile and corrupt US-Marcos Jr regime this year.
We also fully raise our right fists as symbol of our Red and militant salutation to all revolutionary martyrs and heroes who sacrificed their precious lives to carry out revolutionary tasks which gives even more meaning to our momentous celebration today, especially the martyred NIRPC secretary Rogelio Posadas (Ka Cocoy). Our revolutionary martyrs and heroes bravely faced the fascist enemy without giving up their principles and oaths to the Party until the last beat of their hearts. We also honor the revolutionary masses who have given their lives to advance the people’s democratic revolution and armed struggle.
We celebrate the Party’s 55th anniversary full of revolutionary optimism because the victories we have reaped in the ideological, political, and organizational fields despite the storms we have confronted this year. Along with this, we also draw our weaknesses and mistakes to learn meaningful lessons that will serve as guiding light to advance the protracted people’s war to greater heights. We are resolute in carrying out our revolutionary tasks, further overcoming our weaknesses, and bravely and militantly facing greater challenges in the following years.
I. The Negrosanon masses are enraged by the US-Marcos II regime
The semifeudal and semi-colonial system continues to decline under the reign of the illegitimate US-Marcos II regime. Ferdinand Marcos Jr, like his dictator father, is an all-out puppet of US imperialism. This is evident in the full implementation of the US-imposed neoliberal policies of privatization, deregulation, and liberalization. In fact, the Marcos-Romualdez clique also plans to change the Philippine constitution to further open up our economy to foreign interests.
The US also seized the issue of defending Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea to suppress China, its rival imperialist nation. It wants to hasten the defeat of the CPP-NPA-NDFP in order to utilize the reactionary armed forces in the intensifying inter-imperialist conflict. However, the US knows that historically intensifying imperialist contradiction is a fertile ground that will generate the resurgence of the proletarian revolution worldwide.
The split of the Marcos and Duterte alliance is also due to the conflict between their imperialist masters. Marcos’ rejection of China’s projects wherein the Duterte’s have huge kickbacks, in fact also favors US investors and complicit nations like Japan and Australia. There is also the internal competition between the two camps to grab wealth and power. Both are engaging in political maneuvers such as allowing the International Criminal Court to investigate Duterte’s drug war and moving to destabilize the Marcos administration, especially as the 2025 elections are approaching.
Negros Island reflects the Philippine semifeudal and semi-colonial system. Its economy remains backward, heavily reliant on the monocrop sugar industry. The over 330,000 farm workers in Negros, including almost 5,000 sakadas (contract laborers) from other provinces, engage in organized sugar cane production but still use machetes, bolos, carabaos, and other backward implements. If there are haciendas that utilize tractors and other mechanized equipment, they are only a few and the entire production process is not fully mechanized. Majority of sugarcane workers are tied to the oppressive pakyaw system, very low wages, no benefits, oppressive working conditions, and contractualization. In Negros sugar mills, an estimated 15,000 workers (62.5% in the entire country) also suffer from low wages. Many of them are contractual workers and have no benefits.
The vast haciendas with more than 220,000 hectares in the entire island and 13 sugar mills are controlled by big compradors such as the Tan, Chan, Lopez, and Gokongwei families in connivance with traditional haciendero families like the Lacsons, Marañons, Ledesmas, Zaycos, Peñas, Alvarezes, Tevezes and others. They are also big traders who sell sugar to local markets and for export. They engage, as well, in ariendo (land lease) and usury to further grab the farmers’ land. They are almost 15% of sugarcane producers, however they monopolize 61% of sugarcane fields. In other words, the entire sugar industry is in the hands of big comprador bourgeoisies and bureaucrat-landlords.
In contrast to small planters (those who own five hectares or less) account for over 85% of the producers, but own only 39% of the land. Small planters are burdened by skyrocketing oil and fertilizer prices in addition to the ongoing El Niño as they struggle to recover from sugarcane production.
The overflow of imported sugar in the country resulting in a severe crisis in the sugar industry is a consequence of the neoliberal policy of agricultural liberalization. Although big planters complain that they are going bankrupt in current conditions, in reality, their big profits have only marginally decreased. The small planters are the ones really affected, buried in debt due to rising costs of production. Most of the small planters went bankrupt, lost their land, and became farm workers. Their state of livelihood is also lowered because of being tied to huge debts, ariendo, prenda (mortgages), and other semifeudal modes of exploitation. The situation of farm workers is even worse, as they compensate for the profit loss of hacienderos through severely low wages, no benefits, harsh working conditions, and extremely high prices of commodities.
Due to the sugar crisis, big landlords implemented land use conversion (converting sugarcane fields to commercial use, solar farms, real estate, ecotourism, etc), crop conversion (instead of sugarcane, crops are replaced with cash crops in-demand in the global capitalist market like coffee, cacao, banana, palm oil, etc) while continuing to squeeze profits from the sugar industry.
Big compradors and landlords are still discontented with monopolizing the lands in Negros Island in cahoots with local politicians and reactionary government agencies. In Negros Occidental, according to reactionary government data, there is a total of 235,725 hectares of land that should be distributed through bogus land reform. Currently, there are still 30,311 hectares of undistributed land. At first glance, only a small percentage remains undistributed, but behind that, the distributed lands no longer belong to Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARB). Just in 2013 in Negros Occidental, 70% of lands owned by ARBs have already returned to the control of landlords.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has worsened the situation when it implemented a World Bank-backed program called Support to Parcelization of Land for Individual Titling (SPLIT), and the New Agrarian Emancipation Act which aims to hasten land grabbing of farmers’ lands. The National Greening Program (NGP), Integrated Forest Management Agreement (IFMA), and Socialized Industrial Forest Management Agreement (SIFMA) under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) are additional means to monopolize land.
This year, the Consunji family, the eighth wealthiest family in the country, announced their investment on a palm oil plantation in Candoni, Negros Occidental that covers 6,000 hectares of land through converting forest lands into a commercial plantation under the IFMA. Meanwhile, in Santa Catalina, Siaton and Basay in Negros Oriental, Midan Corporation, a Korean company, also conducted mining explorations.
Under these circumstances on Negros Island, farmers of rice, copra, banana, and other crops are adversely affected, as well. Feudal and semifeudal exploitation has worsened in the countryside which has prolonged the so-called tiempo muerto (dead season) throughout the year. Hunger, unemployment, and low wages force farmers and farm workers to the cities in search for work. However, they encounter an incomparable crisis in the cities.
Due to US imperialism’s desire to seize the four corners of the country for its interests, projects are being implemented like reclamation of coasts in Negros to establish ports, big buildings that will accommodate offices and other foreign needs, and shopping malls and department stores that serve as markets of surplus products from capitalist countries like the US, China, and Japan. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies will also be set up here, which is another form of exploitation of the urban petty-bourgeoisie. In Negros Occidental, Mayor Albee Benitez spearheads the plan to make Bacolod City a “Super City” which involves reclaiming around 2,000 hectares of the shores. Meanwhile, Mayor Felipe Remollo’s similar “Smart City” and Pantawan 2 and 3 reclamation project in Dumaguete City spans over 700 hectares.
There is also the entry of big businesses here in Negros for the privatization of water and electricity like the companies of the Villars, Razons, and Aboitizes. Currently, water service in Bacolod City, Himamaylan City, and Cadiz City in Negros Occidental is privatized under the Villar family’s Primewater. The Central Negros Electric Cooperative (CENECO) was also privatized under the Razon family through their company More Power. The World Bank-imposed Jeepney Modernization Program is also being implemented by the US-Marcos regime. This will affect drivers and small operators all over the country, including here in Negros.
Water resource in Negros Occidental is also put at risk by the Bulk Water Project, more accurately called mega dam project, of Gov. Eugenio Lacson in Malogo and Imbang River in northern Negros, in connivance with the US Agency for International Development (US-AID) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) which will be funded by big compradors like the Aboitizes. Instead of solving the water crisis, this project will have a more serious impact on the environment and the people’s livelihoods just like the mega dam projects implemented in other parts of the country.
Extreme poverty, hunger, joblessness, slave-like work conditions, demolitions, floods, lack of social services like education and health, and many more issues are currently being suffered by the people of Negros. According to the data of the reactionary government, nearly 25% (or one in every four families) of over 4.6 million Negrosanons are the poorest families on the island this year. Negrosanon youths are also affected. About 6.94% or 23,435 students were unable to continue their education this year in Negros Occidental. In Bacolod City, more than 11,000 were also unable to enrol.
Big compradors and bureaucrat-landlords utilize their fascist instruments here on the island, the Armed Forces of the Philippines 3rd Infantry Division (AFP-3rd ID), Philippine National Police (PNP), and National Task Force (NTF)-Elcac to enforce de facto martial law. It implements with impunity focused military operations and the Retooled Community Support Programs (RCSP) which are a fascist legacy of the US-Duterte regime. Currently, seven battalions of the Philippine Army under the 302nd and 303rd Brigade and three battalions of special PNP forces (Special Action Force, Regional Mobile Force and Regional Public Safety) are deployed all over the island spreading violence and terror especially in peasant and farm worker communities in the countryside.
The Negrosanon masses are suffering severalfold today than in the past. Amid an economic crisis, human rights violations have also worsened. “Salvagings,” massacres, and abductions are rampant throughout the island, especially in the countryside. Under the Marcos Jr regime, there are nearly 600 (345 this year) cases of human rights abuses by reactionary state forces on the island that involve almost 40,000 people, of which over 300 are minors. Rampant illegal arrests and detention, torture, threats, ransacking and theft, bombings, and other violations are mercilessly committed by the fascist military, police, and their paramilitary forces.
The AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac’s deception and lies are also relentless. They are forcing the narrative that their counter-insurgency campaign in Negros is victorious through fake and forced surrenders of farmers and farm workers, claims of “armed encounters” when in reality these are cover-ups for their crimes against the people such as massacres, and bragging that their useless Barangay Development Program (BDP) is “for the people.” The latest deception and bragging of the Marcos Jr regime is the bogus amnesty proclamation that intends to pacify the people’s resistance. The BDP, Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP), and budgets for the NTF-Elcac in the local governments and agencies have become cash cows of corrupt generals and bureaucrats on the island. Thus, behind the hubris that the NPA on the island is “dismantled” and “weakened,” the AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac continues to pour funds into their counter-insurgency campaign.
The sharpening contradiction between the Marcos and Duterte cliques also affects local politics. Gov. Lacson of Negros Occidental and Gov. Manuel Sagarbarria of Negros Oriental, successor of the slain Gov. Roel Degamo, are currently advocating the law that will establish a Negros Island Region so that they can gain political power and monopolize the remaining natural resources on the island. Benitez’ influence in Bacolod City and northern Negros is also growing. In the political conflict between Gov. Degamo and brothers former Gov. Pryde Henry Tevez and former Congressman Arnie Tevez, the governor and other nine innocent civilians were killed last March. The AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac also seized what happened to Degamo to justify further militarization on the entire island.
The ongoing situation has made the social volcano in Negros island seethe. Negrosanons are full of rage at the current state of their lives. The legal democratic movement advances the interests and welfare of workers, farmers, semiproletariats, and the urban petty-bourgeoisie. Many of the affected classes and sectors want to join the armed struggle in the countryside and support the people’s democratic revolution. Majority of those who join and support the NPA and the revolutionary movement are farmers and farm workers. They are the primary source of Red fighters led by the Party to carry forward the people’s war on the island.
II. The Party’s leadership in the life and death struggle against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism on Negros Island
It has been five years since Memorandum Order (MO) 32 was imposed on the islands of Negros and Samar, and Bicol region. Over the years where Negros was the focus of counterrevolution, the revolutionary forces on the entire island gained positive and negative lessons which should be grasped in order to overcome the intensified onslaught of the enemy and to advance the people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war to a higher level.
This year, the Party led and joined the revolutionary forces on the island and the Negrosanon masses in the life-and-death confrontation with imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. However, there are weaknesses in ideological, political, and organizational tasks that obstructed the advances and must be resolutely solved and corrected. It is important that we acknowledge our victories and mistakes of the previous year and the years before. Only through progressing based on our accumulated victories and overcoming mistakes and weaknesses can we step forward towards an unprecedented stage of Party work.
We will continue to build our ideology guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) this year. The NIRPC is in the process of summing up the previous five years that is a continuation of the 22-year summing up of the revolutionary experience on Negros Island. This is part of the national call to launch a rectification movement to resolve the hindrances to the development and further advance of the national democratic revolution in the past few years. There are still many lessons and essences in the previous summing up of the NRPIC that have not been fully grasped and practiced by Party cadres and members. This is where we are stuck and we need to seriously strive to break free from the chains that are pulling us back.
Despite sustained focused military operations of enemy forces in all guerrilla fronts, the Party’s consolidation was done to a certain degree. After the successful conduct of the Advance Party Course in 2022, three guerrilla fronts creatively launched a study of the Basic Party Course while two fronts conducted the Intermediate Party Course. Party studies are still ongoing, particularly on Revolution, the Party’s political journal. There are also some who have studied the military writings of Mao Zedong, Zhu De and Vo Nguyen Giap.
The conduct of the three level Party education and other Party studies is positive, but the level of understanding of the current situation on the island is poor due to deficient appreciation of the accumulated data. This means that there is a lack of applying theory into practice and raising it to a higher level of theory and practice.
At this time, it is very necessary to vigorously grasp economic and political conditions in a rapidly developing situation, especially in the successive implementation of neoliberal programs on the island. If we are slow, mass struggles will not be effectively led and guided. This is one of the reasons that there are mass struggles, anti-feudal struggles especially in barangay up to regional campaigns, implementation of minimum land reform, and others, but these are weak and scattered in the countryside or in the cities. In fact, there is difficulty in launching mass struggles for living wages and benefits for workers and farm workers, particularly in the framework of a monocrop sugar economy in Negros. We are like groping in the dark in launching mass campaigns because social investigation and class analysis or SICA is lacking. The full potential of the revolutionary mass base has been under-utilized for the consolidation and further expansion of revolutionary power. In other words, the grasping of the mass line is also loose.
The lingering subjectivism in the form of empiricism is the main ideological weakness of the NIRPC and its constituents. Mechanical and empiricist methods of study and solving problems persist. However, the Party in Negros is striving to perform its role in leading the revolution on the island to contribute to the national effort to advance until overall victory is achieved.
In spite of the sham deadline of the enemy to crush the revolutionary movement on the island especially the armed weapon of the Party which is the NPA, the revolution in Negros continues to prevail and the NPA remains to be the lead implementor of the integral tasks of the people’s war which is waging armed struggle, carrying out agrarian revolution, and mass base building.
Instead of defeating the NPA, the AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac launched vicious attacks on peasant communities and committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). This year, 28 farmers and 11 hors de combat Red fighters were cowardly murdered by fascist forces of the reactionary state. Abductions became rampant wherein Lyngrace Marturillas, Denald Mialen, Renel delos Santos, and Deah Lopez are still missing. The 94th IB’s horrific killing of the Fausto family which took the life of a peasant couple and their two minor children in Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental, became infamous. This year, the most merciless act was the abduction, torture, and subsequent “salvaging” of Rogelio Posadas (Ka Cocoy), regional cadre and NDFP peace consultant, last April and the massacre of five hors de combat (including a pregnant woman) Red fighters and their accompanying tricycle driver in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental last September. Every murder and brutal crime committed by the AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac is etched in the minds and hearts of the Negrosanon masses and fuels their desire to demand justice.
Fake encounters used to cover up crimes against the masses brazenly committed by fascist military have also increased. Under the US-Marcos II regime, there are 37 fake encounters of which 23 occurred this year (almost two fake encounters per month). Fake encounter narratives are used to justify heinous killings and massacres of peasants and hors de combat, frustrated killings, illegal arrests and detention, assault, bombings, indiscriminate firings and strafings; to whitewash misencounters between the military and police; and some are just made up or are outright fake news. Efforts of all spokespersons, from the regional level to the front level, to promptly respond to and expose fake news and malicious intrigues of the machinery for lies and deception of the AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac are well done.
It is true that the guerrilla fronts in Negros Island sustained damages in the brutal and impunity-ridden counterinsurgency campaign, but the enemy remains to waddle in a pipe-dream in believing that revolutionary forces will be defeated. As long as there is imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism that is the basis of the existence of the revolutionary armed struggle, the national democratic revolution will continue and advance. The main causes of a degree of weakening and the damages sustained by the Red army are not so much the intensified large-scale and fierce enemy attacks but persisting military conservatism, loose military discipline, lingering in consolidated yet limited space and neglecting wide areas that have not yet been reached, a lack of understanding of the politico-military line of extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever-widening and ever-deepening mass base while in the phase of strategic defensive, and being complacent in our current level. There is also a strong tendency not to seriously ponder the current circumstances and underestimate the enemy’s capacity.
No matter how exaggerated the enemy’s lies are, their fancy talk will crumble upon the actual victories of the people’s war. The five guerrilla fronts under the AGC-NPA Negros Island continue to mount annihilative and attritive tactical offensives and carry out punitive actions in accordance with the decision of the revolutionary people’s court. Within 2023, 54 military and punitive actions were mounted against fascist troops, their paramilitary forces and intelligence network throughout the island, and other lawless elements. The most successful was the ambush against 10 police elements in Calatrava, Negros Occidental last August where three M16 rifles, ammunition, and one short firearm were seized, and a policeman was killed while three others were wounded, including Calatrava’s deputy chief of police. Offensives of the NPA Negros seized a total of 22 firearms and inflicted 72 casualties on the enemy, of which 40 were killed in action.
Amid sustained and massive enemy attacks, the politico-military training of Red commanders and fighters, and new recruits, and of section guerrilla units and militia units in each guerrilla front continued. The basic politico-military course and its topics are taught. Among mass organizations, political education based on the Pambansa Demokratikong Paaralan (PADEPA) curriculum continue to be given in creative ways. Ang Bayan and Ang Paghimakas are also discussed as propaganda guides on various social issues and analyses. There is also a literacy and numeracy program that is not only for children but also for adults and the elderly who have not gone to school. Likewise, mass campaigns were launched to improve public health and sanitation, and increase the production of peasants. Arbitration and revolutionary justice were also carried out to solve the existing problems among the broad masses. But in general, only the minimum has been achieved in mass work and difficulties must be promptly addressed.
In the anti-fascist campaign, the monitoring and exposure of human rights violations by fascist reactionary forces has improved. A great challenge not only for revolutionary forces but also for groups and individuals who advocate for human rights and social justice is how anti-fascist calls can be brought to the public arena and be linked and raised to anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggles, especially in the current situation wherein behind fascist attacks of the enemy lies the implementation of neoliberal policies and unbridled land-grabbing, and feudal and semifeudal exploitation.
In the cities, the legal democratic movement has consolidated its strength and advanced the interests of the people. This year, calls against neoliberal policies on Negros Island, the US and China’s intervention in the West Philippine Sea, destructive mines and quarries, rising prices of oil and daily needs of the people, coastal reclamations, privatization of water and electricity, jeepney phaseout, and burdensome taxes on common goods became the content of the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, anti-fascist movement. They called for the abolition of the Maharlika Investment Fund, confidential funds, and the NTF-Elcac. The cry for justice, an end to militarization in the countryside, and resumption of peace talks between the GRP and NDFP also resounded throughout island. The open mass movement also joined the global call to stop the exploitation of the Palestinian people and to end Israel’s occupation of Gaza.
Activists and progressive groups have become targets of the reactionary state and they are victims of red-tagging, surveillance, abduction, threats and harassment, among others due to their resistance to and exposure of societal problems. Nevertheless, they did not succumb to fear and strived for bigger regional campaigns like the struggle for living wage and benefits for workers and farm workers, and confronting various neoliberal attacks in the cities and countryside. The current accumulated strength should be used to further arouse, organize, and mobilize the broad masses of Negrosanons. This can be a force for further expansion and consolidation.
The contribution of the church people this year is significant in promoting the people’s issues. The historical role of the church sector since the 1970s here in Negros cannot be forgotten. As in the past, all democratic sectors must unite, especially the workers and the youth, to forward the urban mass movement that complements the armed struggle in the countryside as the main form of struggle.
The Party is the leading force in the legal democratic movement in the cities and is responsible for coordinating the movements in the cities and the countryside. The existing current of right opportunism and reformism right inside Party organizations in the cities must be repudiated and thoroughly overcome to raise the capacity to fight for the democratic rights and welfare of the people and to advance the militant method and style of doing revolutionary work. Through this, we become more effective in leading the masses.
The united front in Negros is still narrow at a time when neoliberal attacks are widespread, the social and economic situation of the exploited and oppressed sectors is worsening, and the fascism and terrorism of the reactionary state is intensifying. The broadest united front of the oppressed and exploited in society have the capacity to effectively isolate and weaken the enemy. Through the leadership of the Party, the united front supports mainly the revolutionary armed struggle and further arouses and mobilizes a large number of people beyond the revolutionary organized forces to take part in the national democratic movement.
The unity of cadres of the NIRPC and the entire Party membership on Negros Island based on the principle of democratic centralism continues to be strong and firm. There have been martyred regional cadres and other comrades this year, but those who have remained at various levels are prepared to succeed the responsibilities and, inspired by revolutionary martyrs and heroes, to strive further to fulfill revolutionary tasks. The Party’s source of recruitment is inexhaustible among the ranks of workers, peasants, women, youth, and other sectors. Each individual’s capacity to lead is developed through education and training, and collective work and fulfillment of individual duties in revolutionary mass struggles. The unity between Party members is also further strengthened in carrying out criticism and self-criticism.
III. The entire Party in Negros is determined to rectify mistakes and to further strengthen the Party
Under the Party’s leadership in Negros, revolutionary forces on the island have overcome the campaign of suppression of the ruling class this year. The revolutionary strength is sufficient to rise from setbacks and weaknesses to raise further the revolutionary achievements in the ideological, political, and organizational fields. In the spirit of the Second Great Rectification Movement wherein from platoon strength in 1994, the NPA in Negros has multiplied severalfold and revolutionary forces have once again strengthened by standing firm for the correct line and rectifying errors, the current revolutionary forces along with the Negrosanon people are likewise determined to implement the call of the Central Committee to launch the third rectification movement and to fortify the Party even more.
1. Consolidate the Party in Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! Resolutely launch the
rectification movement!
Resolutely fight subjectivism in the form of empiricism. The five-year summing up of revolutionary experience on the island should be pursued and immediately disseminated to the entire Party membership in Negros to serve as guide for rectification and enhancement of revolutionary work. The current rectification movement will comprehensively temper the Party, including the organization. Thus, it is necessary to strive to overcome shortcomings and setbacks and be enthusiastic about revolutionary tasks and responsibilities.
Reject the mechanical style and method of study by sharply applying MLM to concrete conditions and improving revolutionary practice. This requires regular assessments of plans and programs of the Party at each level and an evaluation of cadres and key work. Regularly launch criticism and self-criticism as well to maintain strong unity and identify errors and weaknesses. Holding conferences on regarding particular revolutionary work is also a quick way to exchange experiences and draw lessons.
Work on refreshing the SICA document from previous years at all levels, from barrio to the regional level. It can be the foundation for creatively arousing, organizing and mobilizing the masses and the widespread launching of anti-imperialist, antifeudal and antifascist campaigns. Through this, we will have close links with the masses and become good at mass work.
Be innovative in launching the Party’s three-level course amid the enemy’s large-scale and widespread military attacks. Make a plan for the education and training of cadres and maximize all opportunities to implement it.
Continue to strengthen Party leadership that is deeply rooted in the working class. Achieve the target number of Party recruits from advanced activists while being careful no to let undesirable elements in. Make sure of processing the full membership of candidate members in the Party in accordance with the Party Constitution. Likewise, establish numerous Party branches and groups in cities and in the countryside while recovering, reactivating, and consolidating the existing ones.
Develop additional Party cadres for various revolutionary work. Recognize the uneven development of Party members and through this, work together to raise revolutionary consciousness and capacity of each one to achieve a general level of advancement.
2. The Party absolutely leads the NPA in advancing the people’s democratic
revolution!
As the advanced detachment of the working class, the CPP leads the waging of the people’s democratic revolution through a protracted people’s war. This revolution has a socialist perspective and aims to lay the foundation for communism. The Party has two weapons to defeat the enemy at this stage of the revolution—armed struggle and the national united front. Armed struggle is the weapon to overthrow the enemy’s rule and seize political power. Meanwhile, the national united front is the weapon that will ensure the broadest support for the armed struggle and drive a wedge through enemy ranks to isolate the most despotic.
The Party must ensure that the NPA firmly appreciates the three integral tasks of the people’s war—waging armed struggle, implementing agrarian revolution, and building the mass base—in advancing the revolution wave upon wave. Red commanders and fighters must be proficient in using guerrilla warfare strategy and tactics of concentration, dispersal, and shifting to counter large-scale and sustained encirclement campaigns of enemy forces. It is necessary to boldly mount basic tactical offensives that will weaken the enemy and seize firearms for new NPA recruits and for building new platoons until in the long run, establishing new guerrilla fronts with the aim of expanding the war theater on the island.
Our principal objective is to mount basic tactical offensives, yet these should be combined with attritive actions that will inflict damage on the enemy and lower the morale of their troops. Mining companies, plantations and logging firms owned by foreign businesses and big comprador-landlords are also legitimate targets of tactical offensives because these draw superprofits, export raw materials and weaken the national economy, devastate the environment, destroy agriculture, and grab the lands of farmers.
With our current strength, while in the strategic defensive, we should be good in comprehending the flow of the battle, seriously contemplate every situation and put our strengths into play to gain tactical superiority against the enemy. It is important to adhere to the discipline and rules of the NPA. Implement a high level of secrecy, make the enemy blind and deaf and strengthen intelligence work of the masses and combat intelligence.
3. Focus on launching comprehensive mass campaigns especially antifeudal struggles!
The main content of our national democratic revolution is the issue of land. Only through responding to the democratic demands of peasants can the Party mobilize the majority of the Filipino people for armed struggle. Using the antifeudal class line in the countryside, implement minimum land reform (lowering rent of land, carabao, and farm implements; raising wages of farm workers; abolishing usury; improving farm-gate prices in favor of farmers; and increasing production through individual efforts and simple cooperation) and build the mass base—mass organizations and organs of political power.
The antifeudal struggle will also be the way to recover the mass base that was temporarily abandoned amid massive combat operations of the enemy and to shatter the fear in peasant communities sowed by militarization in the countryside. Party cadres, especially the youth, should be trained in leading and tacticizing anti-feudal struggles and other mass campaigns. In mass struggles, the most advanced activists, mass leaders, and Party cadres will emerge. It can also serve as source for the best commanders and fighters of the people.
Launching mass campaigns must be coupled with raising political consciousness. Diligently conduct studies based on the PADEPA. Ensure that Philippine Society and Revolution, Araling Aktibista (Lessons for Activists), Special Mass Courses, and the Revolutionary Guide for Land Reform will be given. Launch as well an education campaign on CARHRIHL and the NDFP draft for the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER). Cadres assigned to education work should monitor the educational discussions given to the masses so these will not be repetitive and ensure that study materials are available, especially printed copies.
Increase the number of instructors by launching trainings and make programs to build mobile schools so more can be given Party and political education amid AFP military operations in the countryside. Instructors should work hard in further studying revolutionary theory and also learn to explain and solve practical problems.
Propaganda machineries in cities and the countryside must be trained to arouse and raise the political consciousness of the masses, to embolden them to confront militarization in communities and to clarify the enemy’s deceptions. Various issues and its national-democratic analyses should be explained to the masses. Likewise, actively respond and do not give space to the lies of the fascist mercenary AFP/PNP/NTF-Elcac and other state machineries that are propagated in the mainstream and social media. Propaganda work is a mass movement and should reach the broad masses.
4. Advance the mass movement in the cities!
The urban-based mass movement should be expanded and invigorated together with that in the countryside. It is a challenge for the Party now to lead an anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and anti-fascist movement that will resonate throughout the island where the cities will be the center of protest.
It is necessary to be keen in grasping how neoliberal policies worsen the lives and livelihoods of workers, farmers, fisherfolk, urban poor like drivers and vendors, professionals, youth, women and other sectors to effectively arouse, organize, and mobilize them according to their general and sectoral issues and demands. A deep understanding of the current situation results in a sharp and clear analysis that will be embraced by the masses. Here correct methods and tactics in various issues will arise, as well.
Dare to reach the oppressed and exploited people through painstaking mass work and solid organizing. Build clandestine mass organizations where the Party is at the core in the ranks of the basic and middle sectors. Solidify and expand these through political education and waging mass struggles and campaigns.
Do not be complacent with a few and longtime leaders and members, whether in the open or clandestine organizations. New activists and mass leaders must be developed and, from the most active ones, recruit for the Party. The historic role of the urban-based legal mass movement in advancing the armed struggle in the countryside should be impressed on them. Send many Party cadres, especially from the working class and the intellectual youth, to the NPA to become Red commanders and political guides in existing and upcoming guerrilla fronts, not only financial and material support for the armed struggle.
The current severe socio-economic crisis has brought forth fertile conditions for the legal patriotic and progressive forces to establish alliances in different sectors, in respective sectors, and issue-based alliances to reach the broadest number of people. The united front is the weapon of the Party applicable to various legal forms of struggle as well as revolutionary forms of struggle. The basic alliance of workers and peasants is the solid foundation for all types of alliances—progressive, patriotic, and broad yet temporary. All these must be utilized to expand the strength and influence of revolutionary forces, and to isolate, weaken and overthrow the class enemy which is currently represented by the broken Marcos and Duterte alliance.
Pay attention as well to reaching the rank-and-file soldiers and policemen in the ranks of the AFP and PNP, likewise among the CAFGU and other paramilitary forces. Due to state terrorism that has caused serious damage in the countryside and even in the cities, and the inherent rottenness of reactionary institutions, there are sections in the military, police, and paramilitary forces who are demoralized. A democratic movement among patriotic and progressive elements within their ranks should be built.
The next few years are important for the Party in Negros Island. This will be the start of restoring revolutionary strength and surpassing previous victories. The NIRPC and the entire revolutionary forces on the island are prepared to accept the challenges in the Party’s 55th year. The seething social volcano will intensify while the people’s war of the oppressed and exploited strengthens until it erupts that marks a new period in the revolutionary history of Negros Island.
Long live the national democratic revolution!
Long live the exploited and oppressed masses!
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!
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