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CPP praises NPA’s ‘achievements and victories’ on its 54th anniversary today

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) praised the New People’s Army (NPA) on its 54th founding anniversary Wednesday, March 29, citing achievements and victories through more than five decades of revolutionary armed struggle in the country.

In a statement, the CPP said the NPA has defeated numerous government campaigns of encirclement and suppression from the first Marcos regime to the present, growing from its original “60 fighters and commanders, nine automatic rifles, 26 single-shot rifles and handguns, and a mass base of around 80,000 in the first district of Tarlac province.”

While balance of forces overwhelmingly remain in favor of the Manila government, the CPP said the NPA has fought indefatigably over the over the decades and “it has grown by leaps and bounds.”

In its 54th founding anniversary statement last December 26, the CPP said the NPA currently has more than 110 guerilla fronts all over the country.

“The NPA is the most powerful weapon of the Party for waging the people’s democratic revolution. It carries out protracted people’s war along the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside,” the CPP said.

The revolutionary group said the NPA has adapted to the particular conditions of the country, achieving “great successes in carrying out guerrilla warfare, building guerrilla zones and base areas, and establishing Red political power covering vast areas in the countryside.”

“Day by day, the seeds of the future people’s democratic government are sown in thousands of villages across the country, existing side by side with and antithesis to the present reactionary and fascist government,” it added.

‘Heavier tasks’

The CPP said the NPA however faces heavier and greater tasks ahead, needing to “surmount and defeat the intensified campaigns of encirclement and armed suppression being carried out by the US puppet army,” referring to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“We must continue to accumulate strength by smashing the AFP part by part in order to bring the people’s war from its current level to the next higher level. The Party and NPA remain fully determined to carry forward the people’s war to victory,” it said.

The CPP said NPA commanders and Red fighters have to “stir up and spread the flames of the people’s war for national freedom and democracy.”

The underground party cited “intensified imperialist oppression against the Filipino people” and emphasized the need to “attain freedom from US control and domination, and carry out land reform and national industrialization” which it said are key steps to improve the lives of the Filipino people.

It also denounced the plan of the US to construct more military bases in the Philippines to use the country “as part of its war theater preparations against China.”

The CPP said “the broad masses of the Filipino people are suffering from increasingly intolerable forms of oppression and exploitation… they are ever determined to wage resistance in order to free the country from clutches of US imperialism and the subservient ruling classes, and attain genuine national freedom and democracy.”

‘It lasts because it is loved’

In a separate statement, the NPA in Southern Panay said it joins all revolutionary forces in the country in celebrating the Red army’s anniversary.

Ariston Remus, NPA-Southern Panay spokesperson said the people’s love and support enabled them to outlast massive military operations launched by the government.

“The masses continue to put their faith in armed struggle as the only effective solution to their poverty and with the NPA as their true defenders,” Remus said in Filipino.

“The masses are getting better in their underground activities to show their love and give their fathomless support to their army,” he added.

‘Lofty ideals’

Founded in Capas, Tarlac in 1969, NPA’s armed struggle is often regarded as the longest-running Communist Party-led armed revolution in the world.

It has been designated as a so-called terrorist organization by the Philippine, United States and other Western governments, an accusation the revolutionary groups vehemently rejects.

In September 2022, a Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) rejected Manila government’s bid to have both the CPP and the NPA proscribed as terrorist organizations.

Manila RTC Branch Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar wrote that while both organizations may be regarded as rebels, they are not terrorists because violence is simply part of their means but not their end.

“A perusal of the foregoing Program consisting of lofty ideals readily shows that the CPP-NPA is organized or exists not for the purpose [of] engaging in terrorism,” Judge Magdoza-Malagar ruled. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Reds in Masbate report successful attacks ahead of NPA’s 54th anniversary

GENEVA, Switzerland—The New People’s Army (NPA) in Masbate said its successful military operations in the towns of Placer and Dimasalang are its contributions to the celebrations of their 54th founding anniversary tomorrow, March 29.

The NPA’s Jose Rapsing Command (JRC) in the province said its coordinated guerilla actions last Wednesday, March 22, in Barangay Locso-on in Place and Barangay Gain in Dimasalang resulted in the deaths of 10 government soldiers and the wounding of not less than seven others.

The fatalities belonged to the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, augmented by troops from the Philippine National Police (PNP).

JRC-NPA spokesperson Luz del Mar in a statement said they belie Joint Task Force Bicolandia’s claims the government soldiers were ambushed near communities and civilian spaces, in turn accusing government troops of attacking schools “in a desperate attempt to cover up their defeat.”

Del Mar said JRC-NPA their offensive was a reaction to the ongoing focused military operations of their enemies using many drones, helicopters and soldiers.

She added that their coordinated attacks were meant to punish the Philippine Army for its attempts to recruit Masbate students to join the paramilitary Citizen Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU).

In a post on its Facebook page, the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army said only two soldiers and two police officers were wounded in the firefights.

In a statement by Acting Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity Isidro Purisima subsequently posted on the same military social media page, he said that a government soldier was killed while two others were wounded.

Meanwhile, the Inquirer reported that another soldier was killed in a firefight with the NPA in Masbate Monday, March 27.

Corporal Antonio Parreno Jr. was killed after the 2nd Infantry Battalion figured in a five-minute exchange of gunfire with some 12 communist rebels in Barangay Villahermosa in Cawayan town, the report said.

Del Mar said their series of attacks against government troopers is in defense of Masbate citizens suffering from the intense militarization of their province.

“These tactical offensives prove that the claims by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, PNP and CAFGU of their strategic victory against the revolutionary movement are false,” del Mar added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

CPP@54: Joma’s immortal revolutionary spirit will forever live

“We have so far frustrated the enemy’s declared objective of crushing the Party, the NPA and all forms of people’s resistance,” the CPP said.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) gave Jose Maria Sison, founding chairperson of its Central Committee, “extraordinary tribute” in its traditional statement on its founding anniversary today.

On its 54th anniversary statement, the CPP said Sison, who died in The Netherlands last December 16, utilized his “masterly grasp” of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in guiding the Party from inception, infancy and growth.

The revolutionary group also said that Sison’s writings—more than 30 volumes of essays and poems—will continue to guide them.

“Ka Joma has bequeathed to us a treasure trove of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist work in which his immortal revolutionary spirit will forever live to guide the next generation of Party cadres to greater heights,” the group said.

Sison’s books Philippine Society and Revolution as well as Struggle for National Democracy have been required reading for countless activists who later joined the CPP and the New People’s Army (NPA) that has waged one of the world’s oldest armed revolutions.

Celebrating their first anniversary without its ideological leader, the CPP also said it lost members of its Central Committee, its Political Bureau and Executive Committee as well as cadres, Red fighters and mass activists in the last year.

The Party however said its 54th year remains to be a cause of celebration for the “great achievements” it accumulated in “more than five decades of leading the people’s democratic revolution and advancing the Filipino people’s aspiration for freedom and democracy.”

‘Amid government’s onslaught’

The CPP said it has built and maintains “thousands of committees of leadership and branches” in 14 of the country’s regions as well as in hundreds of towns and districts and in thousands of villages across the country.

It said the NPA has “thousands” of Red fighters primarily armed with high-powered rifles and explosives.

“In the course of waging protracted people’s war, the NPA has established more than 110 guerrilla fronts across the country and has built thousands of local mass organizations,” the CPP said.

The group also said the NPA has frustrated Manila government’s offensives as well as focused and sustained operations by shifting from one guerrilla front to another.

The CPP said the NPA have successfully mounted tactical offensives against isolated, weak and tired enemy units to disrupt the government military’s operations and plans.

“We have so far frustrated the enemy’s declared objective of crushing the Party, the NPA and all forms of people’s resistance,” the CPP said.

“The Party and revolutionary movement have withstood more than five years of relentless attacks which have employed the worst forms of state terrorism,” it added.

Earlier, the CPP has directed the NPA to perform military tributes to Sison at daybreak today.

Both the CPP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines earlier said they will not be declaring ceasefires over the Christmas and New Year holiday season. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)