Red salute to the New People’s Army on its 57th anniversary! With your steady advance, we join you in honoring the martyred people’s warriors and revolutionary masses of the armed struggle who have given their precious lives to keep the armed revolution alive for us today.
You have weathered the onslaught of eight reactionary administrations that inflicted the most brutal attacks upon the people’s army and the Filipino people, from nip-in-the-bud and encirclement-and-suppression campaigns; to clear-hold-consolidate and focused sustained military operations using hundreds and thousands of reactionary military and police troops supported by high tech weapons in their attempt to crush a guerrilla army that is not even one twentieth of its size. Because you have struck deep roots with the masses that gave strength the enemy troops can never conquer. The decades of bombings, hamletting, free-fire zones, massacres, torture, food blockades and psywar operations to isolate the oppressed masses from their army have only strengthened the people’s resolve to carry on the armed struggle.
By resolutely and actively carrying out the rectification movement, the people’s army today has steadily gained strength with the infusion of new and young Red fighters and commanders, developed tactical adjustments to the enemy’s high tech dependent operations, trained and re-trained Red fighters in comprehensive mass base building and guerrilla tactics, increased expansion and recovery areas, and rebuilt organizations that have been destroyed by intense and prolonged military operations while building new ones. All these amid the relentless military and psywar attacks by the fascist US-Marcos regime.
We observe this anniversary’s gains and challenges amid the present crisis and misery to the lives and livelihood of the Filipino people brought about by US imperialist aggression in the Middle East. The widespread people’s protest on the streets, schools, communities and the transport sector for immediate relief and lasting reforms are ignored by the callous US-Marcos regime that seeks only to serve the interests of its exploitative and oppressive masters. Calls for measures in parliament to repeal anti-people laws on oil deregulation and regressive taxes, or create new ones for land reform and national industrialization, are swamped by endless debates and political grandstanding resulting only on token measures designed to cover up the people’s miserable conditions. And as before, protest and resistance are met with fascist attacks on people’s rights using the whole violent state machinery for repression. These highlight once again the anti-people character of the reactionary state and the necessity for people’s war to overthrow the fascist puppet government and establish a democratic people’s government for real change that will benefit the people.
At the threat of an escalating and widening imperialist war, the Filipino people face the risk of being drawn into the war as magnets for attacks by US enemies. As the reactionary regime refuses to implement an independent foreign policy and pigheadedly hosts EDCA sites and other US military installations in the Philippines, the Filipino people must develop our own revolutionary armed force to defend our sovereignty. The New People’s Army and our revolutionary bases must be prepared to welcome patriotic Filipinos who want to take up arms but do not want to serve as cannon fodder for whichever imperialist power holds military command. We call on all patriotic Filipinos to prepare for a people’s war of resistance both in the rural and urban areas if the imperialist war comes to our shores.
Under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army provides the sharpest and most disciplined tool for advancing the armed struggle as the primary form of people’s war. All allied organizations of the National Democratic Front commend and support your advance and are always ready to expand and consolidate our organizations for the armed struggle and to contribute more Red commanders and fighters to the people’s army. On this important date, we call on the people to march on in the struggle for national liberation and democracy.
Long live the New People’s Army!
Long live the National Democratic Revolution!
Source : https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/red-salute-to-the-new-peoples-army/