New People's Army Marks 54th Anniversary
March 29, 2023, marks the 54 years since the founding of the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The NPA was founded by Jose Maria Sison on March 29, 1969, three months after he led the founding of the CPP. Jose Maria Sison, who passed away December 16, 2022, will always be remembered for founding the CPP and the NPA as the decisive factors to lead the people of the Philippines to affirm their claims and birthright to the land on which they are born and depend upon.
The Filipino people are engaged in a month of celebrations to mark the historic founding of the NPA. In a March 1 statement, the CPP wrote, "The NPA has in its ranks Red fighters who are highly disciplined and politically conscious. They are not just warriors. They are also doctors, teachers, artists, and forces of production who all serve the interests of the masses. Economic, political and military democracy firmly unite its officers and fighters. Veterans or new fighters, regardless of gender or class origin, all are valiantly fighting for the country's freedom. They are wholeheartedly ready to make all sacrifices to serve the masses and achieve victory."
Under the current U.S.-sponsored administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Philippine state is intensifying the abuse and exploitation of the people and resources of the Philippines by opening more of the national economy to U.S. and other private monopolies. Within this, Canada is also playing a negative role by encouraging private mining companies based in Canada to forcefully displace Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines from their lands in order to steal the mineral resources found there. Canada's immigration and refugee system also enables human trafficking which brings Filipino workers to Canada as cheap and disposable labour to be exploited and abused.
In 2018, then-Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte hatched the so-called National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict to try and crush the movement for national liberation in the Philippines. Under this "counter-insurgency" program, thousands of innocent people have been "red-tagged" – targeted as communist sympathizers and NPA guerrillas and arrested, killed or disappeared. This campaign has become more intense in the context of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, by which the U.S. is further militarizing the Philippines to use as a forward base to contain and threaten China and assert is hegemony over the Indo-Pacific region.
The anti-communist terror and violence of the Philippine state and its U.S. sponsors have had the effect of swelling the ranks of the NPA as more and more youth come forward to join the armed struggle. The NPA is active in more than 110 guerrilla fronts which is expanding despite immense difficulties. In marking the 54th anniversary of the founding of the NPA, the CPP notes that it is not the superior weapons or numbers of the U.S.-backed and financed Armed Forces of the Philippines, or the Philippines Constabulary with their tanks and bombs and planes and guns that are decisive in the battle, but rather the support of and just cause of the Filipino people.
The CPP statement calls on the NPA to commemorate its 54th anniversary by stepping up its resolve, to widen and deepen the guerrilla war by strengthening its links with the people and to march from strength to strength to victory and a bright, prosperous and democratic future for the Filipino people.
On the occasion of the 54th anniversary of the founding of the NPA the, TML calls on the Canadian people to stand as one with the fraternal peoples of the Philippines in their revolutionary drive to liberate their homeland from the clutches of U.S. imperialism and local ruling circles, a fight which the CPP and NPA are leading.
(With files from CPP, NPA.)
This article was published in
Volume 53 Number 5 - March 2023
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/Articles/MS53058.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca