Utrecht, Netherlands – Hundreds of cultural workers, youth, human rights and political activists, artists, academics, Filipino and other migrant nationalities and representatives of political parties and formations from all over the world, jampacked the auditorium of center for art and culture in this central Dutch city, December 29, to celebrate “Fifty Years of Art and Culture in the Filipino People’s Struggle for National and Social Liberation” and the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) on December 26, 1968.

The celebration was organized by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) International Information Office in Utrecht, together with the Linangan Art and Culture – a network of young cultural workers and artists in the Netherlands. The Basis voor Actuele Kunst (BAK) – a leading international platform for theoretically-informed, politically-driven art and experimental research, hosted the event.

The celebration which began in the morning, was highlighted with an exhibition of art works, performances and publications, video installations and film-showings produced in the course of the struggle of the Filipino people for national and social liberation.

The celebration was capped with speeches by Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Founding Chairman of the CPP, and NDFP chief political consultant, who spoke on the achievements of the revolutionary movement in the past 50 years; Luis Jalandoni, NDFP peace panel senior adviser, who gave a speech on building the third weapon of the revolution, the united front, and Coni Ledesma, NDFP peace panel member, who spoke on the road to a just and lasting peace.

A one-minute video on “What is Peace” preceded Ledesma’s speech. A choral singing of “Martsa ng Bayan” (March of the People) preceded Jalandoni’s talk, and a dance interpretation of the poem and song “NorthStar” preceded Sison’s input.

Earlier during the day, Julieta De Lima, NDFP peace panel member, gave a premier lecture on the role of art and culture in the struggle of the Filipino masses for national and social Liberation, and the role of the masses in the development of revolutionary art and culture.

The solidarity program included heartwarming and revolutionary performances by young militant cultural workers from the Philippines, Netherlands, the U.S., Canada, Belgium, Turkey, and Italy. They rendered revolutionary songs, dances that included the contemporary and traditional lumad (indigenous) dance, choric reading, and theater performances depicting the triumphs of the people’s army in the Philippines. These performances were always accompanied by visual presentations on the people’s struggle.

Representatives from many organizations in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Iceland, Norway, Peru, United Kingdom, Switzerland, the U.S. and Canada, India, Mexico, Turkey, and Indonesia attended. The Embassy of Venezuela in The Hague also sent a representative.

Solidarity messages from political parties and formations from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Kurdistan, Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Norway, Indonesia, the U.S. and Canada. Chants of “Viva CPP-NPA-NDF!” and “Mabuhay ang CPP!” interspersed the reading of the solidarity messages from the friends of the Filipino people.

The film “Revolution Selfie: The Red Battalion” by American filmmaker Steven De Castro who tackled the portrait of the 48 year-old people’s army in the Philippines, and the documentary film “Moving Mountains” which tackles the life stories of the pioneers of the Philippine Revolution and the future of the protracted people’s war, were also shown earlier in the day.

During the solidarity program, youth organizations in the Netherlands gave a special recognition to Prof. Sison and Julie de Lima, for being among the most outstanding pioneers of the Philippine revolutionary movement and a guiding inspiration for young revolutionaries, particularly young guerrillas of the people’s army. They gifted Joma and Julie with bouquets of flowers and a Mao pen and Mao’s original classic “Red Book”. Youth activists in the audience chanted “ang karit at maso, dudurog sa estado” (the peasant sickle and worker’s hammer, will crush the state) as the couple received a standing ovation.

As a tribute, a moving video collage of contemporary Filipino revolutionaries – poets, human rights workers, cultural activists, writers, movie directors, academics, militant priests and nuns, solidarity workers, and NPA guerrillas who have passed on, became missing, killed by the Philippine military or died as guerrilla fighters and combatants, was shown.

The evening of celebration concluded with the community singing of the workers’ anthem “Internationale” while a video of exiled NDFP leaders singing the same song was also played, and was followed by a celebratory dance with indigenous music participated in by the Filipino migrants and their children who were garbed in indigenous attire from the Cordilleras and Mindanao.

#Utrecht #Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Asia

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, August 18, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: What has the Duterte regime meant for the people of the Philippines?

Jose Maria Sison: Well, the Duterte regime is seen as a tyrannical, corrupt and overspending kind of government. What now outrages the people most is not so much Duterte calling God ‘stupid,’ but it's a more mundane thing, like the rising prices. The soaring prices of basic commodities and services have come about because of the increase of the tax burden at the expense of the consumers. There is tax cut-backs for the big bourgeoisie and other exploiters, but the taxes in the form of excise taxes, which is put into the price of commodities, so it's something inescapable – and this causes inflation. The inflation rate is going up.

Then of course, people are already cognizant of the fact that Duterte is simply killing the poor people in this war on drugs, in order to intimidate the people with mass murder and with impunity – and the presidential protection that the police are given, no? And then the cash rewards, too. It's now well known that Duterte's favoring his own group of drug lords. He's practically the supremo of the most dominant group of drug lords, including his son, who has been exposed as smuggling, smuggling illegal drugs in a big way.

Fight Back!: So, what's the state of the resistance?

Sison: There is a broad united front that has come about. The best-known manifestation of that broad united front is the movement against tyranny. The issue of human rights is the issue that has brought people together, and the people are concerned with the use of the Tokhang [extrajudicial killings] methods against the poor. Also, the use of practically the same methods in Oplan Kapayapaan [a counterinsurgency campaign of the government], which is directed against the revolutionary forces.

Now what are those methods? People are asked to surrender themselves, as in the case of the war on drugs, as drug addicts or pushers, so that they would be cleared, no? And they could even get rehabilitation. But the list is a death list. Because the police officers are given orders to kill a number of people from day to day.

And the same methods are used in the Oplan Kapayapaan. You know, you read from the newspapers about mass surrenders and killings and encounters, but those are fake surrenders and fake encounters. Now, a list is drawn up of people who belong to the revolutionary movement. They say, well, some of the NPA (New People’s Army) full-timers, live in the community, or they belong to the People's Militia, or they belong to the self-defense units of the mass organizations, or they are related to NPA full-timers, so they are encouraged to surrender, to have themselves listed down as NPA. They are misrepresented as surrendering. But the list is also used for killing. It's also a death list.

Fight Back!: Okay, so, there were huge demonstrations at State of the Nation Address (SONA), so there's a huge mass outpouring against Duterte, no?

Sison: Yes, the People's United SONA is a signal event. Despite the inclement weather in the stormy Philippines, 40,000 people were assembled in order to demonstrate against the SONA of Duterte, the State of the Nation address, no? All over the country, thousands also made their demonstrations, so you can say hundreds of thousands on a nationwide scale, and this is just the beginning. So, we expect in due time the mass actions will grow until such time that military and police officers would express dislike or even withdraw support from Duterte.

Fight Back!: So, will Duterte be overthrown or pushed out of office?

Sison: There is a high probability, there is a high probability within this year or next year. The important thing is to have demonstrations of hundreds of thousands in Manila. That would be enough to encourage Duterte's own military officers to withdraw support. You know, Duterte is becoming more and more notorious among military officers. He's considered a traitor for selling out Philippine sovereignty or sovereign rights over the exclusive economic zone and letting the Chinese build the artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea. Then another thing where Duterte makes a big mistake, you know, he's going crazier by the day. There are also symptoms of his possible physical illness and also mental illness. But anyway, the big mistake that he has made, which the military, his own military, don't like is encouraging the violation of their constitution. He said, Duterte said, “I wish to resign! But I do not like the vice president to take over, Robredo,” no? He would prefer someone else. Then, at first, he said, “I could be replaced by military junta, or Marcos, Bongbong Marcos, or Chiz Escudero.” You know, the military and police are always indoctrinated to follow the constitution and the law, no? [laughs]

Fight Back!: How is the people's war progressing?

Sison: The people's war is progressing. So, there is a national spread reaching the three big island groupings in the Philippine archipelago. The NPA is operating in 110 guerrilla fronts – at least 110 guerrilla fronts. They are in 73 out of 81 provinces. The enemy thinks 40% of the strength of the movement is in Mindanao. So there is a concentration of enemy forces in Mindanao. 75% are in Mindanao. That's a total of 75 maneuver battalions in Mindanao. 44 are against the NPA, and 31 are against the Bangsamoro groups.

Now, only some 25 maneuverable battalions are spread on the wider scale of Luzon and the Bisayas. They are thinly spread here. So it's easy for the NPA to launch offensives where the enemy is more dispersed and spread thinly. But even in Mindanao, there is a lot of experience for the NPA there in dealing with concentrated forces.

The encircling forces have big gaps. So points in the encirclement – can be hit, no? Or the NPA can just win, no? And if the encircling forces send into the NPA area small units, platoons, let's say, they can be ambushed. So the NPA in the Mindanao knows how to do counter-encirclement against outposts in the perimeter as well as troops, small units sent into the areas of the NPA. They have been so good – the NPA has been so good in this kind of warfare because during the last 15 years, they were able to create new guerrilla fronts outside of the area being concentrated on, no? Northeast Mindanao. So they were able to create in north, central Mindanao and in southwestern Mindanao and southern Mindanao.

By themselves, the NPA in Mindanao has been able to beat, to frustrate and beat the enemy, and they succeed in creating new guerrilla fronts. So Duterte has practically been a big help to the NPA. He's wearing out his troops in Mindanao. [laughs] First, he wore them out in Marawi. Now in Mindanao that he is trying to attack and defeat the NPA, he is wearing out the troops, so that the NPA in the Bisayas and Luzon should have a fiesta in launching offensives. [laughs]

Fight Back!: Okay. So the NPA is growing stronger, more people are living in the revolutionary areas, and basically the red political power is expanding.

Sison: Yeah, the NPA has a mass base of some millions of people. You see the NPA does not only have its auxiliary and reserve forces – like the People's Militia per village and the defense, self-defense units within mass organizations. Then you have the mass organizations enveloping those forces with some amount – at least with some amount of arms, you know? Related to the NPA, no? Then the unorganized masses, they are the targets of expansion work. So there's a people's government with several committees to make sure that there is effective governance involving mass organizing, mass education, production, finance, self-defense, health, and sanitation, environmental protection and settlements of disputes.

Fight Back!: Very good. So finally, and by way of a conclusion, what message would you have for progressive people and revolutionaries in the United States?

Sison: I would appeal to the progressive forces in the United States to continue and amplify their solidarity and support for the Filipino people's struggle for national liberation and democracy against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. I think support from the imperialist country which props up the puppet regime in the Philippines is very important. This was demonstrated during the U.S. war of aggression in Vietnam. The U.S. was using all kinds of military force in order to beat the Vietnamese people, but they could not succeed because the self-reliant struggle of the Vietnamese people was supported and augmented by the anti-imperialist and democratic mass movement in the U.S. which opposed imperialism, as well as the wars and plunder that imperialism unleashes.

#UtrechtNetherlands #Utrecht #AntiwarMovement #Philippines #Opinion #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #Interviews #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Socialism #Antifascism

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), August 19, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is the third and final portion of the interview. See also part 1 and part 2.

The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: What do you have to say about the role of the U.S. in the Philippines?

Jose Maria Sison: The U.S. has been alerted. The U.S. has certain laws. You don’t give aid to governments that violate human rights. Congress people were threatening to reduce aid – as a matter of fact, Duterte’s been complaining about not getting the supplies that he wants, appropriate to, you know, supposedly fighting terrorists and so on.

Obama was under advice by congressional leaders and other people to advise Duterte not to kill too many [laughs], because the extra-judicial killings were already being done by the thousands, from month to month.

It’s another question whether the U.S. is real defender of human rights [chuckles]. There is something hypocritical about U.S. imperialism. The U.S. is responsible for massive human rights violations, massive destruction of lives and property, infrastructure – social infrastructure – in so many countries. The U.S. can be described as the ‘number one’ violator of human rights – responsible for the death of millions, 10, 20 million since the end of World War II.

And then course, in the offensives made by the U.S. since the 1990s, it wasted the lives of American soldiers and trillions of dollars to carry out those offensives.

However, the U.S. uses the human rights issue in order to justify its domination over countries, to exercise control. It’s not so much of the love of human rights, but it is for the love of controlling [laughs] the puppets.

Even if Duterte says he wishes to maintain an independent foreign policy, the system he has inherited from his predecessors very much is a system that belongs to the U.S. and he has used personnel loyal to the U.S. Lorenzana [Major General Lorenzana, AFP (Ret.), Secretary of National Defense] is a longtime resident of Washington. He has long been connected to JUSMAG [Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group], the military advisor group that decides what kind of weapons to sell to the Philippine armed forces. And of course, the national security advisor, as well as the chief of staff, they are products of American forces, American forces training and also products of inter-operability training exercises in the yearly Balikatan exercises.

So, the U.S. is in control. Duterte may be dramatic, he’s as if trying to break off from the U.S. control, but, when the Marawi events came, you see how he was so grateful to the U.S. and he was so ready to accept the deliveries of the U.S. At two ends, Duterte has been manipulated. He has been manipulated by his close-in security advisors, and at another end is the IS creation – the Islamic State creation of the CIA, and the Moussad [laughs].

The CPP editorial, the CPP statement, described Duterte as having exposed himself as a tool of aggression, because he’s the one who looks insane, and who has admitted using fentanyl, no? Sending him to the skies, having him seated on cloud nine.

Duterte echoes the U.S. propaganda that Kim Jong Un is crazy. I thought that he knew well the geopolitics in which the U.S. operates. He doesn’t know that the DPRK could be it hit like Iraq of Saddam or Libya of Khaddaffi, if it does not have its nuclear weapons for self-defense.

So that’s Duterte. I have already mentioned the reasons that Duterte cannot be trusted to comply with what the people demand in terms of social, economic, political and constitutional reforms, to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace.

It’s difficult to say whether the negotiations will be able to proceed under Duterte, because Duterte himself cannot guarantee his political survival. He can be thrown out by pro-U.S. elements in the military, or, a broad united front by democratic forces could overthrow him.

For instance, these extra-judicial killings, with impunity, they are becoming sort of a bomb exploding in the face of Duterte, whereas before, it seemed like it was the main factor for gaining his popularity. He was presenting himself as a strongman, using the mean face, and then he was going to do the quick fix. But, he as not solved the problem. Because in the first place, he’s just killing poor drug users and addicts. The highest level he went up to was killing three mayors.

But what about the governors and generals? What about his son, who’s now reputed to be the lord of the drug lords? The son now is accused of using ports, the ports of Davao and Manilla and possibly other ports, in smuggling drugs. So how can he stop the drug problem, if his own son, and if he himself cannot be aware or is aware in cahoots with the son?

Fight Back!: What do you have to say to our readers, to the American people, the people of the U.S.?

Sison: The Filipino people are trying hard to continue and advance the revolution. The people take pride in being able to develop the revolutionary forces, despite what may be called even a strategic retreat of the anti-imperialist and socialist cause since 1991.

The Filipino people are doing everything possible. The Filipino people become aware of their duty to wage the revolution no matter how long it takes. It took us 300 years to liberate ourselves from Spanish colonialism, and for a while we were a standout, before the U.S. imperialists intervened. We were the first to liberate ourselves from a Western colonial power, and that’s a big prize. As we sort of performed the role of being this torch-bearer in our part of the world, at least in Southeast Asia, that’s an inspiring thing to think of.

So, we are doing our best to be able to contribute to the resurgence of the world proletarian revolution and the broad anti-imperialist struggle. In turn, as we have the spirit of helping the proletariat and the people of the world to advance the revolution, possibly in all countries and continents. We expect that their struggles contribute to our own strengthening. So, there’s interaction between the proletariat and people in various countries, be these countries that are the advanced industrialist capitalist countries, and be they underdeveloped countries – which are still in the majority.

The time will come that more direct exchanges, more direct forms of cooperation will be possible and the stronger ones will help the weaker ones, in terms of moral and material support. The most important thing this is that we help each other by true solidarity, by fighting a common enemy.

We have always thought of the American people as having contributed a decisive help to the victory of the Vietnamese people, who were the first to score definite big victory against U.S. imperialism, I think, in history. The U.S. was defeated, and then of course, the rest of Indochina would follow, but the key point is this is one country where the U.S. [pauses]. You know, in the Korean War, the U.S. set a kind of stalemate, ending in the armistice agreement. But of course, in another sense, the U.S. was effectively frustrated in trying to dominate the north, or the DPRK. [returns to Vietnam topic] So a whole country driving away U.S. imperialism, the Vietnamese people achieved that.

And the American people contributed to that victory, because, inside the U.S., they demonstrated the unjustness of the war of aggression. The people showed the costliness and futility of all those bombs being thrown at the Vietnamese people. And so, the U.S. was compelled to retreat, to withdraw from Vietnam – mainly through the struggle of the Vietnamese people, but, you must also take into account what the American people did, in order to discourage the U.S. from going further in the war.

But anyway, they could not really go further in any justifiable way. Even in the boardrooms of the monopoly bourgeoise, the U.S. comforted itself, ‘Well, it’s better to act like good businessmen. We just don’t throw our metals and chemicals at Vietnam, we better sell our weapons to the oil-producing countries.’ That’s how they shifted, they justified the withdrawal from Vietnam.

But we have always regarded the support of the American people to the Vietnamese struggle as a model for us, and we take advantage of the fact that there has been this colonial and neo-colonial relationship, and there are quite a number of Filipinos – as early as the early 70s – they acknowledged we were 4 million Filipinos – you certainly have that figure if you also count in the Filipino-Americans, the second generation that has no more plans of going back to the Philippines. So, we have billions. The Vietnamese had less.

The Filipinos in the U.S., being able to cooperate with their solidarity friends of various nationalities within the U.S., we can do better in fighting against a common enemy right in the belly of the beast.

#UtrechtNetherlands #Utrecht #Philippines #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Asia

Fight Back! interviewed Jose Maria Sison, the founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), August 19, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. This is the second part of the interview, and the conclusion will be published next week. See part 1 here and part 3 here.

The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: How do you see or characterize the government of Philippine President Duterte?

Duterte has been well-recommended by the regional leadership of the Communist Party in charge of southern Mindanao region that covers Davao City. So Duterte had been cooperating with the comrades there for nearly three decades. But then he has his own way of doing things. Even before, it was already said that Duterte’s capable of saying and doing anything, from the left way, the middle way, or the rightist way. Depending on what serves him from moment to moment [laughs]. He behaves that way as a bureaucrat capitalist.

But you know, he has a style of not showing of whatever acquisitions he has made. He’s a lawyer, he must know how to stash away what he has to hide. He has a big mansion, he donates that, no? And so he’s also capable of the grand gesture; he donates his own house for little children, for the use of children with special needs.

But being mayor of Davao can be different from being president, because the president will have to take into account more factors. Among those factors are far, far more powerful than even the supposedly all-powerful president. You have the U.S. and other players on a global scale. And also you have a society that is in chronic crisis, and it is stricken by further crisis – more and more, no?

Because this is a country that drowning in foreign debt. So, if Marcos used to borrow money at the rate of 1.4 billion pesos a year, the succeeding regimes would be borrowing at the annual rate of $2.8 billion dollars. Marcos ended his term with 27 billion debt from a level of 500 million. Now you have 77 billion. And Duterte expects to be able to borrow from China – one of the most fantastic figures is 167 billion – I don’t think China can provide that. But in the October visit of Duterte to China he got 9 billion in pledges, and further talks, I think led to an additional pile of like 6 billion, so they are talking about 15 billion in loans but mainly for infrastructure.

The problem is, that Filipino people have to be alert to, is that, you know, Duterte’s open joint undertaking with the Chinese in the exploring and developing the undersea energy resources in the western Philippine sea. The Philippines won the case before the UN Arbitral Tribunal in accordance with the UN convention on the law of the sea, so the exclusive economic zone, the extended continental shelf, sovereign rights over them are completely, clearly belong to the Philippines. But there are certain features in which the Chinese made reclamation.

If you have a wise president, you can take advantage of the multipolar world. You can utilize China and Russia in order to neutralize the long-running U.S. power. But if you are not wise enough, competent enough, because you see, these countries competing with the U.S. have capitalist operations – if you let them take advantage, well they don’t like to pay credit on their side, no? Whoever represents China or Chinese corporations in deals… [laughs]. So, the Philippines must also take care of its interests so there is mutuality of benefit, and you don’t get taken advantage of.

The problem is we might lose control over those trillions of dollars’ worth of energy resources because we cannot pay for excessive loans for infrastructure. So under the World Bank infrastructure projects are a way of drawing away resources from industrial development. That’s an old trick of U.S. imperialism, and it should not be repeated – whichever country or whichever bank we deal with.

We have now a testing ground for Duterte. It is you now, the peace negotiations.

Fight Back!: Let’s hear more about the peace negotiations. Why are they taking place and where are they going?

The peace negotiation is a testing ground for Duterte. We demand, the NDFP [National Democratic Front of the Philippines] demands that the Duterte government complies with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect For Human Rights and international humanitarian law, by releasing the political prisoners, either by one of two methods.

One is by general amnesty, the other is by withdrawal of the charges. Those charges are garbage. According to the CARHRIHL, the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, those prisoners have been arrested and detained should not have been arrested and detained in the first place, because the charges are trumped up. And many of these political prisoners are not even fighters of the NPA [New People’s Army]. After an incident, the military just picked up people from the nearby villages. So the GRP [Government of the Republic of the Philippines] and their obligation to release the political prisoners, there is even more demand for compensation – for apology and compensation.

Duterte so far has not passed the test. A year has passed, and his promise to comply with CARHRIHL has not been done. There are supposed to be six grades which he must pass. He hasn’t passed grade one.

It is obvious in the peace negotiations, there is so much delay. Even if there are already four successful – we call them successful – because there are some advances, but we notice that at a certain point, there may be no success whatsoever, because the GRP or the Duterte government insists that there must be a protracted and indefinite joint or bilateral ceasefire ahead of everything. And you know if the NDFP agrees to that, that would be very bad. People will say, “What about the social and economic reforms?” At least those must be taken up in advance of this ceasefire. In fact, properly, the permanent truce is a subject matter of the end – it’s the fourth item under the rubric of “end of hostilities and the disposition of forces.” So, this is a problem.

Now, Duterte, I think, he’s quite unstable or stupid, no? He had this Marawi problem. First, he underestimated it then he overestimated – well he, for a while, probably for a day or so he was underestimating the problem but when the fighting started, he had just arrived in Russia, then went back to the Philippines, and he proclaimed martial law.

The martial law does not cover only the area where the Bangsamoro is, of where the Marawi and Abu Sayyaf groups exist. He made the martial law Mindanao-wide. That means to say, the NPA is ‘the enemy!’

Duterte speaks with a forked tongue. “Oh, we are not targeting the NPA.” But why Mindanao, nationwide, and why at the level of the national defense department and the level of the armed forces chief of staff, why do the issue the directives against the NPA? And then they repeat threats that martial rule will be extended to the entire country.

So. What enemy will they face? The NPA, and then of course revolutionary forces and the legal democratic forces, especially those concerned about human rights – from the beginning they were critical of these extra-judicial killings in the so-called ‘war on drugs.’

There are too may innocents getting killed and the police are emboldened to kill because they are assured of impunity and they are paid 50 thousand pesos per head. It’s a scandal!

Well, this is the problem for the revolutionary movement. This may be something like pointed out very early by Ka Oris, the spokesperson of the CPP and the New People’s Army.

This campaign popularizing the extra-judicial killings at first posed against this illegal drug trade can be shifted, can be used a method, against the revolutionary movement. And this could be something like ‘Plan Colombia.’ At first the paramilitaries units were formed supposedly against the illegal drugs, then then they could be shifted against the FARC and ELN, no?

So, the Communist Party and the rest of the revolutionary movement have been alerted, and so right now, even Duterte is making some offensives justifying the disengagement that the NDFP has to undertake.

But Duterte has declared the termination, the end, of the peace negotiations three times. Not once has NDF complained and terminated the peace negotiations. So we are on the just and reasonable side on this issue.

#UtrechtNetherlands #Utrecht #Philippines #JoseMariaSison #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Socialism #Asia

Fight Back! interviewed Fidel V. Agcaoili, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ Peace Panel chairperson, August 19, in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The interview was conducted by Fight Back! editor Mick Kelly, who is also responsible for the international work of Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

Fight Back!: What is the National Democratic Front for the Philippines (NDFP) and what do you want? Fidel V. Agcaoili: The National Democratic Front for the Philippines is the formal alliance of underground organizations that is carrying out the struggle for national and social liberation of the Filipino people.

It includes the Communist Party, the New People’s Army, and other organizations, such as MAKIBAKA, which is the organization of women and Christians for National Liberation, which is the organization of Christians believing in the liberation theology. Then we have the organizations of the Moro, the Cordilleras, the Lumad, government employees, migrants, teachers, students, youth, Kabataaang Makabayan, and then health professionals, etcetera – 17 organizations in all.

What do we want? As I told you we are fighting for national and social liberation of the Filipino people. In the current period, we say that we would like to liberate the Filipino people from its semi-feudal and semi-colonial situation, so that we will be able to break the chains of feudalism that has enslaved the peasantry which constitutes about 75% of our people, and also to be able to bring about national industrialization in the country.

The Philippines is a rich country; we have about 20 of the basic metals in the world and we have a lot of them. We can transform these natural resources into finished products in our own country, and use our own capital and human resources to develop them, so we can move forward – establish a society that is more just, equitable and independent.

Fight Back!: You have been engaged with peace talks with the government. Why? Agcaoili: You see, we view peace negotiations as a form of struggle also, where we can be able to amplify and explain the objectives of the liberation struggle. We engage the government formally, but we always say that the objective – we are guided by the program for a people’s democratic revolution, the program of the National Democratic Front of Philippines – in carrying out peace negotiations, in dealing with the government. That means we will not be engaging in the surrender of the arms, but for a political settlement.

We would be able to engage the government in peace negotiations that would come up with agreements on social and economic reforms, on political and constitutional reforms – then we can bring about a situation where we will be able to achieve the objectives of the front.

Fight Back!: So where are the talks at right now? And where do you see them going? Agcaoili: Right now, the talks are in a situation of suspended animation. Suspended animation because the government of Duterte, and Duterte himself declared that he is no longer interested in the peace negotiations, and would continue to fight for 50 more years if necessary.

But then they have not yet, they have come out with this officially, even Duterte, they have not yet sent us a formal letter terminating the peace negotiations in accordance with the joint agreement on safety and immunity guarantees, where it is stated that if one side wants to break negotiations then all he has to do is send a formal letter to the other side. The other side, upon receipt of the letter, has 30 days to withdraw all of its forces from in the open by disengaging in peace negotiations, so that they would be safe, and then the fighting can continue.

So, they have not yet sent us the formal letter of termination. For us the implication is that they would like to, while there is fighting, they would like to perhaps ‘cool off’ for a while across the table, while in the field the situation remains the same.

Under the current regime, we were able to at least come out with certain points of agreement, especially with respect to land reform, carrying out general land reform. And we had both agreed, in principle anyway, that the land should be distributed freely to the tillers. The government is the one that has the resources, would be the ones to set aside the amount necessary to acquire this land from the landlords, through various means. It could mean that the landlords would be given bonds which they could retrieve over a period of time, with interest of course. Or they could put these bonds, what monies they would get, into the industries set up in connection with the carrying out of national industrialization. So, encourage them to become bourgeois [laughs], from being landlords.

So that’s I think, a major breakthrough, to the credit also of current regime, but also of course because of the demand that has been put forward by the National Democratic Front to give concrete expression to the aspirations of the Filipino peasantry for the destruction of landlordism and feudalism of the country.

Fight Back!: Anything else the you would like to say? Agcaoili: Oh, well! We would like to ask our friends abroad if they could continue to support the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation. And, as part of this struggle, to support the continuation of the peace negotiations, towards achieving a just and lasting peace in the Philippines.

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