An estimated 3,000 Aeta indigenous people from five barangays marched in Capas, Tarlac on July 14 to denounce the seizure of their ancestral land and the harassment they suffer from the Philippine Air Force (PAF). They also condemned the takeover of their ancestral land for the expansion of New Clark City under the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA).

The Aeta masses marched from Barangay O’Donnell to a checkpoint entering Colonel Ernesto Ravina Air Base (CERAB), a military reservation in Barangay Santa Juliana. National democratic groups in Central Luzon voiced support for them.

The PAF barred these communities from building and repairing homes. It suppressed their water and electricity supply and blocked the entry of aid and other services. This is tied to plans of building a Joint Training Complex for Filipino and American troops in the area.

The indigenous people said they were not asked for their free, prior and informed consent for this. Residents will be driven out of the 18,000-hectare military complex in the barangays of Santa Juliana, O’Donnell (Patling), and Santa Lucia.

Meanwhile, the BCDA continues constructing roads and destroying farms, ancestral land, and the environment for New Clark City. The Aeta residents expect the evictions to intensify further because the expansion includes a U.S. plan to build an economic security zone with an “artificial intelligence hub,” data centers, and other infrastructure under the Pax Silica initiative.

The US Embassy in the Philippines announced on July 14 the visit of US Ambassador Lee Lipton to the site of the projects in the economic security zone. That zone sits right next to the Joint Training Complex and is part of military and economic hubs such as the Subic Ammunition Factory and Agila Shipyard, Basa Airbase, Fort Magsaysay Military Reservation, and the APECO Defense Hub.

#International #Philippines #AngBayan

For four years, the Filipino people have endured suffering under Marcos’ puppet, oppressive, and fascist regime. Despite all of Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s efforts to paint Philippine “progress,” he cannot conceal the reality of worsening conditions of the country and the Filipino people. Marcos officials have repeatedly declared the defeat of the revolutionary armed struggle, yet military operations across all guerrilla fronts throughout the archipelago remain relentless. Marcos continues to fan the flames of the people’s war.

The situation of workers, farmers, fishermen, and other basic classes and sectors comprising the majority of the people further deteriorates. On the other hand, the few ruling classes, accomplices of US imperialism, feast on wealth accumulated from oppression and exploitation of the toiling masses, bureaucratic corruption, plunder of natural resources, and grabbing people’s land and livelihood. The nation’s security is in peril as Marcos allows the US to use the Philippines as a giant military base.

Living standards plummet amid skyrocketing prices of oil, food, and daily necessities. Marcos’s photo-op gestures like rice giveaways and aid programs are hollow. Workers’ wages and the salaries of ordinary employees fall short of half what a family of five needs to live decently. Farmers are sinking deeper into debt in the face of rising costs of production and living.

The unemployment crisis is acute. Millions are jobless, especially among the youth. Thousands of Filipino workers migrate overseas daily seeking employment. This results from the decline of local production in both manufacturing and agriculture, caused by all-out import liberalization and flooding of foreign commodities. There is no program to build local national industries to produce basic needs. Marcos continues to bury the Philippines deeper into debt.

While the people struggle, factional strife over corruption and power continues unabated. The 2028 election remains far off, but maneuvering and posturing have already begun. To preempt Vice President Sara Duterte’s candidacy, the Marcos camp is pushing for her impeachment. What the people truly want is justice and accountability for all those involved in corruption and plunder of public funds, particularly Marcos himself as the highest official and chief of bureaucrat-capitalism.

Marcos surpasses all previous puppet presidents in his subservience to US imperialist dictates. In the economic field, he provides boundless incentives and privileges to foreign capitalists. Everywhere, land is being taken away by plantations and “renewable energy” projects. While no land is allocated for farmers, Marcos will open 1,620 hectares of land for an “economic security zone” for American corporations under the Pax Silica framework. Militarily, there is an unprecedented increase in US military forces within Philippine territory as they prepare an imperialist war against China. Marcos blindly allows the Philippines to be used as a vast military base and launchpad for US aggression and intervention, showing utter disregard for Filipinos who will suffer from being dragged into a US-instigated war.

The US provokes and fans fascist oppression in the Philippines to suppress the Filipino people’s anti-imperialist resistance in all forms—armed and unarmed. More than one billion dollars has been allocated by the US for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the coming five years. The US military wages all-out intervention in counter-guerrilla warfare, campaigns of suppression and martial law imposition in the countryside, under the guise of the “Salaknib” and other military exercises. The US supplies AFP units with weapons and equipment for small-scale operations desperately attempting to crush the continuing spread and expansion of the NPA.

From the people’s point of view, the Marcos regime equates to unparalleled corruption, suffering and hunger of the masses, subservience to foreign capital, and fascist oppression. Among the broad people, it is clear that Marcos represents the rotten and decrepit system ruled by US imperialism in collusion with the few ruling classes. Today, Marcos is the primary catalyst driving the Filipino people to rise up and take the difficult path of struggle.

From various corners of the country, mass struggles are bursting forth to defend land and homes, struggle for living wages, expose corruption, hold plunderers accountable, defend people’s rights, oppose the destruction of the environment, protest the presence of foreign troops, and fight for national sovereignty. They are getting organized and acting together to defend their welfare and the interests of the entire nation.

In the countryside, armed struggle advances steadily and expands across guerrilla zones and fronts. Wherever they go, Red fighters of the New People’s Army are warmly welcomed by the masses who firmly embrace them as their true army. With the NPA, the broad masses of peasants are emboldened to rise and fight against land grabbers and their fascist mercenaries.

Amid the gross sufferings of the Filipino people, the Party is determined to serve as the core and vanguard of their struggle to end oppression, alter their destiny, and establish a new sovereign and democratic nation. In the spirit of the rectification movement, cadres and Party members devote their mind and strength to the people’s cause. Wherever the masses are, the Party takes deep and wide roots to guide them along the path of struggle.

#International #ThePhilippines #AngBayan #CommunistPartyofthePhilippines #NPA #Marcos

The entire Party and all revolutionary forces nationwide salute the heroism of the 10 fallen Red commanders who fought the fascist attackers in Toboso, Negros Occidental on April 19. The people mourn the deaths of their beloved children who selflessly gave their entire lives to advance the interests of the oppressed masses in Negros and the entire people’s struggle for genuine freedom and democracy.

They also grieve the death of nine other unarmed individuals, including two children, who were mercilessly killed by the unhinged soldiers of the 79th IB. They include youths from the cities and other countries who went to Toboso to support the peasant and farm worker masses in their struggles to defend their right to land and livelihood.

In solidarity with the loved ones of those killed in Toboso, the people strongly clamor for justice. The memory of the lives of the nation’s best and finest children is forever etched in the consciousness of entire nation.

The broad masses of Negros demonstrated how they love and cherish their fallen Red commanders when hundreds of fellow villagers joined the funeral, defying fascist soldiers’ intimidation. Such a display of affection for the NPA further strengthens the Red commanders’ determination to continue their sacrifices in wholeheartedly serving the broad masses of the people.

The NPA suffered a heavy setback in Toboso. However, this is temporary and one which the masses and the people’s army will overcome by drawing bitter lessons. In memory of the martyrs who fell in Toboso, the NPA’s determination grows even stronger to ceaselessly strive along the shining yet arduous and winding path of revolutionary armed struggle. The NPA is fully resolved to take action to achieve justice for the victims of the Toboso massacre and for the thousands of other victims of the AFP’s fascist suppression in Negros and other parts of the country. From the land nourished by the Toboso martyrs’ blood will spring even more fighters who will rise and take up arms in various guerrilla zones and fronts throughout the country.

Although a dark chapter, the Toboso massacre sheds light on worsening conditions, the ongoing feudal oppression, the state’s fascist violence, and the extreme suffering of the peasant and farm worker masses in Negros, which impel them to rise and wage armed resistance. It further highlights the reasons why the masses must advance the armed revolution to defend against the oppressive ruling classes and their fascist attack dogs.

It further inflames the desire of even more youth, especially rural youth who directly suffer feudal oppression and fascist violence, to join the people’s army and contribute to the people’s struggle for national and social liberation. It also calls on urban intellectual youth to go to the countryside to learn from the masses and join in advancing the people’s war.

The NPA is steadily regaining strength throughout the country. It continues to expand and multiply the number guerrilla zones and areas to carry out mass work and launch tactical offensives. Wherever it expands in the countryside, the Red commanders are warmly welcomed and tightly embraced by the masses who are deeply desirous to defend their interests and rights. They know the NPA is their weapon against their class oppressors and exploiters. They eagerly join the people’s war as village self-defense forces, militias, or soldiers of the people’s army.

Class contradictions in the countryside are extremely sharp. Landlords employ worsening forms of taking away the resources created by peasants. There are widespread cases of land grabbing and eviction of peasants, as well as dispossession of fisherfolk’s fishing grounds. Corporations in mining or plantations of big foreign capitalists and comprador bourgeoisie relentlessly plunder and destroy the environment. The military imposes martial law to crush wherever the masses resist oppression.

For the oppressed masses, armed struggle is just and necessary. They can defend their lives and livelihoods only by arming themselves and fighting.

Revolutionary armed struggle is the primary form of struggle in advancing the protracted people’s war to end the oppressive and exploitative ruling system. Armed struggle advances alongside the various forms of people’s resistance, open and secret, legal and illegal, urban and rural. The people’s war is a peasant war since it mainly focuses on implementing the revolutionary program for land reform.

The people’s war is also a patriotic war aimed at opposing and overthrowing the neocolonial state and the mercenary AFP. It must advance even more now amid the US imperialists’ war preparations and the resultant intense crisis in the Philippines. In collusion with the Marcos puppet regime, the US and its allied imperialist powers’ military forces is turning the entire country into a springboard for imperialist war. They are now paving the way for American monopoly capitalists to take over exclusive control of the country’s land and minerals.

It is become ever clearer to the Filipino people that there is no other path towards salvation from imperialist domination and plunder other than the path of revolutionary armed struggle.

Let us set ablaze the path of the people’s war. Let us amplify the call for young workers, peasants, and intellectuals from the cities, and even overseas, to join the New People’s Army. Let us echo our call for the people to take part in carving the country’s a new history towards a future of freedom and prosperity.

#International #Philippines #CPP #NPA #AngBayan #TobosoMassacre #Negros19