The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines joyfully extends its greetings to all the valiant Red fighters and commanders of the New People’s Army on this historic day, the 57th anniversary of the founding of the true army of the oppressed people. On this day, let us look back on the unrelenting efforts to advance the revolutionary armed struggle to achieve national freedom and genuine democracy. Let us draw lessons from our long march along the winding path of advances and retreats, defeats and victories.
Let us pay tribute to all the heroes and martyrs of the Filipino people who selflessly dedicated their lives to the great cause of liberating the nation from imperialist domination and all forms of oppression and exploitation by the local ruling classes. We owe to their sacrifice all that the people have achieved on the path of revolutionary struggle. Their names and contributions shall never fade from the memory of the people. They are shining stars, serving as beacons, as the people traverse the darkness toward the Red dawn.
It is fitting that we celebrate the victories we have achieved in advancing the revolutionary armed struggle in the past year, while mindfully drawing lessons from the bitterness we have experienced. We must firmly grasp these as we press forward on the path of strengthening and advancing our protracted people’s war.
The New People’s Army continues to raise high the Red flag of revolutionary armed struggle. Under the leadership of the Party and guided by the rectification movement, the NPA continues to frustrate the relentless fascist onslaughts of the armed minions of the Marcos puppet regime against the people’s army and the people fighting in the cities and countryside. With the Party’s guidance, and in the face of the increasingly dire situation of the people, the revolutionary spirit and determination of the Red fighters of the NPA to fight for and defend the oppressed and exploited masses have been strengthened and heightened.
Since launching the rectification movement, our positive experiences have outweighed the negative. Although some NPA units have suffered losses, more have preserved their strength, expanded their areas of operation, widened the mass base, recruited new Red fighters, and successfully launched various types of tactical offensives and armed guerrilla actions. Step by step, adjustments are being made in the mode or method of guerrilla methods, to ensure the tight bond with the masses while raising our ability to evade and outmaneuver the enemy’s heavy presence. The NPA continues to firmly regain its strength and looks forward to a resurgence in the coming period. Like conquering a mountain’s summit, the Party and the NPA are fully determined to scale the winding, arduous, and perilous path towards revolutionary advance.
Every day, the suffering of the people intensifies amid imperialist war and crisis. The whole world is shaken by wars ignited by US imperialism to seize nations rich in oil and minerals. This is part of desperate measures to sustain capitalist production and military production. However, in the process, it will succeed only in constricting the stagnant global capitalist economy. In the face of US wars of aggression, the threat of even larger wars erupting in the future grows ever greater.
With utter disregard, US imperialism tramples on Philippine sovereignty, in the military, economic, and political spheres, through its subservient puppet Marcos. Marcos allows the US military to use the country as a base and springboard for military aggression in the Asia-Pacific up to the Middle East, in exchange for military aid and political support for his corrupt and detested regime.
Under Marcos, the corruption of the bureaucrat-capitalists in power knows no bounds, as do the feudal and semi-feudal forms of exploitation in the countryside, the seizure of land and grabbing of livelihoods, the plunder of the country’s natural resources by big capitalists and the exploitation of cheap labor, the destruction of the environment and the consequent widespread devastation of life and livelihood of the masses. The intensifying and merciless use of fascist violence is a sign of the desperation of the US-Marcos regime to preserve the rotten system by sowing terror and the armed suppression of the people’s resistance. The necessity for revolutionary struggle becomes ever clearer. For the people, taking up arms is a just and necessary cause.
Though the fascist monster of the puppet state is large and may appear terrifying on the outside—with its numerous troops, new and powerful weapons, and the flood of support from its imperialist master—we know that, in essence, it is weak and fragile. It is a rotten outgrowth and defender of a decaying system, riddled with deep fissures from rival factions, and is despised and rejected by the people. While the NPA remains small and relatively weak, it stands firmly united under the correct leadership of the Party, determined to expand and strengthen itself with the deep and broad support of the masses. Alongside the mounting resistance and struggle of the people, the Party and the NPA are fully determined to advance the people’s democratic revolution with a new level of fierceness and ferocity.
The US imperialist war is shaking the entire world
Within just two months from the start of the year, the military forces of US imperialism—under orders from its deranged fascist leader, Donald Trump—have attacked two nations long steadfast in defending their national sovereignty and resisting imperialist control and domination. Trump’s greed for the vast oil wealth of Venezuela and Iran—countries with the largest and third largest oil reserves in the world—is the real motive behind his military aggressions.
On January 3, US military forces invaded Venezuela, abducting its President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in an attempt to force the government to its knees and impose US dictates to allow American corporations to seize control of the country’s oil industry. Not even two months later, on February 28, the US and the Zionist state of Israel jointly bombed Iran and carried out the assassination of its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Trump openly declared his goal—to provoke a popular uprising in Iran and install a new government subservient to US power.
During the same period, the US blatantly threatened to attack Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico—testing which among them would bow to its commands, or how far it could push its threats of invasion. Earlier, Trump had also threatened to “reclaim” the Panama Canal. All these moves follow his revival of the Monroe Doctrine, asserting that Latin America is the US’s own backyard. At the same time, Trump threatened to forcibly seize Greenland, the vast island straddling the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans.
Over the span of 25 days, the US and Israel dropped at least 23,000 bombs on Iran—an average of more than 920 bombs a day. Nearly 2,000 Iranians have been killed, including hundreds of children, while 24,800 wounded since the bombings began. The airstrikes targeted not only military facilities but also schools, homes, commercial buildings, hospitals, energy and nuclear plants, and other civilian infrastructure—all in a bid to crush Iran, bend it to the will of US imperialism, and force it to surrender its oil wealth and national sovereignty.
The armed aggression of US imperialism against Venezuela and Iran marks a new level of intensifying contradictions—between the imperialists and nations assertive of national sovereignty—and is also tied to the sharpening inter-imperialist contradictions. In the name of the American monopoly capitalists, Trump openly challenges and attempts to overturn the global order that has prevailed for the past three decades—the division among imperialist powers over sources of oil and other vital raw materials, dumping grounds for surplus unsold goods, and outlets for excess capital.
China and Russia strongly condemned the US armed attacks on Venezuela and Iran. In the face of the massive destruction inflicted on Iran by US bombings, both China and Russia sent humanitarian aid. Russia, along with numerous other countries and international agencies, expressed grave concern over the US targeting of nuclear plants that could lead to catastrophic consequences for millions of people.
The US attacks on Venezuela and Iran have also sparked deep concern among America’s own allies, including those within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Many criticized the US for violating international norms and United Nations principles, although most stopped short of directly opposing, and in the end, supported the aim of toppling governments that resist imperialist dictates and control. Still, they are alarmed that the US’s unilateral actions could significantly expand its dominance, upsetting the balance of power that existed before these military aggressions. Earlier, the US had already deepened contradictions by imposing steep tariffs on a range of countries—including both its imperialist rivals and allies.
The US military offensives in Venezuela and Iran to seize control of oil are also indirect strikes aimed at its chief rival, China—the primary buyer of these countries’ oil exports (15–20% of China’s oil imports come from the 80–90% share of total exports of both Iran and Venezuela). The attempt to grab these major oil reserves is part of the US’s escalating campaign to pressure China in recent years. These measures include imposing higher tariffs on Chinese goods, banning the use of electronics components made by China’s Huawei, prohibiting the sale of advanced semiconductors and production machinery to China, and enforcing other economic and trade sanctions.
Alongside this, the US continues to strengthen its presence along the so-called “first island chain” encircling China—deploying and reinforcing military assets in the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea, and selling weapons to Taiwan under the pretext of “containing” a supposed “potential military operation” by China against the island. All these provocations compel China to respond with its own counter-preparations and by building its strength, fortifying its presence both in and around the seas surrounding its country.
The US military spent roughly $1 billion per day on its relentless bombardment of Iran. The primary beneficiaries of this war spending are the corporations that supply weapons and military equipment to the US armed forces. The Trump government is now seeking an additional $200 billion budget to enter into new contracts with these companies to produce more missiles, drones, and other instruments of war.
Contrary to the original US plan, its attack on Iran has now dragged on for a month. As it stretches on, opposition to the war is growing both inside the US and in many other countries. This has triggered intense speculation in oil prices, from $65 to $105 per barrel of crude, producing an “oil price shock” across the world, benefiting big oil companies. There is now widespread fear that many economies, including that of the US, will slide into recession and stagflation, marked by high inflation, low output, and widespread unemployment, especially if the US-Israel war against Iran drags on and crude oil prices remain high.
Even in the face of aggression by the world’s most powerful imperialist power, the people of Venezuela and Iran have not yielded. Millions of Venezuelans poured onto the streets in various cities and towns to condemn the US armed aggression and bombing, and to demand that President Maduro be returned to their country. In Iran as well, nearly every day, millions of people fill the squares and streets joining demonstrations to show their unity, denounce US armed aggression, and oppose attempts to install a government that will serve US interests.
At present, it is still unclear how the US and Israel will bring their war of aggression against Iran to an end, especially since they have failed to achieve their stated goal of forcing Iran to surrender. A sign of the deep isolation of US imperialism is that Trump has not won the support of his imperialist allies in Europe to send military forces to open the Strait of Hormuz. An indication that the war will be prolonged is the movement of as many as 50,000 American troops to the region.
Over the past month, Iran continuously carried out retaliatory missile and drone strikes targeting Israel and US military bases in Middle East countries. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Jordan condemned Iran’s actions as “violations of sovereignty,” even as they refuse to “be dragged into a war not theirs.” Further realignments are inevitable in the face of a prolonged war, especially once the US puts American boots on the ground in Iran.
In the face of the continuing crisis of the global capitalist system, further and more intense US wars of aggression can be expected in the months and years ahead. Trump has already shown that his government will not be restrained by any international rules, or even by the legal processes within the US government for mounting wars. Trump has shown that his madness has no limits. In its drive to seize control of other countries’ oil wealth and strategic minerals, and to squeeze imperialist rivals, above all China, more and larger armed conflicts are bound to erupt in the not to distant future. The great suffering this will bring to the oppressed peoples of the world is awakening their anti-imperialist consciousness and intensifying their resolve to fight for freedom.
The rotten Philippine ruling system slides deeper into crisis
The living conditions of the broad masses of the Filipino people are rapidly worsening, alongside the further decline into a deeper and more severe crisis of the country’s semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system. This is driven by the spike in oil prices following the US imperialist war in the Middle East. The backward condition of the local economy, or system of production, which depends on imports and foreign loans, has become even more exposed. So too has the responsibility of the reactionary Marcos government for the worsening hardship of the majority of the people, for aligning with the interests of foreign companies and their partner big bourgeois compradors and bureaucrat capitalists.
The profit-hungry oil companies are inflicting severe suffering on the Filipino people by taking advantage of the war in the Middle East. Prices of petroleum products have all risen to unprecedented levels. Diesel, which is chiefly used in transportation, energy, and commerce, has been driven sharply higher. The enormous profits being pocketed by oil companies are a burden on the masses, who bear every price increase. The people are further burdened by the double load of taxes imposed by the government—excise tax and value-added tax, or VAT—which amount to ₱160 billion a year, nearly 60 percent of the annual ₱276 billion collections from the combined taxes.
The relentless rise in oil prices since the start of the year, and the surge since March, have led to continuous increases in the prices of food and other basic necessities, transport fares, electricity and water bills, and other services. There is also the threat of further price increases in commodities because of the peso’s collapse against the dollar to its lowest level in history, ₱60.5 to one dollar. The working masses bear the heaviest brunt.
The living standards of the majority of the people—the workers, peasants, and ordinary employees, who have little or no savings and live hand to mouth—are rapidly deteriorating. If prices continue to rise in the coming months, an estimated 2 to 3 million more families will be added to the 14.3 million families already living in poverty. The US imperialist aggression against Iran have filled with dread more than two million migrant workers employed in various Middle Eastern countries. Tens of thousands have already chosen to return home, despite having no work or livelihood awaiting them in the country.
The surge in oil prices will further drag down the livelihood of the Filipino masses. Because of rising production costs, the incomes of drivers and operators of small transport services, as well as fishermen, farmers, small traders, entrepreneurs and vendors, canteen and eatery operators, and many others, are falling. The real value of workers’ wages will shrink even more as the cost of living rises. Despite the people’s intense grievance against low wages, the Marcos regime continues to turn a deaf ear to the long-standing call for a living minimum wage of ₱1,200 a day.
The cartel control or collusion of a few greedy giant oil companies over the local distribution of petroleum products is a heavy burden on the people. Contrary to the promise of the Oil Deregulation Law of 1998 that competition would bring down prices, the biggest oil companies agree on weekly price changes to maximize profits. The Philippines has no national oil industry. Instead of being developed, the country’s local refining capacity continues to weaken. There is natural gas in seas around the Philippines, such as in Malampaya, but these remains under the control of big bourgeois comprador interests and their foreign capitalist financial partners.
The local oil industry reflects the broader economic order in the Philippines, which is dominated and controlled by foreign companies in collusion with the big bourgeois compradors, big landlords, and bureaucrat capitalists. Conspiring with the puppet regime that enforces neoliberal policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund, foreign companies hinder the development of local production.
The Philippine economy remains backward, agrarian, and non-industrialized. The country’s natural wealth—from the mountains to the seas—is being plundered and seized by foreign monopoly capitalists and the ruling classes. They exploit the low wages of Filipino workers. The profits they reap are not reinvested in expanding and developing local production. Local production depends on the importation of machinery, parts, and other production inputs, and is geared toward exporting cheap raw or semi-processed materials (minerals, fruits), as well as re-exporting low-value-added goods (such as semiconductors and other electronic components).
Under Marcos, the Philippines has sunk even deeper into debt. The country’s current national external debt has reached an unprecedented $99.1 billion (₱5.81 trillion), nearly four times the external debt of $26 billion left by Marcos Sr in 1986. The Philippines’ foreign debt is part of the country’s total debt of ₱18.13 trillion as of January 2026, the highest in history. Foreign debt, together with the dollars remitted by migrant workers, is used to pay for the trade deficit ($50–$60 billion in recent years), which results from the unequal exchange of cheap raw materials for exports and costlier imported finished goods. It also helps cover the budget deficit, a large portion of which goes to anomalous infrastructure projects, bloated military spending, and debt payments.
The forms of corruption under the US-Marcos regime have become worse and more brazen. The worst among these are the exposed anomalous flood-control and other infrastructure projects, in which billions of pesos were pocketed by bureaucrat-capitalist government officials. It was recently revealed that Marcos himself is the mastermind behind this scheme. In collusion with several key Malacañang officials, Marcos is estimated to have directly pocketed as much as ₱8 billion in the form of kickbacks. Aside from a few low-ranking officials, none of the high-ranking officials named in the scandals have been imprisoned or charged. As expected, the “investigation” by the ICI or the Independent Commission on Infrastructure, created by Marcos, came to nothing. Marcos himself is evading accountability. The impeachment case against him was swiftly junked by congressmen who are in his pocket.
In contrast, the House of Representatives quickly moved forward with filing impeachment charges and conducting hearings against Vice President Sara Duterte, in connection with the anomalous spending of ₱612.5 million in intelligence funds, unexplained growth in personal wealth, and other complaints. In the interest of justice, the people have long demanded accountability for both Sara Duterte and her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte. Tens of thousands of families of victims of state violence under Duterte welcomed the confirmation of charges hearing against him conducted recently by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. While the people are holding the Dutertes to account, they are also aware that the Marcos ruling faction is using pressure on rival Sara Duterte to derail her declared plan to run in the 2028 presidential election. Even though that is still far off, the reactionary parties are already focused on dealings, maneuvering, and factional groupings.
The Filipino people are intensely disgusted with the corruption of the bureaucrat-capitalists of whatever faction of the ruling classes, who brazenly plunder and enrich themselves from public funds even amid the worsening suffering of the working masses. The people’s anger is boundless, especially toward the fake or failed flood-control projects that enriched some with billions of pesos, especially in the face of successive disasters caused by floods and landslides. They know that beyond flood control, there are many other corruption schemes under the rotten government, from the exposed anomalous “farm-to-market road” projects to the purchase of fire trucks.
The people’s anger over corruption erupted last year. For several months, students repeatedly walked out of scores of schools, as tens of thousands of citizens repeatedly marched in the streets in protest in various parts of the country. Even though Marcos was stubbornly being shielded by allied social-democratic groups led by Akbayan, this did not drown out the resounding call of broad sections of the youth for the ouster of Marcos and Duterte, and the demand for change in the rotten system.
The emerging protest movement continues to gather momentum in the face of the rapid collapse of the people’s livelihood. Those who stood up and protested corruption last year are standing up and protesting again this March. A series of protest actions and transport strikes has erupted across the country to denounce the US imperialist war on Iran, condemn the exploitative oil companies for their excessive hikes in diesel and gasoline prices, and denounce the US-Marcos regime for its incompetence in the face of the crisis and its callousness to the people’s grievances.
To prevent the protest movement from gathering momentum, the US-Marcos regime continues to use its armed minions to pressure and intimidate leaders and organizations from various sectors, deploy its armed forces and military agents in communities, campuses, and factories, and suppress mass actions in the streets. It uses “terrorist”-tagging and the threat of imprisonment or abduction. All of this is part of the so-called “unity, peace, and progress” that also includes armed suppression in the countryside and combat operations against revolutionary armed forces, in order to make way for foreign companies, in collusion with the local ruling classes, to seize land, and open mines and other operations that plunder and destroy the environment.
The reactionary Marcos regime is throwing all its resources and personnel into its desperate drive to wipe out the NPA. Despite declarations that the NPA is “on the verge of being crushed,” nearly all of the AFP’s combat battalions remain deployed in guerrilla fronts across the country, carrying out what it calls “focused military operations,” marked by military rule in villages, restricting the movement of the population, blockading food and commerce, indiscriminate bombing such as in Mindoro, suppressing the struggle of farmers against the entry of mining operations such as in Nueva Vizcaya, extrajudicial killings of those suspected of supporting the NPA, fake surrenders, abductions, torture, detention, and other worse forms of human-rights violations.
The AFP relentlessly sow fascist terror on orders of its US imperialist master. The US imperialists pour funds ($250 million a year through 2032), military hardware in the form of jetfighters, bombs, and ammunition, and close intelligence support to the AFP. The aim of US imperialism is to have the AFP devote its full force to supporting the unfolding operations and wars of the US in the Asia-Pacific, particularly against its rival China.
The US is certain to drag the Philippines into any war of aggression or interventionist war in Asia. The US military presence is growing ever larger in the expanding number of EDCA “sites” and in secret US facilities in various parts of the country. Amid the US war of aggression against Iran, thousands of American assault troops will be welcomed and assisted by the AFP in the planned Balikatan war exercises. They are arriving aboard their nuclear-powered warships and carrying their weapons of war. Naval vessels of the US are routinely docked or sail in the South China Sea, in the seas around the Philippines, and within the country’s territory. This is part of a strategy to use the Philippines as a major military base and launching pad for its operations in the region. To lead these operations, the US military formed Task Force Philippines. Part of this strategy are the so-called “transparency operations” to supposedly expose what it calls aggressive maneuvers of China in the South China Sea in order to portray the US as the Philippines’ “friend” and “ally” against China. Also at the urging of the US, the Philippines has signed, and will sign, a series of military agreements with US allies such as Japan, France, Canada, and other countries.
The continuing US imperialist war in Iran, and the crisis it is generating in the Philippines and throughout the world, are giving rise to a situation in which the oppressed classes and sectors have no choice but to fight to defend their interests. It is rousing the broad masses to the need for revolutionary change in the Philippines and the world. The revolutionary forces under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines are determined to arouse, organize, and mobilize the Filipino people along the path of the people’s democratic revolution.
Strengthen the NPA and vigorously advance the people’s war!
The unresolved crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system, the brutal fascist-terrorist suppression by the US-Marcos regime, the worsening level of US military intervention, the intensifying hunger and suffering, and the increasingly savage forms of oppression and exploitation are the main reasons to continue waging the people’s democratic revolution. The Party, the New People’s Army, and all revolutionary forces are fully determined to advance the protracted people’s war from the present stage to the next.
The NPA continues to build its strength in the countryside. It continues to galvanize mass work and expands its guerrilla zones. It recruits and trains new Red fighters to take on ever greater responsibilities in politics and military affairs.
Marcos’ declaration last year that there are “no more guerrilla groups” in the country is a massive bluster. Equally massive is the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) repeated declarations in recent years that it set on completely eradicating the revolutionary armed struggle. Another year has passed without them achieving their declared goal. In various parts of the country, NPA guerrilla units continue to fight. Contrary to its bombastic claim that the NPA has been defeated, the AFP relentlessly deploys battalion after battalion of combat forces from northern Luzon to southern Mindanao, in a futile scheme to suppress the masses and wipe out the people’s army.
With utmost vigor, let us celebrate today the 57th anniversary of the New People’s Army. Let us recall how it was founded by the Communist Party of the Philippines on March 29, 1969, under the supreme guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Since its founding, the NPA has served as the revolutionary army of the Filipino people to overthrow US imperialism and the class rule of the comprador big bourgeoisie, landlords, and bureaucrat capitalists. The NPA is the Party’s main instrument in fulfilling the central revolutionary task of smashing and overthrowing the armed power of the reactionary state and establishing the new democratic people’s government.
The NPA had only 60 Red fighters when it was founded in the second district of Tarlac province. They held just nine (9) automatic rifles and 26 inferior firearms. Through resolute advances in line with the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside, the NPA expanded first in Central Luzon, followed by Cagayan Valley, and later in various provinces of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.
The NPA’s small and weak forces, compared to the enemy’s far larger and stronger armed forces, was never a hindrance to advancing the revolutionary armed struggle. With the wide and deep support of the masses, NPA units mastered guerrilla tactics to gradually expand and strengthen themselves step by step. Always seizing the initiative and moving swiftly, NPA guerrilla units were able to strike at the enemy’s weaker and isolated parts, and take away its weapons.
In 57 years, US imperialism, together with eight puppet reactionary governments—from Marcos Sr. to Marcos Jr.—have launched more than ten strategic offensives or wars of suppression to crush the NPA: Oplan Nip-in-the-bud, Oplan Katatagan, Oplan Lambat Bitag I, Oplan Lambat Bitag II, Oplan Mamamayan, Oplan Makabayan, Oplan Gordian Knot, Oplan Bantay Laya I, Oplan Bantay Laya II, Oplan Bayanihan, Oplan Kapayapaan, Joint Oplan Kapanatagan, and NAP-UPD. All of these were formulated under the US military’s counterinsurgency doctrine. All these are strategic campaigns of encirclement against the NPA, aimed at isolating the people’s army from the masses, suppressing the masses, and blocking the flow of their support to the NPA, in order to place NPA units in a purely military position and annihilate them using superior military force. Within this strategic framework, each oplan employed tactics that were more intense, more brutal, and more widespread than the one before, all under the advise and support of US imperialism.
Guerrilla warfare is a tactic of the entire people, not just the people’s army. No matter how many times bigger or stronger the fascist monster is, it cannot withstand the sting of a thousand Red ants. No enemy force can obstruct the advance of the people’s war. With the firm unity of the masses and the people’s army, the protracted people’s war in the Philippines will advance in stages, accumulating strength in the countryside until it is ready to capture the cities. History has proven in victorious countries how the people’s war triumphed as a mass political movement involving millions of people, primarily through armed struggle, alongside and supported by all forms of struggle.
The NPA has repeatedly proven that by employing the army and masses in guerrilla tactics of concentration, dispersal, and shifting—feigning in the East and striking in the West, make the enemy punch the air, striking the enemy’s rear, striking its weak and isolated parts, and more—no matter how large, prolonged, or ferocious the enemy’s campaigns of gradual constriction and suppression, the NPA can thwart them, and in the process expand and strengthen itself. It has also repeatedly proven in negative experience that any infirmity in grasping guerrilla principles and tactics—letting go of the initiative and becoming passive, premature concentration, mountain-strongholdism, self-constriction, and other weaknesses—leads to losses, if not annihilation in some parts.
Despite having suffered major and minor losses in the past, the NPA has been able to advance and strengthen itself by returning to the foundation of the basic principles laid down by the Party. Under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we launched the rectification movement in 2023 to sum up and draw lessons from the setbacks and defeats suffered due to internal weaknesses in advancing the people’s war and fighting the enemy’s counterrevolutionary offensives. In the process, we have strengthened our grasp of basic principles and repudiated wrong tendencies of the past. Since then, we have carried out the necessary changes in the guerrilla methods of the people’s army to strengthen the bond and unity between the people’s army and the masses, expand and strengthen the NPA, keep the enemy blind and deaf, frustrate its major focused operations, and stun it with surprise tactical offensives and guerrilla actions.
In the current stage of the people’s war, we must continue to advance extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever expanding and deepening mass base. To achieve this, we must advance widespread political and armed struggles, along with the all-sided task of strengthening the Party and the army, the mass organizations, the organs of political power, and the units of the people’s militia and self-defense groups of the masses.
Key to all of this is strengthening the Party. We must continue to strengthen the study of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the Party’s basic principles, and their application to the study of the concrete situation and the performance of practical revolutionary tasks. We must continue to deepen the rectification movement through summation and analysis to cast aside empiricism and dogmatism in ideology, petty-bourgeois subjectivism in politics, and ultrademocracy and bureaucratism in organization. We must repeatedly expand the Party. We must establish Party branches in tens of thousands of barrios, schools, factories, and other areas of population across the country, in both the cities and countryside, to ensure the Party’s broad and deep leadership of the people in their millions.
In the countryside, we must expand and strengthen the Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM) and other revolutionary mass associations among women and youth, to strengthen antifeudal struggles (reducing land rent, abolishing usury, raising wages, attaining fair prices for farm produce). We must also form revolutionary mass organizations among minority peoples to defend their ancestral land rights. Alongside this are broad struggles to defend the rights and welfare of the peasant masses against land grabbing and seizure, plunder and environmental destruction, foreign military intervention, fascist suppression and imposition of martial law measures, and other forms of oppression.
The Party arouses, organizes, and mobilizes the peasant masses in the expansive countryside. Within the guerrilla zones and fronts, the people’s army is the Party’s main arm in organizing and mobilizing the masses, an in advancing armed struggle and expanding the revolutionary mass base. Armed struggle supports the struggles of peasants, fishermen, and other rural poor. The NPA is their sole weapon against the armed goons, thugs, paramilitary, and military forces used by the ruling classes against them. Because the people’s army defends them steadfastly, the oppressed masses serve as an inexhaustible wellspring of new Red fighters.
In the cities, we must continue to expand and strengthen the revolutionary movement of workers, semiproletarians, and intellectual youth, as well as other sectors of the urban petty-bourgeoisie. We form and strengthen their revolutionary mass organizations clandestinely and mobilize them to support and participate in the armed struggle in the countryside. The Party also leads their democratic struggles to defend their rights and welfare, while actively involving them in broad struggles against fascism, corruption, US military intervention, oppressive foreign-dictated policies, and other issues confronting the entire nation.
We must continuously strengthen the National Democratic Front as the alliance of revolutionary mass organizations. The NDF is the most consolidated part of the alliance of patriotic and democratic classes and sectors, united on the basis of advancing armed struggle. On the basis of the strength of the NPA and the NDF, we can form temporary alliances with sections of the ruling classes that acknowledge the strength of the revolutionary movement and are willing to unite at different time and in various forms. At present, we are forming the broadest united front against the ruling Marcos and Duterte factions, which now both represent the most reactionary and fascist faction of the ruling classes. We must spare no effort to isolate, fight, and oust the ruling US-Marcos regime, the principal oppressor and heaviest burden on the people.
Amid the crisis of the ruling system that brings unprecedented suffering to the broad masses, the need to advance along the path of people’s war becomes ever clearer. This is especially stark among the youth who aspire to change the system and build a new future for the country. Marcos himself, through his negative example, is pushing them to fight and take up arms. Last year, we saw rising numbers of youth, both in the cities and countryside, responding to the call to support and join the New People’s Army. The NPA is continuously infused with new blood, renewing its strength for advancing the armed struggle.
All NPA units, together with units of the people’s militia, are fully determined to launch tactical offensives or guerrilla actions that they can win, against the weak, tired, or isolated enemy units or elements, to take away their weapons and arm new Red fighters. The NPA also targets the armed retainers of despotic landlords who terrorize the masses. Appropriate steps must also be taken to carry out the sentences of people’s courts against fascist and criminal agents of the enemy. In the face of growing climate disasters, the NPA must also act as defenders of the environment and carry out guerrilla actions against the plunderous and destructive companies.
The Party and the New People’s Army are fully determined to advance the protracted people’s war with all their strength. Especially now, in the face of the intensifying US warmongering that threatens to drag the whole world into the vortex of imperialist war, there is an urgent need to vigorously energize the people’s war to meet the intensifying aspirations of the Filipino people to break free from the clutches of US imperialism and achieve genuine national freedom and democracy.
The protracted people’s war is a bright torch that brings light and hope to the Filipino people, and serves as an inspiration and model for hundreds of millions of oppressed and exploited workers and peasants around the world. It is the great contribution of the Filipino proletariat to the worldwide struggle to end imperialism and advance revolutionary struggles to achieve freedom, democracy, and socialism.
Down with imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism!
Advance the people’s democratic revolution!
Advance along the path of protracted people’s war!
Long live the working class and the Filipino people!
Raise high the Red banner of armed struggle!
Long live the 57th anniversary of the New People’s Army!
Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!
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