Arroyo regime is obsessed with military force, ignores proposals for exploratory talks

[ndf <ndf@casema.nl>]

PRESS STATEMENT
12 January 2008

ARROYO REGIME IS OBSESSED WITH MILITARY FORCE
AND IGNORES PROPOSALS FOR EXPLORATORY TALKS

By Professor JOSE MARIA SISON
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines


Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal, spokesperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), debunked recently the false claims of the Arroyo regime and its military henchmen that the reactionary armed forces had destroyed 13  guerrilla fronts in 2007 and reduced the total number of guerrilla fronts to only 87 and the fighters of the New People's Army (NPA) to less than 6000.

Ka Roger pointed out that Oplan Bantay Laya had failed to destroy a single guerrilla front and that the NPA had increased the number of fighters by seizing hundreds of firearms from the armed personnel of the state. The limited troop strength of the army and national police is capable of concentrating only on less than 10 per cent of the guerrilla fronts at every given time. Thus, the NPA has been very successful in employing the flexible tactics of concentration, dispersal and shifting according to circumstances.

Even while the enemy armed forces are concentrated on a guerrilla front, they fail to destroy the NPA units there, they further incur the ire of the people with gross human rights violations and they receive deadly blows from the NPA. As soon as the enemy armed forces leave, the local units of the NPA completely recover the guerrilla front. The number of guerrilla fronts have fluctuated between 120 and 130. This is far from the false claim of 87 by the military henchmen of the Arroyo regime.

The Arroyo regime boasts of increasing the troop strength of its army by a measly 3000 or six battalions at high cost supposedly to destroy the NPA before 2010. But it is actually on the side of the armed revolution that there are far more significant developments in accordance with a comprehensive plan to  further strengthen the armed revolution and deliver more powerful blows against the reactionary state.

The NDFP National Council has informed its Negotiating Panel that the CPP is already providing politico-military education and training to thousands of CPP cadres and NPA officers for the accelerated expansion and consolidation of the NPA, the development of the NPA regional and provincial commands with their own strike forces, the  increase of guerrilla fronts in order to cover all the 173 congressional districts in the provinces and allow the armed city partisans to operate in 44 congressional districts in the cities and the formation and training of the people's militia units in villages and self-defense units in mass organizations.

The NPA is intensifying its nationwide tactical offensives in order to seize more arms and resources from the enemy, build organs of political power at every level possible, destroy the political power of the die-hard reactionaries, develop relatively wide stable base areas wherever possible on the basis of the guerrilla fronts, raise the level of land reform from the minimum to the maximum  wherever possible, promote all possible social movements, dismantle the operations of despotic landlords and those of imperialist and big comprador corporations in plantations, mines and logging and arrest and try plunderers, human rights violators and other criminals of the worst kind.

The Arroyo regime is irrationally obsessed with the futile ambition to destroy the armed revolution by military force. Thus, it continues to ignore proposals for the resumption of the formal talks in the peace negotiations or even only for  informal exploratory talks to possibly prepare the resumption of formal talks. It clings to the cynical view that even if its scheme to destroy the armed revolution by military force is impossible and continues to fail miserably it can make false psywar claims to cover up its failure and deceive the people.

According to the central leadership of the CPP in the Philippines, the armed revolution will continue to grow in strength and advance. The revolutionary people and forces have their own revolutionary plan to carry out. They have the determination, organized strength and skills to do so. They can take advantage of the worsening conditions of socio-economic and political crisis.  Before and after 2010, the armed revolution can at will undertake tactical offensives to disprove the false claims of military success by the Arroyo regime.  ###

REFERENCE:
Ruth de Leon
Executive Director
NDFP International Information Office
Tel.+31-30-2310431
Fax +31-84-7589930
Email: ndf@casema.nl