CPP: There Will Be No Holiday Ceasefire Due To Ongoing Offensives By AFP Against The Filipino People
Central Committee | Communist Party Of The Philippines
December 19, 2022
There is absolutely no reason to declare a ceasefire to mark the holidays and the upcoming 54th Party anniversary as the US-Marcos regime and its fascist Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) continue with their relentless state terrorism and armed suppression against the Filipino people.
Combat troops of the AFP continue to be deployed to communities of peasants and national minorities and subject civilians suspected of supporting the New People’s Army to brutal suppression.
Even now, hundreds of villages are placed under military control (hamlet) where people are restricted when to buy rice or work in their fields, where soldiers raid homes, unjustly arrest, torture and willfully kill people, and drop bombs, fire rockets, and shell communities, farms and forests, which terrorize civilians.
The AFP, together with the Philippine National Police (PNP), is now in a fascist frenzy as they desperately try to crush the people’s armed resistance. There are rampant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law which have intensified in the past three years. These include violations of child rights and special protections, where children are being killed in AFP-perpetrated massacres and indiscriminate firing, or kidnapped and taken hostage for merely being children of suspected revolutionaries.
The AFP’s campaign of armed suppression against the people covers scores of provinces including Abra, Kalinga, Isabela, Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Aurora, Tarlac, Bulacan, Rizal, Zambales, Quezon, Batangas, Mindoro, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, Albay, Masbate, Negros Oriental, Negros Occidental, across the Panay island, Northern Samar, East Samar, Samar, Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Bukidnon, Misamis Oriental, the Davao provinces, Sultan Kudarat and many others.
State terrorism is most intense in areas where there are mining operations, expansion of plantations, foreign-funded infrastructure projects including dams and roads, and other big business operations that are being opposed by local communities because these will take away their land and destroy the natural resource on which they rely upon.
This campaign of violent armed suppression is being obscured by a campaign of disinformation where thousands upon thousands of people are being misrepresented as “rebel surrenderees” in the AFP’s desperation to make it appear that their brutal war is “winning.”
In the face of the relentless attacks and brutalities by the AFP, and amid the sharp deterioration of the socioeconomic conditions of the people, it is the duty of the NPA to come to the people’s armed defense, even during these holidays.
The Central Committee, hereby, directs the New People’s Army (NPA) through its National Operational Command (NOC) and Regional and Subregional Operational Commands (ROCs and SROCs), to actively fight and frustrate the AFP’s campaign of armed suppression.
As we join the people in solidarity with their holidays and in marking the 54th anniversary of the Party on December 26, and even as we mourn the recent passing away of our beloved comrade Jose Ma. Sison, the NPA is authorized to launch tactical offensives against the fascist enemy of the people. Units of the NPA can concentrate a superior force against the isolated, weak, and tired units of the AFP and PNP, in order to punish the masterminds and perpetrators of the growing number of fascist crimes.
The NPA must demonstrate in a concentrated form the people’s outrage against the AFP and political repression, socioeconomic oppression and national treachery under the US-Marcos regime, and strengthen their determination to fight back against state terrorism and carry forward their revolutionary struggles.
Source : https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/resist-relentless-and-brutal-state-terrorism-as-we-mark-holidays-and-the-partys-anniversary/