By Jose Maria Sison
Founding Chairman, Kabataang Makabayan
Chairperson, International League of People’s Struggle
March 28, 2009
As founding chairperson of Kabataang Makabayan, which played a key role in the First Quarter Storm of 1970, as well as current chairperson of the International League of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, I wish to convey the most militant greetings of solidarity to the officers and members of the First Quarter Storm Movement (FQSM) on the occasion of its Third Congress.
I congratulate you for having made significant educational, political and organizational advances from year to year since your founding congress. You have kept alive the revolutionary spirit, the principles and historic acts of the great mass of activists in the First Quarter Storm of 1970.
You have raised high the red banner of the Filipino people’s struggle for national liberation and democracy against the triad evils of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. You have been outstanding in taking up longstanding issues as well as new ones. In this regard, you have done well in initiating projects and activities as well as in joining the concerted mass actions against the oppressors and exploiters of the people.
You have organized on a nationwide scale the activists and sympathizers who are proud to have contributed to the First Quarter Storm and who have remained loyal to the just revolutionary cause of the people. You have not only kept your mature ranks in the active service of the people but you have also conscientiously linked yourself with younger generations of activists in order to inspire, educate and militate them with the legacy of the First Quarter Storm and with your continuing example.
I have read the final drafts of the two important documents which are to be processed and approved by the Third Congress. The Orientation of the First Quarter Storm Movement is comprehensive and precise in giving the historical background, the rationale, the importance, role, components and methods of the FQSM. The Three-Year Program of the FQSM (2009-2012) clearly sets forth the main tasks and specific tasks to be carried out.
Having read these final drafts, I am confident that the Third Congress will be successful in paving the way for the First Quarter Storm Movement to reach new and higher level of development in terms of patriotic and progressive consciousness, political effectiveness and organizational strength. Knowing the dedication and abilities of the officers and members, I am certain that the FQSM will become ever stronger in the years ahead in the course of struggle against the US-Arroyo regime and succeeding regimes of the same kind.
It is of great importance and urgent necessity that the First Quarter Storm Movement strengthen itself in an all-round way and raise the level of its cooperation with all patriotic and progressive forces in advancing the national democratic movement at this time when the crisis of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal ruling system and that of the world capitalist system are worsening at a rapid rate and extreme depth unprecedented since the Great Depression. The crisis ensues from the super-exploitative character of monopoly capitalism and the unravelling of the policy of “neoliberal globalization”.
At this time of severe crisis , the broad masses of the people undergo suffering more terrible than ever before because the imperialists and local reactionaries escalate oppression and exploitation. But the crisis goads the people to wage resistance, exposes the rottenness and internal contradictions of the ruling system and makes the ruling classes incapable of ruling in the old way. The conditions become more fertile than ever before for the patriotic and progressive forces of the people to grow in strength and advance on the road of revolutionary change. ###
