By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
16 February 2008
Prospects for the resumption of formal talks in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations are bright if the broad masses of the Filipino masses and the broad united front succeed in ousting Gloria M. Arroyo from the position of president which she has usurped through electoral fraud and kept through brute military force.
The broad mass movement can succeed to oust Arroyo only with the full active participation of the patriotic and progressive forces. These would have some significant weight in the new government and would certainly demand the resumption of the aforesaid formal talks in order to address the roots of the civil war through comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms.
The downfall of the Arroyo regime would mean defeating the brutal but futile scheme of the imperialists, militarists and clerico-fascists to paralyze and put aside the peace negotiations and use all-out military force to seek the outright destruction or capitulation of the revolutionary forces and the people.
So long as Gloria M. Arroyo is in power, she will continue to engage in state terrorism and inflame the armed conflicts in the Philippines. She will use the military and police forces to further entrench herself in power and attack both the legal democratic mass movement and the armed revolutionary movement of the people under the pretext of fighting terrorism.###
