By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
8 August 2002
It is fine that the spokesman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Comrade Gregorio Rosal of the Information Department of the CPP Central Committee, has exposed as a plague on the people the longrunning all-out war policy being carried out by the military, police and paramilitary forces of the Macapagal regime in various regions of our country.
It is appropriate that he has mentioned a wide range of tactics, especially armed tactical offensives, to defend the people from the aforesaid all-out war and to discourage, overpower and punish those who ruthlessly oppress and exploit the people. He has also affirmed that electrical transmission towers and lines and communications lines can be targeted, without causing loss of life and injury to the civilian population, as in the previous struggle against the Marcos dictatorship.
At any rate, the important message from the CPP spokesman is that the Macapagal regime cannot unleash all-out war with impunity. The revolutionary forces and people are ready to fight and defeat their enemy in order to achieve national and social liberation from US imperialism and the local exploiting classes.
Ms. Gloria Macapagal has come out as the big warmonger with her declaration of redeploying military forces and carrying an all-out war against the New People’ Army. She is a rabid implementor of the dictates of the US and she follows the baton of General Angelo Reyes, secretary of national defense, whom the US has assigned as her handler. It has become obvious that he is her superior in policy-making regarding military affairs and the peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
In the course of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, we have observed that Ms Macapagal does not act as the political leader and commander-in-chief of Reyes. She has acted more like his subordinate. We have known a number of times when she gave her go signal to the GRP negotiating panel but Reyes reversed her decision.
So long as Ms Macapagal is afraid to assert her office and exercise her political will over him, Reyes will always be able to paralyze the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and give full rein to his mania for all-out war and his pipedream of annihilating or forcing the capitulation of the revolutionary forces and the people.
Ms. Macapagal seems to be oblivious of the fact that it was General Angelo Reyes, then chief of staff of the reactionary armed forces, who pushed his compadre Estrada to carry out a costly all-out war policy against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and make the budgetary deficit rise by more than 20 billion pesos within a few months.
Now, Reyes has one more president to manipulate and make a fool of. Taking the cue from him, she is boasting that Abu Sayyaf has been decimated and that it is time to concentrate all available military strength against the New People’s Army. The two of them are insinuating that the nationwide all-out war against the NPA is going to be much easier, much cheaper and much more successful than going after the small bandit gang Abu Sayyaf in a tiny island.
But the truth is that the joint military campaign of two US battalions and fourteen puppet battalions in Basilan and elsewhere has been a colossal failure. The CIA-created Abu Sayyaf remains intact and, even according to General Roy Cimatu, is replenishing itself with fresh recruits. At least four of the five principal ringleaders are scot-free. Two of the three hostages were killed in a bumbling rescue operation. In their long occupation of Basilan, the US and puppet troops killed and injured far more innocent civilians than members of the bandit gang.
With such a record, how dare Ms. Macapagal and General Reyes say that they can carry out a policy of all-out war and finish off a nationwide armed revolutionary movement of the people for national liberation and democracy, without worsening the already grave socio-economic and political crisis and increasing the suffering of the broad masses of the people. If the regime cannot defeat a small bandit gang in a tiny island, how can it defeat a nationwide revolutionary movement of millions of people in both urban and rural areas.#
