Contribution of Philippines Communist Party [PKP-1930] [En]

Dear comrades :

On behalf of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930, the Philippine Communist Party) I must thank and salute the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (the CPRF) for kindly hosting this 19th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties, and for providing all the excellent facilities. The CPRF's sponsorship of this International Meeting gives all of the foreign delegates here this rare opportunity of visiting this historic city of Lenin at this very important occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (GOSR).

Further, I wish to extend warmest fraternal greetings to all the delegates to this 19th International Meeting of Communist and Workers' Parties.

Dear comrades :

We left our country earlier this week while Marawi City, in our southern island of Mindanao, lay in total ruin, after almost five (5) months of war. The carnage and destruction in that predominently-Muslim city was caused by local and foreign jihadist terrorists who are affiliated with the so-called “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” or “ISIS”, also known as “Daesh”.

The local jihadist terrorists are members of the “Abu Sayyaf” kidnap-for-ransom criminal gang, the Maute clan's gang of drug dealers, and other terrorist groups from the lawless parts of Mindanao, who have all pledged allegiance to ISIS or Daesh. Last May, they attempted to take over Marawi City, the capital of Lanao del Sur Province, in a desire to turn it into the center of their envisioned “Islamic Caliphate” in the Philippines. Malaysian, Indonesian and even Middle Eastern terrorists participated in this attempt to form the first “Islamic State” in Southeast Asia.

Hundreds of civilians were taken as hostages by these terrorists, and a number were beheaded simply for being non-Muslims. Women hostages were usually turned into sex slaves, and children turned into slaves and human shields. Around 1,000 have been killed by the terrorists, including around 160 government soldiers and policemen. Using their network of supporters, the terrorists were able to secretly stockpile large caches of armaments and explosives in the commercial center of that city before their uprising in May. It was an intelligence fiasco for the Philippine government which allowed the violation of secular principles when the local government started to call itself an “Islamic government” a decade ago.

During the terrorist siege of Marawi City last May, churches and christian schools were occupied and burned by the terrorists. Almost all of the 400,000 inhabitants of Marawi City and surrounding municipalities had to flee in terror, with half of them taking shelter in government-run evacuation sites –- such as schools and stadiums –- in nearby provinces. After almost 5 months of war, government forces have been able to neutralize the leaders of the Abu Sayyaf and Maute gangs, and their foreign collaborators. Final mopping up operations are being undertaken to weed out the few remaining terrorist hold-outs.

A lot of rehabilitation work now needs to be done, and the national fabric of christian-muslim unity and solidarity has to be repaired. However, the threat of similar terrorist uprisings has not abated, inasmuch as obscurantist and jihadist teachings continue to spread among the multi-ethnic Muslim communities in Mindanao, fanned particularly by secessionist elements who are irresponsibly calling for a religious war.


THE IMPERIALIST MACHINATION OF JIHADIST TERRORISM

The jihadist terrorists first figured in the Philippines in the wake of the US-led terrorist war against Afghanistan in the 1980s. Some members of the secessionist Filipino Muslim community in Pakistan were recruited by the CIA to fight alongside Osama Bin Laden's terrorist Al-Qaeda gangs which were fighting the national-democratic government of President Najibullah in Afghanistan. Other secessionist fighters were later recruited directly from Mindanao, and after fighting in Afghanistan, they later went home to form the Abu Sayyaf and other jihadist and bandit gangs in Mindanao.

We know of course that the Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other terrorists groups were formed in Pakistan by the CIA and other US imperialist agencies. Philippine recruits to these groups later became useful for US plans to balkanize our country, to strengthen secessionism, and to destabilize any government that would dare defy US imperialist dictates. The terrorist siege of Marawi City was apparently meant to warn the present populist Duterte regime against its warming up to relations with China and Russia, and particularly against President Duterte's verbal attacks against former president Obama and some other US officials.

It is no coincidence that the coming together of Mindanao terrorist in order to seek recognition from Islamic State in October last year was already forewarned by then US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, during that time when Duterte was trying to build up his populist appeal by verbally attacking Obama. As a result of the jihadist uprising in Marawi, President Duterte is now cozying up to Trump, and is rebuilding special relations with the US imperialists.

Previous to this, US policy-makers also used jihadist terrorism in attempting to balkanize our country. In January 2003, Hashim Salamat, the chairman of the secessionist “Moro Islamic Liberation Front” (MILF), wrote to US president George W. Bush asking for US help to pressure the Philippine government toward a negotiated settlement of their secessionist war in Mindanao. The job was assigned to the so-called US Institute for Peace (USIP), a think-tank funded by the US Congress, which prepared a proposal for the creation of a Muslim sub-state in Mindanao, on the basis of so-called “ancestral domain” (which the USA itself does not recognize for the native Indian peoples of the USA). It was a treacherous plan which would strengthen US control over Muslim areas in Mindanao, particularly in areas which are potentially rich in oil and other resources.

Even while the “Moro Islamic Liberation Front” (MILF) was continuing its secessionist armed struggle, representatives of the US embassy in Manila, including then US ambassador Kristie Kenney, made secret visits to the MILF camps in Mindanao. In November 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Manila to urge then President Gloria Arroyo to accept the proposal prepared by the US Institute for Peace (USIP). A “Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain” (MoA-AD) was prepared for signing by representatives of the MILF and the Philippine government, but this was thumbed down by the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional and a threat to national unity and territorial integrity.

But still, the US imperialists persisted and imposed a new agreement for a Muslim or “BangsaMoro” sub-state upon the succeeding regime of President Benigno Aquino III. This agreement designed by the US Institute for Peace (USIP) is still pending before the Philippine Congress, and is a main headache for the government of President Duterte. However, it is clear to all progressive forces in the Philippines that the US imperialists will not stop at its attempts to balkanize the Philippines, Indonesia and other countries in Asia, even using terrorist groups affiliated with ISIS or Daesh as its henchmen. This is similar to the imperialist use of ISIS or Daesh in its plan to balkanize Syria and Iraq in order to attain their goal of a so-called “New Middle East” where imperialist and zionist interests will dominate.

The struggle against jihadist terrorism in the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia, is related to the struggle against jihadist terrorism in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. There is a need to forge the unity of all anti-imperialist forces throughout the world to struggle against imperialism and its proxy terrorist forces. In this connection, our party appreciates the fraternal assistance that Russia is extending to the legitimate government of Syria, the government led by President Bashar Al-Assad, in their struggle to maintain national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity –- a struggle against imperialism, zionism and their jihadist terrorist allies.


THE GREAT OCTOBER SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
WILL ALWAYS BE OUR INSPIRATION

Dear comrades :

For our party, the Great October Socialist Revolution (GOSR) remains the foremost and most decisive event in modern world history, despite the temporary setbacks to socialism in Eastern Europe and the former USSR in the 1990s. This is because the GOSR marked the beginning of the great transformation of society from a capitalist system to a socialist system. Truly, the GOSR opened for mankind the present world epoch of transition from capitalism to socialism.

Our party will be holding a big celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the GOSR on November 7, to reaffirm our loyalty to Marxism-Leninism. This coincides with the 87th Anniversary of the Public Launching of our party. Our party was organized on August 26, 1930, on the 34th Anniversary of the 1896 Philippine Revolution against colonialism. The founders of our party chose to hold the public launching of our party in the working class district of Tondo in Manila on November 7, 1930, during the 13th Anniversary of the GOSR.

Our party was founded and launched by working class leaders who were inspired by the GOSR and the socialist system built up in the USSR. That system ensured full employment, free education up to the highest levels, free health care and social services, affordable food and housing, affordable transportation and recreational activities, and almost free utilities (water, electricity and communication) for everyone. It was a system which encouraged the scientific, cultural and sports development of everyone, and the real equality of women and men not only in the workplace but also at home.

The GOSR proved that the working class, as the most revolutionary class, is capable of seizing power from the bourgeoisie, and using that power to centrally plan social production for the benefit of the people.

The birth of Soviet Russia and the later formation of the USSR in the wake of the GOSR gave the international working class their first true “motherland” before the Second World War, which the international working class defended with “Hands-Off-Russia” and “Hands-Off-The-USSR” campaigns against the war-mongering and predatory designs of their own national bourgeois leaders.

Guided by the GOSR and Lenin's behest, the USSR proved that a multinational state can function without any national oppression, and that no ethnic strife can happen while obscurantist teachings are banned and countered with scientific knowledge. The USSR was the main bulwark against fascism, bore the brunt of the hitlerite attacks during the Second World War, and became the liberator of many peoples towards the end of that war.

The forging of the socialist community in Eastern Europe was with invaluable Soviet assistance, and the USSR was also the main contributor to the anti-colonial victories of National Liberation Movements. The economic and diplomatic might of the USSR and the socialist community helped to guarantee the freedom, national sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of many developing countries in the post-colonial era.

Up the the end of the 1980s, the USSR and the socialist community –- with their social accomplishments –- were the inspirations for the international working class, for trade unions, for youth and women. The USSR in particular stood as the bulwark in the struggle against imperialism and its nuclear war threats, and helped assure the maintenance of peace and security on the global level.

Economic indicators of the United Nations on the USSR and the socialist community up to the end of the 1980s will show no economic reason for the collapse of the socialist system, and Soviet people themselves in a referendum have rejected the breaking-up of the USSR. The collapse was mainly the work of the special agents of imperialism who wormed their way to the top echelons of party and state leadership, and who then denigrated socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat with sly non-class concepts of “restructuring” and “common human values”.

The traitorous capitalist-roaders who brought about the breaking-up of the USSR and the dissolution of the socialist community have committed a historic crime not only against their own peoples, but against the whole of humanity. They will forever be condemned by history for turning their backs and tongues against the GOSR and the achievements of socialism, for sabotaging humanity's escape from the barbaric system of capitalism, and for denigrating mankind's paths of progress towards socialism.

With this temporary setback to socialism, all the previously-eradicated social ills have returned to those former socialist countries which fell back to the capitalist system --- unemployment, homelessness, high cost of basic commodities and utilities, poverty, lack of medical and social services, lack of educational and other rights, national oppression, religious obscurantism, even ethnic strife. Despite the dissolution of the USSR and the socialist system, the capitalist system remains incapable of solving its innate crisis, incapable of equitably distributing wealth and of serving for the good of humanity.

The continued systemic crisis of capitalism –- including the plunder of the environment, the spread of vices and dangerous drugs, the fashioning of international financial scams, and the fomenting of conflicts and wars –- shows the consistent need for the capitalist system everywhere to be overthrown, and replaced with socialism. The social wealth now concentrated in the hands of monopolists and oligarchs has to be taken over by the working class organized as the state, and used in a centrally planned way for the benefit of society.

The main lesson of the GOSR is the need for revolutionaries to constantly prepare and work for the overthrow of the capitalist system, and for the building of a socialist system. This is the strategic goal of our party for our country, in the same way that this is also the strategic goal of all fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties for their own countries.

Long live the Great October Socialist Revolution !
Long live proletarian internationalism !
Long live the International Communist Movement !


ANTONIO E. PARIS
General Secretary, PKP-1930