Rev Left Radio - Maoism in the Philippines: The CPP and Protracted People's War

Episode Date: April 28, 2020

Nap and Aspen join Breht to discuss the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and its Protracted People's War, Duterte and US imperialism, Maoist critiques of China, the history of the Philippines, and much, much more!  CPP website is cpp.ph & ndfp.org    Kadamay fundraiser:  https://www.gofundme.com/f/urgent-fundraising-appeal-in-response-to-covid-19   Brandon Lee fundraiser:  https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-brandon-lee   Red Fish 2 part documentary on the NPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mtusYyzvmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR6mjpZrJrE Outro music 'Chairman Mao' by Bambu ------- LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com SUPPORT REV LEFT RADIO: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Our logo was made by BARB, a communist graphic design collective: @Barbaradical Intro music by DJ Captain Planet. --------------- This podcast is affiliated with: The Nebraska Left Coalition, Omaha Tenants United, FORGE, Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), Feed The People - Omaha, and the Marxist Center.

When Rodrigo Duterte won the Philippines 2016 presidential election by a landslide, millions of Filipinos hailed him as the man who would stand up to the domestic and foreign powers who keep the country impoverished. But today, more Filipinos have been killed by Duterte's government than the thousands murdered by Ferdinand Marcos, the U.S.-backed dictator, who enforced a bloody era of martial law in the 70s. Duterte's broken his pledge to break the Philippines' 65-year-old military alliance with the United States. Millions of dollars of U.S. military aid continued to pour in,

and last year they went to war together, raising large parts of the Muslim city, Marawi, to the ground. His election promise of peace talks with communist militants also hasn't got anywhere yet. One moment he asked them to talk, and the next he threatens a new crackdown. It's been going on like this for months. The guerrilla are fighting in one of the world's oldest communist insurgencies for the new people's army, founded by 79-year-old Jose Maria Sison, who lives in exile. We went to meet the fighters who are taking the NPA into its 50th year. Deep in Mindanao's mountainous Bukidnan province,

we travel through the dead of night to stay out of the military sites to a base that was still being set up as we arrived. This mobile platoon is constantly on the move. Their task is to spread the reach of the NPA in the vast Filipino countryside. Politically, in the whole Philippines, it's scattered into three big islands, Luzon, besides in Mindanao, and in particular in Mindanao, the strategic mountains, which is very suitable for waging revolution, is already occupied the guerrilla fronts.

The entire Philippines, according to the data, we have already 120-plus guerrilla zones. In particular in our region, in our central Mindanao, we have 10 guerrilla fronts. The NPA followed the teachings of Chairman Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Revolution, that in 1940s, overthrew the U.S.-backed forces of Chiang Kai Shek.

Their guerrilla warfare is modeled on his strategy of protracted people's war, designed to overthrow an imperialist-backed state. The Filipino left called Duterte's government the U.S. Duterte regime and say that even though the Philippines officially won independence from the U.S. in 1946, the American military is still in charge. Foreign corporations continue to extract super profits out of the United States. the country's natural and human resources, just as they did under colonial rule, while millions of Filipinos are living in abject poverty, surviving on barely a dollar a day.

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. So today's episode is one that's been long overdue. We are covering the Communist Party of the Philippines, and it's sort of attached movements, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the new people's army etc so this is an episode that we've wanted to do for a long time i had a little trouble finding guests eventually found a nap and aspen to come on and discuss this in depth so i'm really excited to finally be able to release this episode i do want to say up front that they're in the very beginning of the conversation i ask our guests to cover basically the

last hundred years of history of the the communist party and philippines broadly so there is like about a 15-minute segment very early on where a lot of that history is covered systematically. It's important that you sit through that and listen to that content because it really helps contextualize the rest of the episode. As most of you know, understanding history is absolutely essential to understanding the present. So I'd urge people to make sure they study that history and learn that history so they can make sense of the rest of the conversation. I also want to say that this is the 51st anniversary of the, the new people's army, the armed wing of the communist party of the Philippines. So they were founded

on March 29th, 1969, and we are recording this today on March 29th, 2020. So it's been over half a century since the new people's army have been operating, and that's a beautiful thing. So without further ado, let's get into this interview with Knapp and Aspen on the Communist Party of the Philippines. Enjoy it. My name is Napp and Peña, and I organize among Filipino workers and migrants in the U.S. And I'm part of Bayan, USA. It's an alliance of progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. and it's an overseas chapter of Bayan Philippines.

I am Aspen. I am a member of Anak Bayan, particularly in Portland, which is also an overseas chapter of Anak Bayan, Philippines, which is the National Democratic Youth Organization. Wonderful. Well, I'm very honored to have both of you on the show to talk about this topic. This has been a topic that my listeners have wanted me to cover for a long time and that I've wanted to cover for a long time. It was kind of difficult for me to find good guests. such an episode to really tackle it in the way that I think it should be tackled. So I'm very

happy that we finally have you two on to talk about this complex history and this beautiful movement. The way I like to start these conversations is just to sort of ask how each of you came initially to get interested in the Maoist movement in the Philippines. For me personally, I didn't really know the Maoist movement in the Philippines before. I started organizing in the Philippines as a student organizer while I was in college there. And I was primarily interested in the fight against tuition hikes against student repression. And it's in the process of fighting for student rights and that eventually evolved into me getting to know the other people struggle, you know, the struggle of the working class and eventually learned about the revolution

in the Philippines. So my journey to joining the National Democratic Movement of the Philippines was kind of the other way around. I was kind of a nerd, just general Marxist nerd because of growing up working class and not liking police. But taking theory seriously, particularly getting into MLM, I was particularly interested in concrete practice. and through the studies I came to greatly admire the Filipino movement. So when I realized that the National Democratic Movement actually existed within the United States as well amongst the Filipino masses in the U.S., I jumped upon that.

Wonderful. Yeah, my introduction was kind of similar to yours, Aspen. The Deep Red got into Marxism, specifically as I started looking for active communist movements around the world, doing the sort of stuff that we talk about and we think about a lot. The Maoist movement in the Philippines was obviously a huge standout in that realm. And then I also got interested in it through the rapper who lives in the Bay Area, Bamboo, who is a Filipino immigrant.

And I don't exactly know his tendency, but obviously a Marxist communist of some stripe. And listening to his music was also a doorway into not only the Maoist movement in the Philippines broadly, but the experience of Filipino immigrants and radical Filipino immigrants in the U.S. So we all kind of come from it from a slightly different angle, but it's a fascinating and deeply important movement, and we're going to talk about it today. So let's get into this next question. For those that don't know, can you give us perhaps a brief history of the Communist Party of the Philippines, specifically sort of how it got started?

So the history of the Communist Party of the Philippines is part of the whole. history of the socio-economic and political development, historic development of Philippine society and as a whole. And so please allow me if I answer this and other questions later in terms of the historic development of the Philippines, because I think it's important to contextualize the birth and growth of the movement in the Philippines in terms of the evolution of its economy, colonialism, and its implications on the social structure, et cetera, et cetera. So for those who don't know, the Philippines, prior to American colonization at the turn of the century around the 1900, it was a Spanish colony for 333 years.

And so for 33 years, Spain had a stronghold in the Philippines. it used a religion and feudal economic structures to take hold of the Philippines. So a religion and feudal culture has a huge influence in the Philippines, and some of that has carried on during American colonization. American colonization, which was a way for America and not just to dub its surplus product, into the Philippines, but also to get cheap labor, and also to set up a military, you know, geopolitical post in Asia. The Americans brought in with them also industries, industries that eventually brought in a new class or increased this, what used to be a small slivers of society who are the

workers. You know, so Americans who brought in industries in communication and printing press, et cetera, also caused the increase of the Filipino proletariat in the early 1900s. And so from there, there started to be more organized labor. The first labor organization or union in the Philippines is called Union Obrero Democratico, Union Obrero Democratic, Union of Democratic workers and Congress Obrero de Filipinas these are some of the first

unions in the Philippines that eventually paved the way for the creation of the old Communist Party of the Philippines or Partido Communist of Philippines on November

7, 1930. It was led then by this labor leader named Chris Santo Evangelista. And so in the beginning, the Communist Party of the Philippines then participated in legal ways to assert the rights of the workers and of the people. On May 1, 1931, there was the People's March organized by the party, but which was ruthlessly attacked and dispersed. And the next year, the Party the Communist Party of the Philippines was outlawed. And so it was forced to go underground.

In World War II, there is a very important role that the Communist Party of the Philippines played, wherein it formed the people's army against the Japanese or hookbalahap, hukbombay and land in Japan. It was also around that time. that the old party merged with the Socialist Party of the Philippines, and it became the merger party. Throughout the history of the Communist Party of the Philippines, it has swung from, you know, left to the right, from being military adventurous to laying down the arms and participating in the elections. One particular of the latter is when after World War II, the leaders,

of CPP then called for the revolution to disarm itself and encouraged the participation of the party in electoral politics. That's when when it did try to again participate in electoral politics. The CPP candidates were charged with trumped up charges of electoral fraud and terrorism. So it shows that despite its attempt to participate in mainstream politics, earlier on, there's already been attempts to vilify it and delegitimize the Communist Party of the Philippines. And then we go on to the 50s and 60s, and it's important to paint what the Philippines looks like in the 50s and 60s. 1946 was when the U.S. gave the Philippines. It's nominal independence. Ten years before that, the Philippines was in a Commonwealth period,

kind of a caretaker government. And so 1946, despite the nominal independence, the Philippines has kept its economic, political, and cultural and military holdover in the Philippines. In the 50s, as you can imagine, after 50 years of U.S. colonization, By then, the U.S. had set up its cultural institutions that American influence is very deeply entrenched in Philippine society, so much so that even Filipino or Tagalog as a language was not really valued, you know, as a national language. English was more, was given more importance, right? I mentioned earlier the religiosity and patriarchy, that feudal patriarchy from the Spanish era. Well, it carried over arguably up until today, but in the 50s it was still very apparent.

And so the idea of nationalism, of pro-Philippino, of using Tagalog as a cultural medium, of women participating in society in the 1950s was very radical, you know, and given also the anti-war sentiment in the late 50s, early 60s, and given the anti-colonial struggles that swept the globe, all those culminated in these conditions that allowed for radical politics to develop, especially among the youth. So by the early 60s, you could see several youth organizations, especially among the students that were developing, and one of them is Kabataamakabayan.

Kabataang Makabayan literally means patriotic youth that was established in 1964. And some of those members of that radical organization helped re-establish the Communist Party of the Philippines. Because at that point, the Communist Party of the Philippines had low membership and wasn't really active in the reshaping or movement building in the Philippines. And so some of the members helped reestablish CPP and us. And one of their tasks then was to sum up the history of the party and its experience. and to lead what's called the criticism and self-criticism of the movement.

Yeah, so basically what went wrong, how can we fix this, you know. And so that led to what the CPP calls the first great rectification movement. You know, and so in 1968, December 26, 1968, the re-established Communist Party of the Philippines started. A few months after that, on March 29, 1969, the new people's army was established just a few months after the reestablishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines. With several rifles and around a dozen or so veterans of the Hukbalahap or the People's Army against the Japanese in Central Luzon, just north of Metro Manila, the NPA formed in 1969, and ever since then, it has been growing. The 1970s also saw some important developments in 1970, end of 1960s, because of the inflation in the country that led to price increase because of Marcos, who was the former dictator,

because of how he really employed neoliberalism, putting the Philippines in so much debt, it has caused restructuring in the policies of the government, and there was so much unemployment in the country that there was social unrest. And so in 1970, the first quarter storm, as it is called, the first quarter storm was a movement that took place in the first quarter of the year. year 1970, where the students and the people really marched on the streets in their tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, to protest, you know, the unemployment, the poverty, the relentless price increases, etc. And so from there, the mass movement has grown, and so has the Communist Party of the Philippines, when a lot of a lot of the activists were attracted to the goals and the mission of the party.

In 1972, Marcos declared martial law, which forced a lot of publications, media, organizations to shut down, and a lot of organizations were forced to go underground and go to the countryside. And so activists who were used to organizing in the cities were forced to be. go underground and forced to fight in the countryside. But the history of the Communist Party of the Philippines has not always been rosy. It has also had a disorientation period. Towards the late 70s into the 80s, there were mistakes of military adventurism when tactics

of violence were employed both in the countryside and the cities. but these were tactics of violence that were not really commensurate with the capacity of the mass movement then and were not really apt for the conditions of the Philippine movement then. This period of orientation was led by a few leaders of the CPP. That disorientation was later arrested towards the early 90s. and in around 1992, the CPP led what it called the second great rectification movement, a rectification movement that sought to rectify the practices of the revolution then, which stemmed ultimately from the incorrect analysis of the movement then.

And so since then, it had put in place measures to rectify its analysis and tactics. And so since 1992, the Communist Party of the Philippines has implemented its second great rectification movement and realigning itself with the principles of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. And as of 2016, it has started its third rectification movement. Fascinating. So, yeah, those rectification movements are really, really telling because they're sort of corrections for when the, correct me if I'm wrong, but corrections for when the party either went too far right and engaged too much in electoralism. And then the second time when they went too far left, got ahead of the masses with their venturistic violence and had to, you know, correct their show. at that time as well, right? Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So what conditions in the Philippines? Obviously, we've talked about the history, but I just like to talk a little bit about that, before we get into ideology, a little bit about the conditions that gave rise to the communist movement. So what conditions in the Philippines in the late 60s

were the communist reacting to when they formed and how, if at all, have those conditions sort of mutated over time? So the conditions in the Philippines that the communists were reacting to, as I mentioned earlier, the introduction of neo-colonialism in the Philippines in the early 1900s, bringing about the industries and the birth of the Filipino proletariat that first created the conditions for the formation of the Communist Party in the Philippines. In the second half of the century post-World War II, as I mentioned, swept by the anti-colonial global anti-colonial sentiments, in the Philippines, but also facing its own contradictions within Philippine society. The Filipino proletariat was also facing the effects of colonialism in the Philippines in the late 50s and in the early 60s. And as the decades moved on, imperialism and its neo-colonial puppets found ways to continue their strongholds,

on Philippine society and through neoliberalism, right? The first neoliberal puppet they had was Marcos, no? And it's important to note that fascism also doesn't just include the violation of human rights and physical violence, but also most often it also entails economic violence because during the martial law period, because of the consolidation of the executive and legislative power within, you know, for Marcos, he was also able to implement a labor loss that have snowballed and that have become so exploitative that today Filipinos, Filipino workers, the proletariat, and, you know, Philippine society still suffer from

those. And some of those policies need illiberal policies that he put in place is contractualization. and labor export policy. So labor export policy is not a single law, but a system of policies, laws, agencies, and even culture, which has created this steady stream of cheap labor outside the country. So Filipinos have been exported en masse and are treated, have been treated as commodity since then. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, you have contractualization, which means, you know, just long-term temp labor. You have workers that have been working seven, 15 years without job security, without benefits. And that continues today. Duterte has continued it. So ever since the 70s, all other presidents have continued neoliberalism and has improved it

for themselves and for their imperialist masters. But overall, while the names have changed, you know, from globalization to the presence of the Millennium Development Goals and now the private public partnership is, you know, neoliberalism has always been part of that overarching problem, basic problem in the Philippines called imperialism, right? So, yeah, in general, imperialism has always been one of the main problems in Philippine society that the CPP tries to, you know, defeat. But in particular, it has evolved as neoliberalism and now in different forms. I see.

It's worth noting that the Philippines today has one of the highest migration rates in the world. It is one of the world centers for migrant labor. Yeah, just to give more details to that, every day there's about 6,300, at least 6,300 Filipinos leaving the country every day to look for work abroad, to the point that there's now 12 to 15 million Filipinos abroad, 4.7 million of which are here in the U.S. All 12 to 15 million people sending back remittance to the country to the tune of $30 billion, $33 billion actually by as of the end of 2019 annually and that composes 10% of the GDP of the country so that's actually the biggest chunk of the Philippine income of the Philippines the rest of the 90% are

broken down into less than 10% tiled chunks and so they say Filipino migrants are the modern heroes of the of the Philippines but they are some of the there are like the least of the priority of the Philippine government and always fall prey to trafficking exploitation all sorts of abuse and ultimately death yeah yeah so as we know over the past few decades ever since the revisionist in the late 80s it has been building its global power and the Philippines being geopolitically very important. It's very important to China because south of China is the South China Sea, I think it's called internationally, but in the Philippines, it's called the West Philippine Sea.

It's kind of a shallow marine environment that is full of natural resources, not just of the marine ecosystem, but also what's buried beneath. which is oil, oil and gas. So it's a very coveted piece of the ocean. And while the Philippines has actually won in international tribunals, its rights over that part of the ocean, China continues to assert its dominance there. And unfortunately, the Duterte, you know, likes to play along with China and is very timid in defending our rights to that piece of the ocean. But that's just one part, because inside the Philippines, Duterte has also been entertaining China, whereas before the past president have, for the most part, only bowed down to the U.S., militarily, politically,

culturally, et cetera. Now, the, Duterte is now also playing China. Duterte has been borrowing money, loans, Chinese loans to fund his super expensive infrastructure projects, dam projects, irrigation projects, transportation projects, infrastructure projects that are very expensive for the Filipino people because China charges such high interest rates. And part of the stipulation of these loans is that once the Philippines defaults on these payments,

that the ownership of the infrastructure and the establishments would go to China. And so Duterte has not only accommodated the U.S. but also now China. I see. And so a lot of, there's a big debate, obviously, on the communist left the world over about whether or not China is imperialist and a core tenet of imperialism or a core feature of imperialism is through a million different ways, basically extractive in that it is, it seeks to extract either resources or wealth directly or anything else from the country. It's either giving loans to or invading or whatever this situation may be. So, and just really quickly on the, on the topic of whether or not China is actually being imperialist, can you highlight how it is sort of extractive in this area and what China, I know you touched on it a little bit, but what does China seek to gain through these investments? So China has been fishing or its big companies, fishing companies, has been fishing in that part. of the ocean, that's one, despite the territorial claims that the, or territorial rights, actually, that the Philippines has.

The other thing, too, is how the Duterte government actually prioritizes Chinese contracts and Chinese investors, especially in the building of infrastructure. For example, one specific example I can name is the building of the Marawi city. Marawi City is this war-torn city in southern island of the Philippines, Mindanao, where Chinese infrastructure firms were given priority over domestic firms in rebuilding the city. Already in itself, the capitalist reconstruction, post-war reconstruction, that disaster capitalism is already bad in itself, right? but he's even made it worse by accommodating first giving priority to Chinese firms. That's just one. And then the other big thing is the proliferation of offshore gaming firms in the Philippines, a lot of whom are Chinese.

I think developers in the Philippines are one Manila to become like the next Macau, you know. so there's a lot of casinos in the Philippines all right well let's go ahead and get into this question about ideology obviously I think people know we've talked about this being a Maoist movement the critique of China and the claim that China is imperialist is obviously a Maoist critique etc so just like if you could just suss this out for our listeners can you talk about the ideology or the political line of the CPP more in depth and how that ideology shapes the parties praxis and

actions? So I want to clarify first that when you say ideology or political line, we do try to make the effort to distinguish the two. The ideological line is Marxism, Leninism, Maoism. That is a worldview that we say is like universal, right? The ideology is the universal worldview. So with that comes the upholding of the history of the proletarian revolutionary movement from the Paris commune and Marx in the era of free competitive capitalism to the October revolution and Lenin in the era of imperialism to the Chinese revolution, particularly the cultural revolution with Mao and the struggle against modern revisionism. So we have still, you know, the Maoists still uphold dialectical material and historical materialism, especially as it is

taught in documents such as on practice, on contradiction, etc. So that is the ideological world view. The political line is the application. two particular conditions. So the political line of the revolutionary movement is the People's Democratic Revolution. So the People's Democratic Revolution is a two-part revolution. There is at first the National Democratic Revolution, followed by the Socialist Revolution. So I'm going to clarify first what we mean by the term national democracy. We've used it a few times.

So the Philippines is a country that is. is semi-feudal and semi-colonial. So the classes that are made up, we have a visual that we use often when we are explaining these topics called the class triangle. So at the bottom, the majority is the 75% of the country is the peasant masses, which includes farm workers and fisher folks and peasants.

Following that, you have a smaller proletariat, much of which is semi-proletariat or service-based or like mining and logging, so extractive, based in extractive resources. And the minority of the proletariat in the Philippines actually belongs to the industrial proletariat that engages in, like, manufacturing, etc. So from that, we know that even within the working class, the country isn't actually industrialized. and the entire economy is set on a basis of what the national democratic analysis would call export-oriented and import-dependent. So the economy is not developed to be self-reliant. It is developed to be extractive to export its goods, its natural resources, and its people.

And the vast majority of the things that are consumed are product. from the imperial countries. So, for example, there is no Filipino car company or even an engine company. They're all Japanese, American, or Chinese. And in the southern island of Mindanao, one of the biggest exports is fish, and one of the biggest imports is frozen fish. So it's not an economy that is developed to be self-sustaining. then at the smaller level you have the petty bourgeoisie the intellectuals the professionals etc and beyond that about one percent of the population would be the national bourgeoisie

so those are the bourgeois who own or control certain levels of manufacturing or some means of production, but are still at an inherit disadvantage from the top class, which is the Comprador bourgeois and the big landlords. So the Comprador bourgeois are kind of oftentimes the middlemen for big multinational corporations such as Nestle. They are the richest of all of society, and they are the ones who control the political system the most. The national bourgeoisie, if they manufacture a certain food.

product, they do not have the same access to cheap resources and massive capital that the Comptuble bourgeois of the multinational corporations have. So the National Democratic Revolution is to overthrow the three basic problems, which are imperialism, which we've talked about, feudalism, which we've talked about somewhat, and bureaucratic capitalism. And bureaucratic capitalism can be accurately described as like the use of, you know, the use of of government positions in order to increase personal, like for capitalists to use for personal gain and profit. So the National Democratic Revolution is active and ongoing throughout the armed struggle.

Essentially, by the point of the seizure of power, the National Democratic Revolution will be, for the most part, complete, because Agrarian Revolution is happening to this day within the revolutionary, controlled, and influenced areas. Like there's already a campaign against landlords and an anti-feudal struggle that is ongoing, an anti-imperial struggle that is ongoing. So you can in some ways think of the National Democratic Revolution, if you're familiar with historical materialism. It plays the role that the bourgeois democratic revolution had in, say, France or Germany or whatever. it plays that role, but it is led by the proletariat and not by the bourgeois. So once this is completed, then can begin the socialist revolution. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines has a 12-point program,

and within it it has points such as developing a people's army, a democratic government, upholding people's democratic rights On the economic end, it stresses national industrialization. The Philippines has a kind of false industrialization. Like there's infrastructure, but the infrastructure is set up to make extracting resources more efficient. It's like the French setting up railroads in Africa. It's not meant to develop anything except for exploitation of the country. So national industrialization means that the technological resources of the country and the productive capacity of the country is raised.

in a self-reliant way. On the anti-feudal part, there's that, and then there's also the land reform. So currently, the, you know, 0.5% of the population, being the big landlords, own the vast majority of the land, and the majority of the 75% peasant population is indebted to these landlords and do not own any land of their own. So the land reform program is to seize land. from these big landlords and redistribute it either on an equal basis amongst people or to develop agricultural cooperatives. And like I said, this is already ongoing in the red base areas. And on the cultural end, Knapp talked earlier about the prominence of English and the devaluing of Filipino or Tagalog. So the cultural program of the National Democratic Movement is to promote a national

progressive and scientific culture. So I'll break that down into its three parts. The progressive part, more or less speaks for itself, respecting the rights of women, national minorities, different sectors of society. And the scientific culture is specifically in response to the cultural effects of feudalism, such as superstition, religion as a main,

as a really major part of decision-making within the country, et cetera. And the nationalism would be, for example, developing a whole national culture. So there's many different languages in the Philippines, and those should be respected and developed as they are, but there also should be a lingua franca, which would be Filipino, and that should be developed and promoted as the language of the Philippines rather than as it is today, while it technically recognizes that, you know, in schools it's not uncommon for like

there to only be one Filipino class and then all the other classes are taught in English and kids are like penalized for speaking their native tongue outside of like Filipino class itself. With those things as that being the, you know, immediate program, develops into the socialist revolution of, you know, state control of means production for the most part, the restricting of private property rights, and the promotion of collective property and collective centrally guided economic development as led by the proletary. I see. Fascinating. Very important distinction between ideology and political line. I appreciate that. It shows a lot of different elements. There's a sort of a national

liberation element with maintaining, you know, the language, there's a cultural revolution element with the fighting against backward, you know, superstitious elements in society, et cetera. So, yeah, that's incredibly interesting. I want to combine this next question and just sort of make some more distinctions because there's the Communist Party of the Philippines and then there's the New People's Army and then there's the National Democratic Front. I was hoping one of you could sort of parse that out for us so we can understand how these these three entities are related to one another so the communist party as anyone who has listened

to what is to be done and the red menace episode on that will know that it is the advanced detachment of the proletariat is the representation of uh and it is the proletariat as the leading force is the i want to make it clear that is the leading force of the revolution whereas the people's army and the armed struggle is the main force of the revolution so The party is a highly organized expression of the advanced detachment of the proletariat, and it also has amongst members people of all oppressed sectors and of society, but is still guided by proletarian ideology and MLM. The New People's Army is the armed force to carry out the revolution itself.

so the new people's army is made up of many different and the arm struggle is made up of different forms so the main one that you might think of if you look it up and you see pictures would be the NPA full timers the NPA full-timer gorillas who are engaged in high levels of arm struggle but also mass work amongst the people as on the squad platoon company level for anyone who's familiar with military theory. But you also have sparrow units or armed city partisans which carry out punitive actions or arrests or what have you. They're called sparrow units because the way that a sparrow hunts flies in the air

quickly swoops down and then goes back up into the air. And the idea is similar for them. So that's how they operate in the cities when they do. And then on the more local level, you also have people, militias set up on the municipal level or the village level. These are, for the most part, the peasant masses themselves, armed and organized in order to fight against the offensives of the armed forces of the reactionary Filipino government. And then beyond that, there are also many self-defense units of underground mass organizations.

So the strategy of the people's army and the people's war and the Philippineal Revolution is to surround the cities from the countryside. What this means is that the main arena of armed struggle is in the countryside with the peasant masses as the backbone of the revolutionary movement of the armed revolution. And where it can start small, it can recruit, it can defeat. the reactionary armed forces piecemeal, sees their arms growing in strength while wearing down the reactionary armed forces. While it does this, it engages

in agrarian reform. It mobilizes the masses to fight against landlords or abusive merchants and whatnot. And I really want to stress how abusive these landlords oftentimes are. There are many areas of the Philippines

where they still use like whips in order to keep the peasants in line. So for the People's Army to organize them in order to fight against these landlords is a massive help to the masses. And for the most part, in many areas, the People's Army is the only source of medical care that the people get.

There are many places where people have never seen a doctor except for when the People's Army comes around. there's also in the countryside the development of base areas or organs of political power organs of political power can be thought of as like a parallel government to the reactionary government so they have their you know committees set up their barrio revolutionary committees and even higher levels that have their own laws practices etc one example that i found interesting was that in some areas there There's three main types of logging. There's like a small-scale logging that, you know, village people go to the woods and carry, or they log small amounts of timber to take to the city and then sell. You have large-scale logging of multinational corporations,

which exploit the natural resources, and then you have people who do small-scale logging and then bring it back to their respective communities in order to help develop the community. to the reactionary government both of the small-scale logging is illegal whereas the large-scale logging is legal

to the people's democratic government the revolutionary government small-scale logging is or the small-scale logging to sell in the cities is outlawed but not

heavily on it whereas multinational or like multinational logging companies that are highly exploitative are outlawed, and so when they engage in those practices, it's not uncommon for the revolutionary movement to engage in punitive actions, such as like burning down their equipment and whatnot. And the third type of logging, small-scale logging, bringing the timber back into their respective communities to develop it that is legal. So you have this situation where you have different laws, sometimes overlapping,

but oftentimes, you know, just depends village to village over who really has control. So you have, you know, an actual dual power situation that is quite widespread throughout the country. And then the other aspect of the People's War is that is a People's War. The mobilization of the masses is a key aspect. The masses, particularly the peasant masses are the eyes, ears, and the logistical supply lines for the People's Army. And so without that, the People's Army would have fell many years ago, but it is. is still on, they're still on their 51st year going as strong as ever. So the National Democratic Front can be called the organized United Front for armed struggle.

It is an underground united front made up of mostly underground mass organizations from the youth, like Knapp was talking earlier about Kabatang Makabayan, Patriotic Youth. That's the underground youth mass organization. have women with the organization Makibaka, workers with the Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions, peasants with PKM, you have medical professionals, scientists, national minorities and indigenous people, semi-proletarians, people like people who run small shops and drive like a kind of bus system called Jeepneys or what would be relatable to like taxis in the US but aren't quite. Things like that. There's organizations for

boys, church people, and even overseas Filipinos. These organizations do revolutionary tasks, and they operate on an underground level. So they help with the setting up of organs of political power, which we just talked about, the organizing of the masses, fundraising, logistics, and recruiting for the armed struggle and expanding the influence of the revolution. It is the body which is there to unite all the different oppressed sectors and classes of the Filipino people. Nap, did you have anything you want to add on that? Yeah, so, yeah, thank you for that aspect. Just to add too, so, yeah, in the context of the Philippine revolution, the NDFP is really a way to unite the broadest ranks of the exploited people onto a common goal, a revolution, right, from being freed from the cause of the imperialism, of feudalism of bureaucrat, capital. capitalism because there are people who may not yet identify, you know, as as communists,

but at the same time, they know the need for revolution. At the same time, they cannot participate in guerrilla warfare yet for a lot of different reasons. So how do you then gather that energy, that mass, to support the revolution? And so the NDFPP is one such formation. And also in terms of what does, the NDFP is also the body that has been engaged with the government of the Philippines in peace negotiations. So it has been holding peace talks with the government of the Republic of the Philippines since 1992. I think we'll go more into that later. And this does come from Mao. If you read Mao, you would be familiar with the concept of the three weapons of the revolution, which are the party, the army, and the United

Front. And it should be clarified that the NDFB is not the United Front full stop. It is the organized expression of the United Front, specifically for armed struggle. But the United Front takes many forms. Fascinating. Yeah. I mean, I really love that entire structure and certainly the left-wing communist movements around the world have a lot to learn from this structure because it really is effective and brings all of that revolutionary energy and potential into very demarcated categories to make the overall movement more effective. Actually, I'm not from the organized mass, but I work in Manila as a liberer, something like that. So I feel so very, I feel the unjust system of the government.

I hate the government already at the time, even though there's no impede. that coming to me down then explain me that this is the government this is the government then I return home then I see a couple of comrades I go with them actually they really think that I cannot survive because I'm big I'm fat no in principles I believe in the party I firmly believe in my comrades I really dedicate myself my life to the revolution till it's victory. If I'm not hit by the bullet.

The guerrilla worked to a strict routine and strict rules, like protect the environment, no swearing, and return everything you borrow. They wake up at 4 a.m., exercise at 5, have meals at set times, and regular education sessions to keep them well-versed in the Communist Party's ideology

before they go out to nearby communities of peasants or what they call their mansions. space. In organizing the mass bees, we have our political lines. We talk to them. We share with them with their problems. They will talk to us about their problems, about what they want in their life. Then we simply collate it all, collect it all. Then we summarize it. We give them the solution of what they will do to improve their lifestyle, their means of living. Those solutions involve building what the communists call organs of political power, associations of local people to resist powerful landlords and corporations.

They connect them with legal organizations in towns and cities, which will help them to build schools and have access to health care, services that the government fails to deliver to remote areas just like this. In the political aspect, we establish mass base, guerrilla soon, from the countryside, to the cities. This is what a guerrilla zone looks like. In the center you have the guerrilla base, which is surrounded by several security and defense lines.

The inner defense lines are manned by NPA fighters, the outer layers by people's militia. People's militia are local peasants, trained and sometimes armed by the NPA. Their responsibilities range from overseeing logistics, channeling supplies to the guerrilla base, providing intelligence, all the way up to defending the base,

and the masses in the guerrilla zone, with arms if necessary. In turn, the NPA trains these peasants to build those organs of political power, their own organisations to deliver social services that the state fails to, effectively a parallel form of government. So the guerrilla zone becomes a thick layer of local peasants who defend the guerrilla base. And when mobile bases like this one move on, the guerrilla zone remains,

because the NPA leave behind those organs of political power, and the people's militia that they trained. When the 30 sees, there is no single barrio, the Jose-Marias is on control. We are installing, we are building the political power, political organs. We had to blur many of the guerrilla's faces because some of them, called part-timers, go back into government-controlled territory

to build alliances and bring new recruits to the NPA. There are men, women, different age groups, ethnic groups, and LGBT-Q people in this platoon, and they were keen to demonstrate that the NPA is more inclusive than Filipino society in general. My parents is not a revolutionary. I think I'm just the only one, I'm just the only one who hold an arm to just to serve the people, to liberate the people. Gay must be militant with serving the people.

Can you can be in the ma'among, kapikin-abang, useful. Gay is useful to the society. They can also, they are creative, they can design. Of course, let's go to the revolution and design the world, and create the new world. The situation of the, of the,

the women is, the root cause is the situation of the society. If the, if the whole people liberate, then the women will liberate also. But it does raise this question, which is, what is the role of the, you know, the legal and the above ground struggle in the national democratic movement overall? Mm-hmm. Yeah, the role of the legal democratic movement, I mean, the Philippines, it's very important. Bayan is part of that. Anabayan is part of that. The legal space that we move in, there's a lot of work to do in here. And it is distinct and independent from the underground revolutionary movement in the Philippines.

It is important to note, I think, also that demarcation of the legal and underground movements in the Philippines also goes way back. As we mentioned earlier in the history of the Communist Party of the Philippines, when communists before have tried to engage in legal democratic struggle, it has been squashed, it has been prevented, it has been delegitimized, you know. And so the conditions of the underground nature of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines is part of the product of the conditions in the Philippines where the state that is controlled by the 1% right will not really make concessions for progressives let alone communists for any major reforms that's why it's also forced to corner any kind of dissent into a corner until they delegitimize the movement so i think that's

also the specific context of the underground movement in the Philippine society. And so there's a role that the underground movement plays, but at the same time, there are still battles in the legal democratic space, wherein legal democratic movements are important, like Bayan, Migranti, Anac Bayan, Gabriela. Because we see these battles for reform as opportunities. And not just to win the immediate economic gains for the people, but ultimately to educate and organize people for the long haul, you know. And so I think that's how the legal democratic movement falls in line. Both the underground and the above ground movement have the same vision, right? And just differing means. But at the end of the day, we seek the same. vision for the Philippines country that is governed

by the people, you know, for the people, right? In the most genuine sense of democracy that we can achieve. So the legal national democratic organizations are oftentimes accused of being

front organizations of the underground movement. This is really not accurate. There is, you know, many revolutionary movements use front organizations and it's of legitimate use, but that is not an accurate claim against the legal national democratic organizations as they exist in the Philippines. They are still independent organizations.

It is true that there are members of underground organizations who insert themselves into the legal organizations as a platform by which they carry out their work, but the legal organizations themselves still remain characters as organizations unto themselves rather than being like under the command of any underground organization. So some examples of how the legal movement interacts. One of them that I really like is the example of Kadamai. Kadamai is a organization of the urban poor best compared to like the homeless population in the U.S., but not quite.

They're mostly former peasants. who were pushed off of their land for one reason or another, like maybe mining corporations or what have you. And they set up like squatters camps in the edges of urban areas. Kadamai being the organization of this group asserts the right to housing. Back in, I think early 2017, maybe it was late 2016. This organization Kadamai organized masses of, of the urban poor to take over a housing development that was meant for the armed forces and

the Philippine National Police, but it was not really being used. This area is in an area called Pandi Bolikan. I have visited this area. It is one of the coolest places I've ever been in my life. It really, it felt like the Paris Commune, because it's pretty massive. There are thousands of housing units and many more thousands of people living in them, and you can see how this legal organization of Kadamai has engaged in this massive project to set up a community and assert the right to housing and set up their own security and like decision-making body and all that. And so seeing that and seeing how it interacted really did feel like the Paris commune is one of the coolest places, probably the coolest place I've ever been in my life. But while the legal

organization still exists as itself, you can still tell that there is, that there are underground activists who participate in that. For example, while I was there, you know, there was a participant in this project who would later go on to join the New People's Army. And of course, if he did that, then someone had to recruit him. He was later martyred. His name was John Paul. and he was a member of Anak Bayan in that area. But he would later join the New People's Army be martyred. And once he was martyred in an encounter with the armed forces of the Philippines, the entire, that entire community in Pandebole Khan held a massive funeral and celebration of life for him.

So there is overlap, but they still remain independent of one another, if that makes sense yeah absolutely just want to add to that all these organizations I think even CPP but more specifically the legal mass organizations

you know operate within a certain within certain bounds of agreed principles and goals you know what each organization stands for and what it's willing to fight for and so it is within those bounds

that and even, you know, those self-proclaimed and the communists inside work around. So, yes, there are elements in there that consider themselves communists, but they respect the, you know, the democracy of the organization and respect the level to which its mass members are only capable and are only willing to operate that, you know. And again, I think that's why, that's how, you know, but the movement in the Philippines catches a lot of the energy wherever people are at,

then, you know, that's the level where they organize the people, you know, and not just jump immediately into, like, taking guns, taking up guns. One example of this. This is, this happens not only in, like, you know, more militant organizations, but all across different organizations. After Kabata and Makabayan was outlawed during the martial law, period under Marcos. One of the things that the activists did, because it was, you know, so many organizations were deemed outlawed is one of the few organizations left was

college fraternities. And so activists would join college fraternities and get hazed and deal with all of that in order to use that as a platform to promote the national democratic struggle and develop the revolutionary movement. Wow. That's creative for sure. So I know we've mentioned Duterte, but I want to talk about overall, if you could explain sort of what the movement's reaction has been to Duterte since he came into office. And what has Duterte's approach to the communist been since he was elected? Yeah, ever since he was elected, there's been, there was openness in the beginning because for a long time, the movement hasn't really seen like enough enthusiasm from past presidents about, you know, their interest about the peace talks, whereas you have Duterte in 2016 who was very enthusiastic to start or restart the peace talks, you know.

And so besides that, there were also pronouncements for pro-people reforms to stop contractualization, to bring back our overseas workers. and actually to stop bowing down to U.S. imperialism, you know. So those pronouncements were very welcome. And so both the legal and underground movements were open to those and were talking to Duterte. But slowly, I think a year and a half in or two years in, and around 2017, that's when he started reneging on his promises and started to, bear his true colors. All the while, though, the movement has criticized the drug war. So around 2017, that's when the promises started falling apart, and he started cracking down on

activists. He ramped up the war on drugs. In our perspective, he was waging the war against the poor, which he named the war on drugs, essentially it's a war against the poor. He was also waging a war against activists, you know, and even against the moral people in the South or the Muslim minority in the South. And so when in the beginning he was open to the peace talks, eventually, he started reneging on his promises and stopped implementing the confidence. building measures in the peace talks, such as the release of political prisoners, more than 400 political prisoners. He, through the advice of the generals around him, he ultimately stopped

the peace talks, you know. So I think it also shows how, even though there was openness for him personally, to deal with progressives and communists, it also shows how, at least in the context of the Philippines. It's not just up to, you know, the head of the state to implement these changes in policy. But in the Philippines, there's really a deep, seated problem that any change that's coming from the top is not just up to the third. But it's ultimately up to the imperialists and the elite running the show. As you can see now in the makeup of the government, it's a military government. It's full of West Point trained CIA advised military generals, retired military generals, you know. And so the military wing or the military, Philippine military,

has always had that separate, yeah, independent influence from the coming from the U.S. And ultimately one of the reasons that the peace negotiations also failed is because the Duterte administration wasn't willing to sign the comprehensive agreement on social economic reforms, which is really the core of the peace talks. Because in the perspective of the communists in the Philippines, the root cause of the armed conflicts in the Philippines, the root cause of the armed conflicts in the Philippines, Philippines is the lack of social economic opportunities, right? And so the NDFP, the CPP, actually doesn't follow, you know, this UN model of ending peace talks through this armament, demobilization, and reintegration. For the revolutionary movement in the Philippines, the more important way to resolve armed conflict is to address the very roots of armed conflict. not just to merely lay down your arms and try to reintegrate it. Because if the roots of the problem are still there,

then have you really solved the armed conflict, you know, unless you root out the causes, it'll just keep going back. So moving on to the next question is sort of zooming in towards the end of our discussion. In both of your opinions, and you could take turns answering this question, what overall have been the Communist Party of the Philippines, greatest accomplishments. So over their 51-year struggle, they have expanded to be a truly nationwide revolutionary movement.

In 73 out of the 81 provinces, there are guerrilla fronts. There are about 110 guerrilla fronts in 73 of the 81 provinces in the Philippines. And within those areas, you have widespread organs of political power, these parallel governments, dual power situation. They have led mass struggle, including being heavy participants in the ouster of Marcos in the 80s and Estrada in the early 2000s. They have participated in international solidarity to a great degree in the what's known as the Naxilite movement in India. The reactionary governments of both the Philippines and India have suspected that the Communist Party has sent caters that are currently in India, aiding, and training

the revolutionaries in India, and also that there are, the Indian government suspects that high-ranking party member is currently living in the Philippines. So the international solidarity of the Communist Party of the Philippines extends beyond India and whatnot, but that's the clearest example in my mind of their international solidarity. And I really want to stress the widespread trust and support from the masses that they have, which is the very reason why they've been able to survive such a intense revolutionary movement for 51 years now, with virtually no outside support. Amazing.

Besides what Aspen has mentioned, I think also the wisdom and humility of the CPP and the movement, I think that those are important elements to withstand, you know, 50 years of counter-insurgency programs. Administration after administration, the government has always promised to wipe out the communists after five years or so. But no, it has only grown strong. And so I think that's pretty admirable, the strength of its ideology and the support. I know people, you know, who have lived in the countryside who know NPA members in their community and they see them as friends, as allies. I personally haven't met one, but people from the countryside that always, or a lot of them talk well about the NPAs. And I think it's contribution to how other revolutions around the world have also borrowed from.

the lessons of the Philippine Revolution. If I may add real quick, I also want to mention that in the course of the civil war and the revolutionary movement, they have always respected human rights. They are one of the few insurgency movements which actually abides by international humanitarian law and the rules of war. That was actually one of the first agreements signed between the government to the Republic of the Philippines and the CPP and P.A. NDF was called Kareil a comprehensive agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law. So they've always supported that and that, you know, down to even little details like they don't use landmines. They use command detonated explosives as one of their policy

because they know that landmines have a nasty effect on civilian populations. They follow the rules of war and international humanitarian law. Yeah, that's awesome. Absolutely. This entire movement is one of the most principled and effective communist movements throughout history, but in the world today for sure. And it's a shame that more people don't know about them and don't study them as intensely as they should because they do so much correctly. I do want to ask though quickly because this is March 29th and we are in the middle of a global pandemic. So I just wanted to ask what the response has been from the communist movement in the Philippines during this latest COVID-19 outbreak.

One thing that stands out is that the UN Secretary General Guterres, I think is how you pronounce his name, stressed that the ceasefire declaration of the CPP, a temporary ceasefire during this crisis, yeah, the Secretary General of the UN said that it serves as an example across the world during this crisis. And they were recognized as, I believe, the first belligerent force to heed the call for ceasefire during this crisis. And within areas that they influence and control, you know, there is a statement on a news website called The Inquirer that the Communist Party of the Philippines ordered its armed wing, the new people's army, its medical officers and fighters to assist the people and their health committees in the campaign of mass mobilization against COVID-19. So they have been mobilizing the distribution of, they've been engaging in sanitation drives, clean-up campaigns, they've facilitated the free distribution of face masks, alcohol, soap, and other cleaning agents. And they've mobilized the people to produce, like, face masks and other, with the materials that they have on hand. There are some pictures of a NPA unit in formation, all of them wearing, like, indigenously produced face masks.

mask with in English serve the people written like on like are printed on the front the the Duterte regime on the other hand by repeatedly ignored the signs and has responded to it only with with a lockdown there has not been mass testing and he has instead mobilized the military into Manila city including utilizing a lot of soldiers who do not have any medical, who clearly don't have very much medical experience. There's like pictures of soldiers holding up the, um, I don't know, the, uh, no contact thermometers, except putting it like directly up against the foreheads of people during like traffic stops and whatnot, which is not hygienic. Uh, you know, it looks very much like, uh, like putting a gun to the head of,

of the person. So perhaps it's out of habit. Um, terrible optics. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the, CPP, on the other hand, has directed its forces and the forces of the people's army to render social, economic, medical, and public health services to the people in coordination with the people's democratic government, organs of political power, and the mobilization of the mass organizations. And what was it? It was March 13th that in Baguio City, three very important cadres, were gunned down, and one of them was Dr. Tanco, which was the head of the CPP's National Health Bureau. So during this crisis, the head of the National Health Bureau of the People's Democratic Government was gunned down. Wow.

Yeah, just want to add to that, not necessarily the response, but just want to highlight also how the semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and how the, how the semi-colonial, semi-feudal society and how the ruling elite in the Philippines bears its own weaknesses and corruption in the face of a pandemic, because it's really agitating and just downright, you know, nefarious how the government is handling the situation where they have VIP testing for politicians who are asymptomatic. they have home service for testing for politicians and 12 members of their families. Meanwhile, frontline healthcare workers have no PPE, have not been tested. More than 10 doctors have died.

In the Philippines, the ratio of the doctor-to-patient population is 1 to 33,000. And left and right, you see on Facebook accounts of family members dying without getting tested. poor people committing suicide, you know, poor people, the homeless, who are actually more afraid of hunger than of the virus. Because the virus at this point is very abstract to them. They are more concerned about their, you know, what they're feeling, what they need, their most immediate need. So it is very ripe for, you know, dissent and revolution, actually, what's happening right now. And so people, on the bright side, people are organizing themselves, you know, efforts for mutual aid, but also political action. And me as an organizer for migrant workers,

I see it firsthand. I see it firsthand. I've been supporting remotely repatriated cruise ship workers who have not been tested and are about to be who were quarantined in the Philippines after they got repatriated from Oakland, California, if you'd seen the news, were pleading through an open letter to the government to be tested before they get released to their families. But they will be let go in about four hours to their families without getting tested. It's a public health catastrophe that's waiting to happen. Yeah. And right now here, In the U.S., you go to the hotels, hotels are closing down. Chances are they employ cheap labor from Ukraine, from the Philippines, through the J-1 visa.

And now those J-1 interns have nowhere left to go. They have been abandoned by the hotels by recruitment agencies. And so we've been supporting them, and the state does not care. Neither the U.S. or the Philippine state does not care about these warm bodies, you know. Yeah, it's absolutely tragic. the reaction from the government of the Philippines is very similar and its criminality to the reaction by the U.S. government. The major difference there, of course, is that while the communists and the left broadly

and the Philippines are hyper-organized, already have institutions they can operate through, already have some degree of dual power here in the U.S., the left, the communists have not been able to get their shit together. So when this crisis hits, you know, we're really reduced to, you know, the barest actions of mutual aid, which is still better than nothing, of course, but compared to what we could be able to accomplish and the amount of people we could help

if we had anywhere close to the organization that the communist movement in the Philippines has, I think is incredibly instructive and should be taken very seriously by the U.S. and the Canadian left broadly. It really shows a difference in the ability for the left to react to a crisis like this. But I do want to ask sort of one question before we end this discussion, which is, I always ask when it comes to these sorts of movements and, you know, lessons, which is what do you think revolutionaries here and really around the

world can and should learn from the communist movement in the Philippines overall? Really the most important thing is that the revolutionary movement is genuinely a people's movement that holds their interests at heart. The revolution exists because it serves the people and has the support from the people because it constantly acts in their interests and upholds the mass line of, like the political line that the revolutionary movement upholds is a product of the constant study

of the conditions of the Filipino masses, their needs, their perspectives, synthesized through a revolutionary program, brought back to them through this revolutionary program. It is a program that is, you know, from the masses rather it's not just a handful of like revolutionary intellectuals who came up with this or something like that it is a program developed by the masses of the people synthesized through a revolutionary program and especially its constant rectification the revolutionary

movement in the Philippines will you know be the first to tell you of its mistakes they will constantly in their in their journals and their statements they reference it they talk about the mistakes that they've made, what they've done to rectify it, the steps that they make to rectify their mistakes as they happen today. As Knapp was talking earlier, they have incredible humility in this regard, and that has really been, the reason that it has not been been destroyed, because had it not continuously rectified, especially in the period of, like, with the disorientation in mostly the 80s, had that not been changed, the revolutionary movement would not exist, the way that it does today.

Yeah. What can be learned from the communist movement in the Philippines? I think a lot of the lessons from the implementation of the lessons from Mao. I think that's admirable about the communist movement in the Philippines, how it's meticulous and diligent in paying attention to the needs of the masses in studying the conditions, both the numbers, the overall statistics, but also the stories of the masses on the ground and always prioritizing and putting at the helm of the movement, the toiling masses, especially the workers. I think it's giving life to the Marxist principles. That's what the

world can learn from the communist movement in the Philippines. Yeah. I agree with all of those things. This is a prime example of why I consider myself to be a Maoist. This is the sort of ideas and forms of organization that I really respect and note how effective they are. And I would just add to both of your answers to sort of restating this fact that this is the type of organization that's essential if communists on this continent want to be anywhere near as successful as communists in the past or the present have been. This whole, you know, there's the party, there's the armed forces. There's this grassroots social movement organizations, all working in unison toward the same general goal. There is that humility and this lack of like, we know best and we're going to dominate others and tell others how to behave. There's way more of a mass line approach of being humble in the face of serving the people, et cetera. There's this underground and above ground manifestations. And there's just this capacity to build and effectively wield dual power. And so I see a lot of you know, people on the left in this country and this continent broadly wondering, you know,

how do we move forward? Do we keep doing the same mistakes that the left in the U.S. has made time and time again? Do we keep obsessing over consensus decision making and horizontalism? Or do we look at around the world and see which movements have actually been effective and been able to build up the power necessary to move forward and advance the ball for our class? And I think this is a prime example of a movement that people on this continent need to look at and deeply learn from, have the humility to see how effective they are and learn from it. So with that said, is there anything else that we missed or anything else that either of you would like to say before we wrap this wonderful discussion up? Yeah, Brandon Lee. Currently, there's a campaign

for justice for Brandon Lee. Brandon Lee is a Chinese-American activist from San Francisco. who has dedicated his life to serving. He started organizing in the Bay Area, but was really attracted to the movement in the Philippines and started organizing among the indigenous people in the Northern Philippines. For more than five years, he was harassed by the military. And just last year, he was shot.

A good thing he survived, and he's currently healing now in the Bay Area. But we have yet to hold accountable the military elements that shot him. It's the fight for Brandon Lee. The justice for him is part of the overall fight for human rights in the Philippines from here in the U.S. And so a lot of organizations are leading or are involved in that, including Bayan USA and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines and Malaya movement, which is an alliance of Filipinos here in the U.S. that are against this dictatorship and are fighting for human rights in the Philippines.

Absolutely. Aspin, anything to add? Yeah, and another fundraiser that I'll send to you, so hopefully link in the show notes, is earlier I was talking about the organization of Kadamai of the Urban Poor and Pandipulakan, but also other projects. the communities that they live in are very packed and really abandoned by the government when it comes to social services and so the organization of Kadamai is trying to get resources in order to serve their community during the pandemic and I want to really stress that American money goes a long way in the Philippines So it will, the funds that you would give, if any of the listeners do choose to, is multiplied by the unequal exchange rate between U.S. currency and Filipino pesos. Yeah, so I'll make sure I get those links from you.

I will put them in the show notes. And then anybody listening right now as an individual or, you know, as a communist or socialist organization could put money into those funds through those links and really make a big difference and sort of show international proletarian solidarity at the same time. So I highly encourage people to do that. Thank you both so much for coming on. I had a lot to learn about this movement. It's sort of hard to find good information on it. You know, you'd rarely hear American leftists of any stripe talk about this movement as much as it deserves to be talked about. So before I wrap up, is there any recommendations you would offer to someone who wants to learn more about anything we've discussed today?

And then if you want to make any plugs or let people know where they can find you and your work online, that would be awesome as well. So the Communist Party of the Philippines has a website, CPP.P.P.P.P.H where they publish their newspaper, their statements, you have the NDFP.org, where other statements and whatnot are posted. pretty much like most of the things that I've talked about I've learned through texts from those websites. There are social media pages for all different kinds of mass organizations from Onik Bayan, the legal youth organization, Gabriela, the women's organization, Migrante, the Filipino migrants organizations, and a whole lot of organizations in the Philippines. is really numerous. And then for, you know, the American audience or even perhaps European audience, you might not know it, but Filipino national democratic organizations very well might be near you if you are in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, San Diego, L.A., the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle, Kansas City, Detroit,

in Detroit and Atlanta are building new chapters of Anik Bayon. If you want to learn more, you know, get in contact with these organizations and just ask. There are plenty of Kasamas, I should clarify, the word Kasama basically means comrade in Filipino. There are plenty of these activists and comrades who would be happy to talk all day about these things and, of course, could use your help in campaigns. But also, I think for the most part, any of these activists in these organizations, especially, you know, if they are experienced, love to help out other progressive or revolutionary

organizations in their area. Yeah. Check us out our organizations, buy-end, buy-end USA.org, and Migrante USA, which is, yeah, migraintuisa.org. Bayan also is helping build the International League of People's struggles because I know there's a lot of non-Philippinos listening. It's also a way to build the broad anti-imperialist United Front. So look it up, ILPS International League of People's Struggle. Wonderful.

And I know there's a lot of links tossed out there, but I will put as many of them as possible into the show notes so people can follow up on any one. of those of those leads thank you again nap and aspen so much for coming on for educating me and my audience on this essentially important movement and history so yeah let's definitely keep in touch thank you and i will make sure to get a link all those links from you and i'll make sure to put them in the show notes of course thank you so much for having this on me Tongue, the young gun, lockload and bus one, champion with it like bra-papa-pump.

Lebanon guerrillas hit her abo from 10 yards with little pebbles, I call it strength and all. But when it's broadcast on robin, they savage is like causing, they never give the background story, they rather damn your frequency with trickery, your headline no, it's nothing new. And if it's only half the truth, it ain't true. Living proofs that guerrillas in the Philippine jungle won't stop, won't quit till the babies don't struggle. I rumble with colonization's effects on my people home. The buck stops here with a buck to your ears. They're covering the fears.

They're where my fellow organizers out. Say machine, that be right, but my fellow activists out. From the comfort of a couch, we make critiques of the world. Our little girls in the mountains that the sunshots hurl. Is you ready? All day, dog, whatever you say, dog, megaphones up, band, and across the face dog. Always, dog, whatever you say, dog, rifle to the sky band and across the face dog. All day, dog, whatever you say, dog, megaphone's up band and across the face dog.

Always, dog, whatever you say, dog, right through to the Sky Band and across the face. I learned the speeches and teachin to Malcolm X. Nus is around her neck, made Malcolm drop the little and capitalized the X. He and the men's square drums. Make the big old dumb. Compel sisters in the mountains back home to grab guns. My lungs punk, Los Angeles small strong. I had on my M-1, the guerrilla villagers in the Viacom.

Ho Chi Mc Trelland. Your home girl's favorite. I'm the maker of the music for the busboy and a waitress. Every blue, call a hero piece the blues, scholar Gio, A, O. Did you hear about the talks in the White House? Iran is now a new threat. I told you you were up next American rampage till the rain of Middle East left. Up jumped a boogie, put a bullet inside, and let the gorillas and government collide in the fight.

To make the poverty disseminate, bullets fire hell astray. Showdown and China down in downtown L.A. Is you ready? All day, dog, whatever you say, dog, megaphones up, band and across the face dog. Always, dog, whatever you say, dog, rifle to the sky band and across the face. All day, dog, whatever you say, dog. Megaphone's up, band and across the paste, dog. Always, dog, whatever you say, dog, rifle to the sky, band and across the base.

I recurve the words that joan are over and over every soldier with a good run slung over his left and right shoulder, got deep one and triple K slang. Make change where the school books are the bang bang, gang bang. Gather up the troops all on the block. Put bullet holes in the White House and connect the dots. We don't need those cops. We need the hood on lock. murders of our people by our people to stop We need our money to recycle

Keep the neighborhood rich We need to monitor the education And about kids We need the money to be evenly distributed out We need Ancoeur to shut a motherfucking mouth Zapatista Guerrilla as soon as the beat My rifle's a little scrappy, it's my I can't, hey, hey

Indigenous spirit chucking on mine My spirit X these white boys out Like Kevin Perilana Hello kids, just one at a time. Oh, yeah. What kind of like me with that? This is the Maltitude. No, the next one over.

Maltitone bar. Thank you.