Compiled by Ka Julie de Lima on the 53rd Anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Amado Guerrero (aka Jose Maria “Joma” Sison) who headed the United Front Commission of the Communist Party of the Philippines, convened the Preparatory Commission for the National Democratic Front (Prepcom) in 1971 in order to bring together all the revolutionary organizations that had been forced underground by martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. Among those present at the convening were Satur Ocampo, Antonio Zumel, Henry Voltaire Garcia, Hermenigildo Garcia, and a few other Communist Party members and patriotic and progressive personalities. Subsequently more antifascist revolutionaries such as Edgar Jopson were added. Others, such as ex-Senator Jose W. Diokno and Renato Constantino, were invited but didn’t join. Amado Guerrero had initially drafted and presented to the Prepcom at its convening a 10-point program for guidelines of revolutionary action. The Prepcom worked on this and held several meetings (three that I can remember) to further work on the organization’s 12-point program and left its final elaboration to Joma.
One of the last meetings of the Prepcom was held at the mansion of former president Ramon Magsaysay. The venue was facilitated by a close relative of the Magsaysays, the bereaved girlfriend of a victim of enforced disappearance under the Marcos fascist dictatorship. Prior to this in 1975, Joma asked Edgar Jopson to join and head the NDF Prepcom. Jopson had headed the National Union of Students and was previously a “moderate,” but was radicalized and had become Party member prior to his appointment. Joma worked to elaborate on the draft until 1977 and sent out the draft for release just a few days before our arrest on November 7, 1977. This was issued or released by the Prepcom on November 12, 1977. It was circulated internationally all over the world. Thus, the Prepcom fulfilled the Party’s objective of arousing, organizing and mobilizing the broadest possible united front against the fascist dictatorship.
In building the revolutionary united front, the working class and its revolutionary party links up with the peasantry, the overwhelming majority of the people, in order to form the basic worker-peasant alliance. The Party recognizes the peasantry as the main force of the revolution and the fulfilment of their demand for land as the main content of the revolution. The Party forges the strongest links between the working class and the peasantry by building and developing the New People’s Army and the peasant mass movement in pursuit of the agrarian revolution. It applies the antifeudal united front policy of relying mainly on the poor peasants and farmworkers, winning over the middle peasants, neutralizing the rich peasants and taking advantage of the contradictions among the landlords in order to destroy the power of the despotic landlords.
Although the working class and the peasantry comprise at least 90 percent of the people and they constitute the foundation of the revolutionary united front, it is an urgent need to win over the intermediate social strata—the urban petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie, which respectively are around 8 percent and 1 percent of the population. They play key roles in society and are highly influential, as they have professional, technical, entrepreneurial and other capabilities which can best serve the revolution.
The basic exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords are the class enemies of the revolution and are divided according to their clans, the kind and magnitude of wealth, political affiliation and the degree of their anti-national and anti-people character. The revolutionary forces can take advantage of such contradictions among them, which under conditions of crisis can become bitter and violent, and derive from the reactionary ranks temporary allies, even if unstable and unreliable. This can bring about the broadest kind of united front against the worst enemy, which is the most reactionary force in the civil war or the foreign aggressor in a war of national liberation.
As a matter of flexibility, the CPP, NPA and the NDFP have encouraged and extended cooperation to political groups and leaders of the middle social strata and even some of those from the exploiting classes to take anti-imperialist and democratic positions on major issues within the institutions and processes controlled by the reactionaries. The NDFP allied organizations help in the expansion of the armed revolutionary movement by waging struggles for the antifascist, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal aspirations of the people.
Additionally, the NDFP has persevered in peace negotiations to demonstrate the just and reasonable cause of the revolutionary movement, to spread the content of the program for people’s democratic revolution and to anticipate the advance of the people’s war and the further worsening of the crisis. It is possible that a significant change in the balance of forces between revolution and counterrevolution would persuade the reactionary government to engage in serious peace negotiations.
Finally, the united front policy of the revolutionary movement has an international dimension, including arousing, organizing and mobilizing the migrant workers and other overseas Filipinos to stand for their democratic rights and interests and to develop their solidarity relations with the host people and international organizations. In representation of the entire Filipino people at home and abroad, the NDFP develops the broadest range of solidarity and cooperative relations with foreign governments and their appropriate agencies, various types of people’s organizations, parties and national liberation movements, including facilitating the international relations of its component organizations with existing and potential partners abroad.
As we celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines on the 24th of this month, let us recall the 12-point objectives to bring about national liberation and democracy through the broadest unity of all social classes, sectors, groups and individual Filipinos at home and abroad, who are desirous of genuine national freedom and democracy, lasting peace and a progressive Philippines:
- Unite the people for the overthrow of the semicolonial and semifeudal system through a people’s war and for the completion of the national democratic revolution.
- Establish a People’s Democratic Republic and a democratic coalition government.
- Build the people’s army and a people’s defense system.
- Uphold and promote the people’s democratic rights.
- Terminate all unequal relations with the United States and other foreign entities.
- Implement genuine agrarian reform, promote agricultural cooperation, raise rural production and employment through the modernization of agriculture and rural industrialization and ensure agricultural sustainability.
- Break the US-big comprador-landlord dominance over the economy,carry out national industrialization and build an independent and self-reliant economy.
- Adopt a comprehensive and progressive social policy.
- Promote a national and progressive people’s culture.
- Uphold the rights of the Bangsa Moro and the Cordillera peoples and other indigenous peoples to self-determination and democracy
- Advance the revolutionary emancipation of women in all spheres.
- Adopt an active, independent and peaceful foreign policy.
The NDFP’s most important role in the democratic revolution is to arouse, organize and mobilize the broad masses of Filipino people in their tens of millions and to seek international solidarity, support and cooperation. For that purpose, it encompasses 19 allied organizations representing all patriotic and progressive classes and sectors of Philippine society belonging to various political tendencies, ethno-linguistic communities and religious beliefs. The 12-point program comprehensively sums up what the Front’s 19 revolutionary organization are committed to achieve.
The allied organizations are:
- Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)
- New People’s Army (NPA)
- Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions (RCTU)
- Katipunan ng mga Samahang Manggagawa (KASAMA)
- Pambansang Katipunan ng Magbubukid (PKM)
- Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKIBAKA)
- Kabataang Makabayan (KM)
- Katipunan ng Gurong Makabayan (KAGUMA)
- Makabayang Samahan Pangkalusugan (MSP)
- Liga ng Agham para sa Bayan (LAB)
- Lupon ng Manananggol para sa Bayan (LUMABAN)
- Artista at Manunulat para sa Sambayanan (ARMAS)
- Makabayang Kawaning Pilipino (MKP)
- Christians for National Liberation (CNL)
- Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF)
- Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization (MRLO)
- Revolutionary Organization of Lumads (ROL)
- COMPATRIOTS (revolutionary organization of overseas Filipinos and their families)
- Pambansang Samahan ng Makabayang Tsuper
The following are a compilation of selected quotations from Joma’s writings on the united front. We hope these direct you to further study as we celebrate the 53rd anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
—Julie de Lima, April 24, 2026
On the leadership of the Party within the united front
The CPP is the advanced detachment of the modern industrial proletariat and is the leading class in the people’s democratic revolution and the consequent socialist revolution. The New People’s Army is the main instrument, based on the worker-peasant alliance, for overthrowing the semicolonial and semifeudal state and establishing the people’s democratic state. And the national united front is for arousing, organizing and mobilizing the masses in their millions.
From the “Preface” to Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
The CPP is not simply one of many organizations in the united front. It is the party of the proletariat with the historic mission of leading the democratic revolution and consequently the socialist revolution. As a matter of principle and practice, the CPP is the highest form of working class organization in the Philippines. It is the Party that directly leads the New People’s Army and is the ruling party wherever Red political power has been established.
From “Requirements of the Revolutionary United Front” (April 24, 1998) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
On the role and necessity of the united front in building mass movements and preparing the subjective forces for revolution
The united front is one of the three most powerful weapons of the new democratic revolution. The two others are the leadership of the working class and armed struggle. The united front consists of the working class allying itself with the peasantry, winning over the urban petty bourgeoisie and middle bourgeoisie and taking advantage of the contradictions among the big compradors and landlords in order to isolate and destroy the enemy at every given time. The broad masses of the people cannot defeat the overwhelming state power and economic wealth of the exploiting classes without the application of the united front policy.
From “The Need for United Front in the Filipino People’s Democratic Revolution: Speech in Celebration of the 40th Founding Anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Amsterdam, Netherlands” (April 28, 2013) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
The NDFP observes closely the contradictions among the parties and factions of the reactionary classes of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists to determine the enemy to fight at every given time and to develop the broad united front against such enemy among the local reactionaries. The NDFP also observes closely the economic, political and military interventions of the US and other imperialist powers in order to unite the people against these and to make them vigilant to the probable ultimate that the current civil war can turn into a war of national liberation in case of foreign aggression by US imperialism or any other imperialist power.
The NDFP promotes the organization of overseas Filipinos for the purpose of uniting and mobilizing them in support of the people’s democratic revolution in their motherland. It carries out solidarity work along the anti-imperialist and democratic line by informing and encouraging foreign organizations and personages to support the Philippine revolution, cooperate with the organization of overseas Filipinos and develop partner relations with progressive or revolutionary organizations in the Philippines.
The NDFP engages in diplomatic and proto-diplomatic relations. It has relations with friendly governments which are anti-imperialist and progressive as well as with governments that have assisted in the holding of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations abroad. The work of the NDFP in developing proto-diplomatic and diplomatic relations is aimed at immediately informing the international community about the Philippine situation and the Philippine revolution and gaining international support for the revolutionary movement.
From “The Revolutionary Movement in the Philippines Today: Address to the Book Launch of the Spanish Edition of Philippine Society and Revolution” (September 26, 2021) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
It is not enough to build the basic class organizations of the toiling masses of workers and peasants. The proletarian revolutionaries and mass activists must build certain types of organizations like people’s cooperatives and organizations of the youth, women, teachers, health workers, cultural workers and other low-income people. They must encourage the petty bourgeoisie to form its own progressive organizations in rejection of the exploiting classes and in support of workers and other working people. Revolutionary alliances of the working people with the progressive organizations of the petty bourgeoisie are of great importance. The progressive petty bourgeoisie carries with it to the socialist cause their various professional and technical skills and can serve as articulators and moulders of public opinion. The progressive bourgeois can become allies of decisive importance and can remould themselves into proletarian revolutionaries….
In the application of the strategy of protracted people’s war by encircling the cities from the countryside in underdeveloped countries, people’s committees of self-government are formed as organs of political power in local communities. Even in the absence of a revolutionary civil war, such organs of political power can be established with the support of the mass organizations and can perform certain non-violent functions of local government in communities of the working people. Even at the national level, an alliance of progressive political parties and mass organizations can appear and act like a government by forming a people’s shadow cabinet, with major departments that monitor and criticize the policies and actions of the reactionary government and voice out the demands of the people and the mass movement….
Ideological building serves to firm up the political building of the proletarian revolutionary party and reinforces the line of political struggle against the big bourgeoisie in different conditions. In the developed capitalist countries, the proletariat can regard the forces of social production as the basis for socialism, but it also has to win the battle for democracy by winning over the petty bourgeoisie and all disgruntled sections of capitalist society, in order to have the overwhelming majority of the people for the uprisings to overthrow the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
From “Requisites for Building the Socialist Future: Paper for the Inception Workshop of the People’s Resource for International Solidarity and Mass Mobilization (PRISM),” Utrecht, the Netherlands (November 14, 2014) in Sison Reader Series Book 10: Socialism: Resistance and Resurgence
On proletarian internationalism and building solidarity within the international anti-imperialist united front
We uphold the principle of revolutionary internationalism. We are determined to conduct the Philippine revolutionary struggle so that our people can contribute their share to the struggle for the emancipation of mankind from the scourge of imperialism and all reaction.
From “Elaboration on the Ten Point Program of the National Democratic Front” (November 12, 1977) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
The policy of the revolutionary united front in the Philippines has an international dimension. It is linked to the anti-imperialist united front on an international scale. The Philippine revolution is part of the common struggle of the people of the world against imperialism. It is as well the internationalist duty of the Filipino people to contribute their strength to the international united front.
Such a united front is led by the proletariat and Marxist-Leninist parties, which are bound by proletarian internationalism. But there is a certain broadness of solidarity in this united front. It allows the active participation of all individuals and forces, with varying degrees of anti-imperialist consciousness and militancy and without ideological requirements, provided that there is vigilance against special agents who pretend to be anti-imperialist but whose main objective is to attack the proletarian revolutionaries and subvert the united front.
According to circumstances, the revolutionary forces can take advantage of the interimperialist contradictions in the same manner as they can take advantage of the contradictions among the domestic reactionaries. The imperialist powers are united against the people of the world but they are increasingly driven to compete against each other by the worsening crisis of the world capitalist system. The imperialist alliance headed by the United States is bound to crack up. Crisis and war are characteristics of imperialism.
From “Requirements of the Revolutionary United Front” (April 24, 1998) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
The Communist Party of the Philippines is well known for developing relations with communist and workers’ parties in the spirit of proletarian internationalism as well as with various types of parties, people’s organizations and movement within the framework of international united front along the anti-imperialist and democratic line. The other components of the NDFP also develop relations with their counterparts in various countries and participate in international gatherings, movements and campaigns along the anti-imperialist and democratic line.
From “The Need for United Front in the Filipino People’s Democratic Revolution Speech in Celebration of the 40th Founding Anniversary of the NDFP,” Amsterdam, the Netherlands (April 28, 2013) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
The international relations of the Philippine revolutionary movement adhere to the principle of proletarian internationalism among the communist and workers’ parties, the international solidarity of peoples and the international united front of all anti-imperialist and democratic forces. In the course of the people’s democratic revolution, the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people develop mutual understanding and cooperation with corresponding forces abroad. Such relations shall develop further in the course of socialist revolution and construction.
From “On the Short-Term and Long-Term Prospects of the Struggle for National and Social Liberation,” (October 2, 2021) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
On the victories and achievements of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
In the process of building the united front for revolutionary armed struggle, the NDFP has engaged in activities and campaigns to promote and realize full national sovereignty, democracy, social justice, economic development through land reform and national industrialization, cultural progress, peace and harmony among the people and international solidarity. The NDFP has provided guidance and support to the people´s democratic government for reaching the people in their millions and for gaining support from the people of the world.
From “Build the Broadest United Front to Strengthen the Organs of Political Power and the People’s Democratic Government” (April 21, 2018) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front
The NDFP has been successful at promoting and building the revolutionary organs of political power at the grassroots and higher levels, expanding and consolidating all its allied organizations, broadening the national united front against every unjust regime, carrying out diplomatic and solidarity relations and raising resources for the advance of the people’s democratic revolution.
The NDFP was conceived, born, developed and tempered in the crucible of the struggle against the US-supported Marcos fascist dictatorship. It worked hard to fight, isolate and defeat the dictatorship and made sacrifices, including martyrdom and imprisonment of many of its adherents. Ultimately, it played a decisive role in the overthrow of the fascist dictatorship in 1986….
The ground for the people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war will remain fertile so long as foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism persist. These are the root causes of the armed revolution which will persevere until it wins total victory and usher in the socialist revolution….
The NDFP can be relied upon to do whatever it must do in order to advance towards a just peace of national independence, genuine democracy, economic development through land reform and national industrialization, social justice, cultural progress and international solidarity with all peoples of the world. In any case, the NDFP will always need the support of the Filipino people and the peoples of the world.
The Filipino people and the NDFP are confident that the new democratic revolution will ever win greater victories in the Philippines as the crisis of the domestic ruling system worsens and compels them to fight back and as the world capitalist system worsens and the peoples of the world rise up and wage mass struggles against imperialism and all reaction.
From “Keynote Speech to the Video Conference to Celebrate the 48th Anniversary of NDFP” (April 24, 2021) in Sison Reader Series Book 8: On the United Front