As one devoted to the national democratic revolution and to the leading role of the working class, I salute all Filipino workers for their militant struggle against the fascist dictatorship of the US-Marcos clique and wish them to achieve greater victories in their trade union struggle as well as in their political struggle. I join you in commemorating the glorious sacrifices of the working class and celebrating its victories in fighting for a better world against imperialism and all reaction. We join the workers of the world in one gigantic festivity that is full of revolutionary meaning.
We are filled with the spirit of proletarian internationalism and we reaffirm the historic mission of the working class as the vanguard of social revolution and modern industry. This class has created the conditions for a world proletarian socialist revolution. And these conditions favor the advance of the Filipino proletariat and people in a new type of democratic revolution.
We renew our determination to realize and strengthen the leading role of the proletariat in the Philippine revolution at its present national democratic stage. We must first complete the struggle for national independence and democracy by doing away with the unjust dominance of US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism in this semicolonial and semifeudal society. Then we shall proceed to build a truly new society—socialism.
In the process of combating the fascist dictatorship, which is the brutal concentrated expression of foreign and feudal domination, the Filipino workers and the rest of the people can gain the strength to realize an independent, democratic, peaceful, just and prosperous social system. The Filipino proletariat has a party to ensure that the ideological, political and organizational requisites for victory are undertaken.
The fascist dictatorship of the US-Marcos clique has aggravated the political and economic crisis of the ruling system. More than ever, the ruling clique of big comprador-landlords is driven by its greed to use brute force against the workers and the entire people. Oppression and exploitation are being intensified.
The present economic disaster in our country is the result of accelerated superprofit-taking by the multinational corporations and the unbridled bureaucratic corruption under the auspices of the pseudo-development policy of inflationary anti-industrial projects and excessive foreign borrowings. More than ever the Philippines is a source of cheap raw materials and cheap labor vulnerable to the worsening imperialist crisis of overproduction.
The lives of workers are now being wrecked by massive unemployment, soaring prices of basic commodities and starvation wages. The workers assert their trade union and other democratic rights in order to seek the improvement of their working and living conditions. But the fascist dictatorship unleashed more vicious antilabor laws and more brutal acts of repression.
The fascists and their imperialist masters themselves are agitating the proletariat and the people to rise up. The antilabor prohibitions, threats and onslaughts serve only to militate the workers to develop the trade union movement and launch various forms of concerted mass struggles not only on trade union issues but on broad economic and political issues affecting the workers and the whole people. Beneath the surface is a far greater amount of strength which is bursting out.
The workers’ struggle is part of a comprehensive political struggle of the people. All patriotic and progressive classes and strata are today rising up rapidly against the fascist tyranny. The strength of one adds to the strength of the others in the broad national united front. There is also a complementary and reciprocal relationship between the struggle in the cities and that in the countryside.
Like all despots, Marcos relies more on campaigns of terror as his regime becomes more politically isolated and economically bankrupt. The increasing acts of fascist terror can only serve to accelerate the growth of the people’s armed resistance. Take note of the changing balance of armed strength between the New People’s Army and the Armed Forces of the Philippines: in 1969, it was 1:1,500 (35 vs. 50,000); 1972, 1:200 (500 vs. 100,000); 1977, 1:125 (2,000 vs. 250,000) and in 1982 based on AFP estimates which tend to minimize NPA strength, 1:25 (10,000 vs. 250,000). The NPA growth rate has been cumulative.
It will not be long before the balance of strength reaches 1:10. At that point, the fascist dictatorship will be even more isolated. Claims of the people’s “acquiescence” to it or that the “situation is under control” will become even more ridiculous. Those who do not understand the theory of people’s war will learn that people’s war is not a single make-or-break uprising but a cumulative process of growing from small to big and weak to strong by relying on the strength of the masses of the people. The people’s armed forces grow through a process of seizing arms from the enemy in areas most favorable to the revolutionaries.
Simply maintaining the Armed Forces of the Philippines at its present force level will strain the political and economic position of the fascist dictatorship. The economic disaster into which the Marcos regime has steered the country will only become more devastating and is bound to hasten the political doom of the dictatorship. Direct and indirect US military assistance to the puppet regime of tyranny is increasing. But it can no longer give as much as it could to its puppets in the Vietnam war.
By their resolute and militant struggle for national independence and democracy against the US-Marcos regime, the Filipino proletariat and people serve their own interests and at the same time contribute to the strengthening of the proletariat and other oppressed and exploited people abroad. In the face of increasing US support to the fascist dictatorship, the proletariat and people of the world understand that the Filipino proletariat and people need their support.
Long live the Filipino working class!
Long live its proletarian revolutionary party!
Long live the trade union movement!
Carry forward the national democratic revolution!
Defend the workers’ trade union and other democratic rights!
Free Ka Bert, Ka Bel and other workers and working class leaders in prison! Down with the fascist dictatorship of the US-Marcos clique!
Long live Kilusang Mayo Uno! Long live the Filipino people!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
