We in the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) extend our greetings and solidarity to the Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper Nationwide (PISTON) on its 5th Congress. We salute you for all your efforts, sacrifices and victories in the past five years.
We are proud of PISTON as a member-organization of ILPS. It follows the anti-imperialist and democratic line. It upholds and fights for the rights and interests of the drivers, small operators and all the people in the Philippines against the oil monopoly cartels and the puppet government.
We agree with your theme: Dare to expand, arouse, organize and mobilize among the ranks of drivers, workers and the people for the national democratic struggle with a socialist perspective! Militantly struggle for economic and political rights! Fight the corrupt, puppet, brutal and oppressive Aquino regime and prepare for the struggle against the continuing neoliberal attacks of monopoly capitalism!
The exploited and oppressed masses cannot rely on anyone but on their own action. It is right that you intensify your efforts to expand, arouse, organize among the ranks of drivers, workers and the people within the framework of the national democratic struggle towards the socialist future. You must wage militant struggle for economic and political rights.
You must continue the struggle against the corrupt, puppet, exploitative, brutal and deceitful Aquino regime. It is the implementor of the neoliberal policy dictated by US imperialism. This policy by design reduces the income of the toiling masses and paves the way for the plunder of our labor power and natural resources. It accelerates the outflow of superprofits to the capitalist monopolies. It is the cause of the frequently recurrent and worsening economic crisis. It gives free rein to oil price increases as a means of squeezing superprofits from the drivers and the Filipino people.
It is good that following your Congress, PISTON Partylist will hold its 2nd Convention and prepare for its participation in the coming elections in 2016. It is correct to use every opportunity to advance the rights and interests of the drivers, workers and the people. At the same time, we must remember that the mass movement cannot limit itself to the processes that are overwhelmingly controlled and dominated by the politicians of the exploiting classes and their imperialist patrons.
Even during the electoral campaign, the mass movement which includes PISTON is free to act on important issues. This would help the electoral campaigns of the patriotic and progressive Partylists. In the Philippines today, various forms of struggle, legal and armed, are being waged simultaneously. These various forms are not contradictory but complementary, even as the people’s war is the most effective weapon in overthrowing the old and building the new.
We in the International League of Peoples’ Struggle look forward to PISTON greatly strengthening itself as a result of its 5th Congress. In summing up your experience, you will draw the positive and negative lessons, base yourselves on your current strength and define the tasks for advancing and raising your struggle to a higher level. We are confident that you will use your Congress as the key to your further advance.
Long live Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper Nationwide (PISTON)!
Struggle against the oppression and exploitation of the imperialists and their stooges!
Long live the national democratic movement of the Filipino people!
