From Ang Bayan, Vol. II, No. 3, June 1, 1970
May Day is a glorious day for the world proletariat. It is a day for the Filipino workers to rededicate themselves to the cause of the world proletarian revolution under the great red banner of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. It is a day for them to strengthen their resolve to carry out the Philippine revolution even more vigorously in furtherance of the national democratic interests of the people against US imperialism, modern revisionism and all reaction.
The Communist Party of the Philippines stands forth as the proletarian vanguard of the Filipino people and as the firm defender of proletarian internationalism in the Philippines. The cadres of the Party are now resolutely striving to arouse and mobilize the Filipino working class as the leading force of the Philippine revolution. In this regard, the cadres are heroically combating the overt and covert agents of US imperialism who keep on trying to mislead and disunite the Filipino working class. The powerful ideological weapon, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, is now in the hands of an ever-increasing mass of workers. They are sure to smash the Lava revisionist renegades, the yellow trade union bosses and such other counterrevolutionary reformists as those who try to spread the illusion that workers can seek adequate relief within the present reactionary system or become capitalists themselves by buying shares from the corporations that oppress them.
In the decade of the 1970s, the revolutionary storm in the Philippines will certainly grow ever stronger with the militant mass actions of the Filipino working class against the bestial system of exploitation. Real wages have been forced down far below the subsistence level by a series of steps taken by US imperialism and its reactionary puppets to increase their profits and step up the subjugation of the people. The devaluation of the peso in relation to the US dollar means concretely higher prices of essential commodities. At this stage, it is blatantly clear that the state is incapable of legislating a minimum wage level adequate to maintain the old hand-to-mouth existence of the vast majority of workers.
The Filipino working class has clearly no alternative but to unite and fight fiercely against its oppressors who never hesitate to use all apparatuses of the state (the army, police, courts and prisons) to suppress workers’ organizations and strikes. In the countryside of the Philippines, the Party and the New People’s Army are resolutely creating revolutionary bases. These are areas where proletarian leadership has emerged and where all revolutionaries are welcome. These are areas from where the Philippine revolution is rapidly advancing in concert with the militant mass actions in the city. The campaign of intimidation being carried out in actual deeds of terror and saber rattling by the Marcos reactionary regime is nothing but a sign of its desperation in the chasm of its own bankruptcy and in the face of the growing avalanche of the revolutionary movement.
The Party and the New People’s Army are engaged in the broadest national united front with all revolutionary patriots. A definite national united front organization for waging revolutionary armed struggle is now being formed to further isolate the enemy. The working class is firmly uniting with all other patriotic classes and strata interested in the triumph of the people’s democratic revolution.
The Philippine revolution is now in progress under extremely favorable conditions. US imperialism, modern revisionism and all reaction are inextricably sunk in crisis. The Chinese working class has risen to take firm hold of the material base and superstructure of Chinese society. In the process, it has consolidated the most powerful socialist base in the present era of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. As Chairman Mao has so lucidly put it, “The enemy rots with every passing day while for us things are getting better daily.”
