The Importance of Advancing the National-Democratic Agenda for the Interest of the Working Class

Speech to the 9th Regional Congress of PAMANTIK,
July 14, 2014

Beloved comrades in the struggle! The International League of Peoples’ Struggle sincerely expresses its solidarity with the Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan [Workers’ Unity in Southern Tagalog]-Kilusang Mayo Uno (PAMANTIK-KMU) on the occasion of its 9th Congress.

We admire the victories of PAMANTIK-KMU as the vanguard of genuine, militant and anti-imperialist unionism. Your successes in educating, organizing and mobilizing the workers in advancing their struggle for a just wage, job security and respect for workers and human rights are praiseworthy.

We greatly believe that your fighting spirit will grow further, your organization gain further strength and your struggle further advance. In this congress, you will be able to link the workers’ situation in the region to that on the national and global scale, sum-up your accumulated strength and experience, strengthen your leadership and overall ranks and set the tasks for your further advance.

I thank you for inviting me to discuss “The Importance of Advancing the National-Democratic Agenda for the Interest of the Working Class.”

It is an honor and an important task to discuss this topic. The national democratic program covers the tactical and strategic needs of the working class in the economic and political fields.

Economic victories can be further achieved if the ranks of the working class gain further strength in the political arena. Economic victories are lost when patriotic and progressive work weakens in the political arena. Correct political leadership and action are decisive.

Addressing the needs of the working class

To advance the national-democratic agenda is to address immediately the needs and interests of the working class. The conditions of the working class and the Filipino people will worsen further and they lose all hope of escaping poverty if they do not resist US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. These are the roots of exploitation and oppression in our country.

You have to fight the enemy in order to uphold your dignity, your rights and interests. US imperialism and the local reactionary regime of big compradors and landlords continue to conspire in intensifying exploitation and oppression. As the crisis they have created worsens, the more they extract superprofits from the working class and the Filipino people and employ violence against the toiling masses.

Since its brutal conquest of the Philippines, US imperialism has continued to impose its policies on the Filipino people in order to dominate, exploit and oppress them. From the time of the overtly colonial regime in 1902 to the current semicolonial regime, the US has deprived the Filipino people of complete national independence and has dictated the nature and course of the economy, politics, culture and military.

The biggest objective of US monopoly capitalism is to amass superprofits in the Philippines through direct and indirect investments. To weaken the Philippines economically and politically, they maintain the feudal and semifeudal system of exploitation. And their main instruments are the local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords. In turn, the latter smoothly choose their political agents in all levels of the political system.

The Filipino people have long desired both genuine land reform and national industrialization. But in the selfish view of the imperialists and local reactionaries, it is easier to extract high rates and quantities of exploitation if poverty and exploitation and widespread, wages are low and the Philippines’ natural resources are laid bare to plunder by imperialist corporations and their cohorts.

Under neoliberal economic policy, the concentration of capital in the hands of the imperialists has accelerated and worsened through liberalization, privatization, deregulation and denationalization. As imperialist agents, the big compradors and landlords also rapidly enrich themselves in terms of capital and land. Their politicians likewise indulge themselves in bureaucrat capitalism, by using their positions in the reactionary government to amass wealth.

Poverty among the people is spreading and intensifying because of unemployment, low incomes and skyrocketing prices of goods and services. It is but right for the people to fight for their rights to live decently and take action to advance their interests. But the powers that be respond violently to mass actions engendered by crisis and the worsening poverty in the cities and countryside.

The US-Aquino regime mercilessly launched brutal military campaigns against the revolutionary forces and the people. Through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the US has been openly building military bases in the Philippines.

The regime claims that the US provides protection to the Philippines, but it has long been pretending to be benevolent and is friendlier with China than the Philippines. The regime makes a show of fighting China, but it connives with big Chinese capitalists in construction, trading, semi-manufacturing and mining.

The Aquino regime is an out and out puppet of US imperialism and is brazenly exploitative, corrupt and brutal in violating human rights. The president who claims to be clean and on the righteous path has been proven to be a shameless thief. Thus, there is a movement to oust him and his cohorts. The ouster of a corrupt and brutal regime is just one step in further strengthening the national democratic movement towards the overthrow of the entire semicolonial and semifeudal system.

Advancing working class leadership

The working class must engage in struggle not only because it has to fight exploitation and oppression. The national-democratic revolution must be implemented through the leadership of the working class. The revolution cannot win without the leadership of the working class through the Communist Party of the Philippines.

If we analyze current Philippine society, the working class is the most productive and most progressive class. It is the class that has the capability of fulfilling the objective of ending the domination of imperialism, attaining national independence and embark on national industrialization. It is the class that is most resolute in ending feudal and semifeudal exploitation through genuine land reform.

For the first time in the history of the world and the Philippines, there is a class that has the desire and the ability to overthrow all exploiting classes and liberate all exploited classes in society. It bears the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and applied it to Philippine history and conditions through the general line of national democratic revolution.

The line of national liberation and democracy first emerged during the 1896 revolution against Spanish colonialism the feudalism of the friars. The liberal bourgeois leadership was able to defeat the old colonialism of Spain. But it was unable to overcome US imperialism’s superior military strength and liberal-democratic deception.

Until now, the urban petty bourgeoisie has revolutionary potential. But it has been proven that it cannot fully resist modern imperialism or monopoly capitalism. It is the working class that has the ideological, political and organizational capability to continue the national democratic revolution to a new level in the time of imperialism and proletarian revolutions. It is the class that has a revolutionary theory, Party and political line.

The working class can lead the revolution well because it is guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and it implements the line of people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war. With the working class are the peasants who are also part of the toiling masses and comprise the majority of the people. The petty bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie are allies of the toiling masses in the united front. They take advantage of conflicts among the reactionary cliques of the exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords.

The objective of the working class and the Filipino people is to achieve complete national independence by eliminating and ending the domination of US imperialism over the economy, politics, the military and culture and in dictating policies to the local ruling classes. The toiling masses will attain democratic power and rights through the national liberation of the Filipino people. The objective of the working class is to attain social liberation. There will be an end to the power of the local reactionary classes to exploit the toiling masses. The monopoly capitalists will lose their power to exploit the toiling masses. There will be national industrialization. Landlords will likewise lose their power to own vast tracts of land. Genuine land reform will be complete.

A national, scientific and mass-oriented cultural and educational system will flourish and proliferate. The public educational system will expand and more people will be able to finish school in order to be of service to the people’s economic, social, political and cultural development. In the spirit of proletarian internationalism and anti-imperialist solidarity, the working class and the people will unite with all possible forces in the world for peace and development. With the victory of the democratic revolution in the Philippines, the socialist perspective of the Philippine revolution can be accomplished. The working class and the Filipino people will have the strength to move forward to the socialist stage of the Philippine revolution. This can be done because the working class is the vanguard class. Through its Party, it can lead the people’s democratic state system, the people’s army and all cadres and people in all fields of social endeavor.

Long live PAMANTIK-KMU!

Long live the working class and the Filipino people!

Long live the Philippine revolution!