Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) salutes the revolutionary organization of peasants (PKM), the New People’s Army (NPA) and all revolutionaries in the Philippines as we celebrate Peasant Month in October. We stand in full solidarity with peasants, farm workers, fisherfolks, and all democratic classes and sectors of Philippine Society in their just revolutionary struggle for national and social liberation.
The problem of landlessness
The rural poor, composed mainly of peasants, farm workers and fisherfolks, comprise the majority of the Filipino people. They cultivate the land and produce the majority of the country’s food. However, most peasants do not own the land they till. 80% of the agricultural land is owned by less than a third of landowners. The landlord class are leeches on the Philippine society, along with the other ruling classes who only serve their own interests, and those of their imperialist masters.
Violent oppression by the landed class
The peasants suffer the brunt of the violence under the semicolonial and semifeudal system. They face harsh economic repression through predatory land rent demands of landlords, usury and other forms of feudal exploitation. The landlord class dominates all aspects of society in the countryside through reactionary violence. Their interest is defended through armed goons and the fascist semicolonial state which unleashes brutal US-backed “counterinsurgency” campaigns on the poorest peasants.
Agrarian Revolution
In the agrarian revolution, the economic and political power of the landlord class in the countryside is overthrown step by step. The agrarian revolution has two stages. Its minimum program involves the lowering or elimination of land rent, wage-increase for farm workers, the eradication of usury and others. Its maximum program is the confiscation of land from the landlords and free distribution to the peasant masses.
Revolutionary peasants’ organization and the armed struggle
PKM is the revolutionary organization of peasants and a founding allied organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The PKM wages agrarian revolution together with the NPA. In various parts of the country they already implemented the maximum program. In Masbate alone, 16,605 hectares of mostly pasture land – roughly the size of Paris – were distributed to 5,000 poor peasant families.
The reactionary Philippine governments have over time introduced various forms of bogus land reforms. All of these in the end still serve the interests of the landlords only. The ruling classes will not relinquish power without a fight. They principally rely on counterrevolutionary armed strength in order to maintain their rule and defend their class interests against the people.
Thus, it is only with armed struggle that political power can be wrested from them. In order to launch, advance and consolidate victories, the agrarian revolution must firmly be linked to the armed struggle and the establishment of revolutionary bases.
Anti-imperialism and anti-feudalism
The revolutionary struggle of the peasants in the Philippines is deeply linked with the struggles of all oppressed peoples of the world against imperialism and war. The antifeudal movement in the countryside is decisive in strengthening and expanding the mass base of the NPA and the victory of the revolution.
Let us continue to urgently stand together with the NDFP and the fighting Filipino masses that are struggling to free the Philippines from the evils of US imperialism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.
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Friends of the Filipino Peoples (FFPS) is a global organization that supports the Filipino peoples struggle for genuine national liberation as outlined in the 12 point program of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
