Robert Reid | Chairperson FFPS
The Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) condemn in the strongest terms the continued fascist attacks of the reactionary government of the Philippines and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against the Filipino people. We uphold the Filipino people’s right to fight for liberation and against state terrorism.
For over five decades the Filipino people have been suffering under relentless attacks by the AFP under the guise of its ‘counterinsurgency’ or counterrevolutionary war against the revolutionary movement. These campaigns are supported and directed by the United States (US) government and is based on the US model of counterinsurgency. The attacks are efforts of the reactionary government, representing the big comprador bourgeoisie and the big landlords, to violently suppress the Filipino people’s revolutionary struggle for national liberation from US imperialism and genuine democracy.
The crimes committed by the reactionary government and the role of the US government were exposed earlier this year in the International People’s Tribunal (IPT) in Brussel. After numerous testimonies from witnesses, it found that former president Duterte, Marcos Jr., Biden and their regimes were guilty of grave war crimes against the Filipino people.
Especially the rural poor have been targeted by the AFP for their participation in the revolution and their just fight for land against the feudal landlords. Currently the New People’s Army (NPA) and the Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magsasaka (PKM) are arousing, organizing and mobilizing millions of peasants and farm workers for agrarian revolution. Through this, the revolutionary movement is able to arouse the rural masses for armed struggle and builds revolutionary base areas. This directly threatens the power of the Philippine ruling classes – the comprador big bourgeoisie and the big landlords – and their imperialist masters.
The ‘counterinsurgency’ operations have caused devastation to the lives of the peasants and other rural poor and to their communities. According to a special report on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law violations by Ang Bayan in July 2024 there are over 424,679 victims of human rights violations during the US-Marcos regime. There have been at least 175 killings, 163 abductions and 135 cases of torture. Most of the human rights violations happen in rural civilian communities that are attacked by the AFP or have AFP encampments close by.
Communities with AFP encampments in it and nearby face a localized martial law. The soldiers often concentrate the population in a small area to limit any contact they might have with the revolutionary forces, and stifle their right to collective struggle by tightly surveilling and restricting their every action. This tactic, called hamletting, is essentially a form of collective imprisonment of the entire community. Peasants are kept from going to their crops and help from outside, including food, is deliberately obstructed. Within the communities, the soldiers institute a reign of terror. Groups of civilians are often forced to surrender as revolutionaries, who are labeled as terrorists, and there are countless cases of threats and intimidation, unjust arrest and detention, sexual abuse, torture and killings.
Aerial bombing operations are a brutal facet of the ongoing war against the people. During the US-Duterte regime and continuing under the US-Marcos regime, bombings and shellings of peasant communities have intensified. The intensification comes under increasing pressure by US imperialism to finish off the revolutionary movement, so that it can use the Philippines and the AFP as tools of war against China. These bombings, often using heavy ammunition completely out of proportion, have left atleast 10 civilians killed, atleast 17,000 have been displaced and tens of thousands have been affected in some way. In most cases the masses are severly traumatized and they lose their livelihood because of destruction of their crops and the environment.
Given the ongoing attacks and the suffering that the Filipino people, it is crucial for the progressive forces of the world to keep exposing and challenging the fascist ‘counterinsurgency’. On our part, we as FFPS will relentlessly organize and mobilize for the Filipino people’s struggle, unyielding in our fight to expose and oppose the escalating human rights abuses and breaches of international humanitarian law. We assert and support the Filipino people’s right to waged armed struggle against US imperialist and fascist military aggression.
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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).