Understand the Enemy's Strategy

Photo from captured enemy-documents.

The NPA takes advantage of the archipelagic and mountainous terrain of the country to provide depth of guerrilla warfare. The design of their guerilla warfare is protracted: small to big, weak to strong, and is carried out” in the strategic stages pointed out earlier: strategic defense, strategic stalemate, and strategic offense.

According to Victor, “The strategic military line of the CPP for the last fifty (50) years didn’t change. The CPP’s definition of strategic military line is: ‘from weak and small to big and strong while advancing wave upon wave by way of an ever deepening and ever widening mass base building through an intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare to encircle the cities from the countryside through the nationwide conduct of protracted people’s war.’ It is very important for the government to understand the enemy’s strategy, especially the AFP because it is what makes the CPP-NPA-NDF survive.” 

--THE WARS WITHIN (2020 / Copy&Share)

CPP-NPA-NDF's Exploitation of Various Sectors

Source: Captured enemy-documents

Some of the functions of White Areas can be observed in Victor’s story as a youth leader. White Areas, as noted in SOT- WA (2006), “harbor a large concentration of middle forces, sectoral organizations, and various cause-oriented groups” that make the CPP’s activities easier. Middle forces are composed of youth and students, professionals and semi-professionals from the academe, religious, legal, health, media, education, and other sectors. The ambivalence of those included in the middle forces makes it an urgent task of the Party to win them to the side of the workers and the peasantry.

As seen in the experience of Victor, White Areas are bountiful sources of potential cadres. The CPP sees the value of the working class, though only 15% of the population, as the most progressive, political, and productive force (SOT-WA, 2006). Recruits here can be dispatched to the countryside as political officers of the NPA to train.

“The White Area is a complicated process that’s been an enigma for the government and the ordinary people to understand. The White Area is why we can recruit from different sectors – in schools, in the church, in the offices, even inside government. Imagine, we have CPP units inside government agencies,” Victor said. 

--THE WARS WITHIN (2020/Copy&Share)

Family Is Second Priority

Source: Captured enemy-documents

Victor and his family lived with his in-laws. Paying their share of the bills became a regular struggle. But their greatest challenge came not from outside, but from within the Party.

“In my wife’s collective, they questioned why we were having a hard time sustaining our family. They couldn’t understand why we had to solicit from other people. They were questioning where we were spending our money. They started treating us differently, like we were problem for the movement,” Victor said.

He added: “It’s easy to survive if you’re single. You’re treated well. But when you have a family to feed, they say to your face that it’s not the responsibility of the party to shoulder them. So you have to be creative in providing support for your family.”

Victor had to look for sponsors for his children’s education. Even school projects had to have sponsors because the money they were receiving were only enough for their food. 

--THE WARS WITHIN (2020/Copy&Share)

CPP-NPA-NDF's Two-stage Revolution

How will the CPP reach its aim of replacing the government with a dictatorship of the proletariat? Key to undermining any public institution is destroying the trust of the constituents it serves. This is also the CPP’s tactic: by destroying the Filipino people’s trust in their government, they can bring about change. This makes them different from reformists, who advocate change through constitutional means but don’t seek to bring changes in government through violent means.

The CPP aims to achieve this aim of overthrowing the government through a two-stage revolution. The CPP strategy relies on two strategic lines: the Strategic Political Line, through a National Democratic Revolution, and the Strategic Military Line, through a protracted people's war (PPW).

Under the National Democratic Revolution strategy, the communist movement aims to seize political power through armed struggle supported by urban revolutionary mass movement. Once this is accomplished, they aim to establish a Democratic Coalition Government as the National Foundation for the second stage: the Socialist Revolution. 

“Aagawin ng CPP ang kapangyarihan sa gobyerno, seizure ng political power – ibabagsak niya ang gobyerno, magtatayo siya ng transition government sa national, tatawagin niyang DCG – Democratic Coalition Government. Ang hahawak ng kapangyarihan ay mga magsasaka, manggagawa, mga sektor na organized at all levels. Less than 10% ang ishe-share na power sa mga negosyante, 90% controlled ng mga basic sectors, pero CPP-NPA-NDF ang comocontrol sa leadership ng mga organisasyon na ito. [The CPP will seize power from the government and create a new transitional government called the DCG, Democratic Coalition Government. The farmers, workers, organized masses will hold power. Less than 10% of the power will be shared to businessmen, 90% will be controlled by the basic sectors],” he said.

This would serve as the first stage of transition to a new form of government. Once the first stage is victorious, the second stage of the revolution will commence – and it will be violent and bloody, using suppression of civil and political human rights to achieve its ends. This, Victor explains, is because the second stage involves the consolidation of power to form the dictatorship of the proletariat, to be led at all levels of government – from the national level down to the barangay level – by the CPP.

Simultaneously, the CPP’s strategic military line aims to spur a protracted people’s war. This consists of mass base building to build up a people’s army, using these forces to encircle cities from countryside through guerrilla warfare, and a coordinated nationwide conduct of protracted people’s war.

Taken together, these two strategic lines lead to the seizure of political power, a socialist revolution, and finally the creation of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Victor said that the violent stage of the CPP movement is not emphasized much in public discussions. Most of the people they work with in communist-affiliated areas, he said, only see communists as people who resonate the same grievances and seek to push for reforms. What they don’t know, he said, is that this image of reformists is a cover for their real intention to overthrow the government through violent means.

“Ang naipapaliwanag lang ‘yong aming pagkukunwari na kami mga champions of reforms, champions and advocates of people’s issues. Kami ang nagcha-champion para tulungan ang magsasaka na mawasak ang mga hacienda, mapigilan ang pangangamkam ng mga lupain ng mga malalaking korporasyon dayuhan man o local. Parang ganoon lang nakikita sa amin ng mga tao even in the communities that we organized [What is explained is our image as champions of reforms, advocates of people’s issues. That we help farmers overthrow haciendas and prevent land-grabbing by large corporations, foreign or local. That’s the image people have of us in the communities that we organized],” he explained. 

--THE WARS WITHIN (2020 / Copy&Share)

CPP-NPA Concept and Strategy

One might ask: what does the CPP hope to achieve? The simple, but incomplete, answer is that it advocates for reform through new leadership in government. This answer lacks nuance because the CPP does not claim monopoly on reform and a nation’s greater good. So how does the CPP differ from well-meaning activists who fight for reforms within the bounds of established legal laws?

Victor explained that, like well-meaning activists, the CPP members do want to ease the suffering of their fellow citizens burdened by rising prices of fuel, or the everyday consumers who struggle to stretch their peso every time the prices of basic commodities rise, or the farmers who continue to till their lands without the hope of genuine agrarian reform. But while many good-intentioned activists call for reform through legal means, the CPP’s direction is through the destruction of the status quo through violent means.

“Hindi kami kuntento na manatili ang status quo. Kapag sinabi naming socialism, lahat ng mga lupain, makinarya, pabrika, at industriya ay kokontrolin dapat ng mamamayan sa pamamagitan ng kanyang gobyerno at hindi ‘yan mangyayari kung ang gobyerno ay hindi mo papalitan. Doon nag-iiba sa perspective [We are not content with maintaining the status quo. Under socialism, all land, machinery, factors of production should be controlled by the masses through the government, and that will not happen if you don’t change the government. That’s where our perspective differs],” Victor said.

In short, communists don’t just want reform – they want to overthrow the government and replace it with an entirely different system.

--THE WARS WITHIN (2020 / Copy&Share)