July 2025
This interview was conducted over email in January 2025 by Pao Ching-ming, an 18-year-old [self-identified] eunuch-autist from Quezon City, the Philippines. He is a member of the anti-imperialist Linángan ng Kultúrang Pilipíno [Institute of Filipino Culture] and has previously interviewed Communist Party founder José María Sison. You can read Pao’s writings for his Tapilók-bángon [Stumble-arise] website here, and you can support his family’s efforts to pay off predatory loans here.
Marco Valbuena is the Chief Information Officer of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), have been waging a protracted people’s war since 1969. They describe their insurgency as a fight for national and social liberation against a corrupt and oppressive state-terrorist regime subservient to imperialist masters. Valbuena talked to Pao about the political-economy of the Philippines, the revolutionary movement’s setbacks and achievements, and future prospects for anti-colonial struggles. Valbuena’s statements for the CPP’s official media organ can be read here.
This exchange was originally intended as the first half of a two-part interview, but due to time constraints and other considerations Valbuena was unable to respond to Pao’s second set of questions.
Pao Ching-ming: Ka Marco, this is the second time I am interviewing you. The first time was in 2021, on the occasion of the Communist Party of the Philippines’s 53rd anniversary; the 56th is only a few days away as I write these questions. Tell me: what’s changed since then? How are you, how is the Party, and, most importantly, how are the Filipino people?
Marco Valbuena: Significant changes have taken place over the past three years since our last correspondence, yet many aspects have remained the same. The most notable change, of course, is the return to power of the Marcos dynasty, accompanied by the rapid deterioration of the social and economic conditions of the Filipino people. The reign of state terror whipped up during the Duterte regime has remained, with grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law still being perpetrated with impunity by reactionary state forces.
On the occasion of its 55th anniversary, on December 26, 2023, the Party launched a rectification movement with the aim of consolidating and strengthening the Party through self-criticism and correcting past errors, weaknesses and shortcomings. According to the Party leadership, the rectification movement is firmly taking root even if “much work remains to be done.”
PC: It has been said that the revolutionary movement is “at its lowest ebb in decades.” According to government figures, while in 2008 there were an estimated 1,381 villages “under the Communist movement’s influence” (what could be meant by “influence” here?), in 2023 only some 200 remained. It is also claimed that from 81 guerrilla fronts in 2018, there is now only a single “weakened” one remaining. In as exact terms as you can, could you verify these numbers for us? And would you say that the revolution has suffered a real, concrete decline these past years?
MV: The Party has described the losses and setbacks of the NPA due both to its internal weaknesses, principally, and the sustained strategic offensives of the enemy since 2017. However, the AFP’s [Armed Forces of the Philippines] claims of the NPA having “only one weakened guerrilla front” is totally absurd. The NPA continues to operate from the northern regions of Luzon to the southern parts of Mindanao. Guerrilla units of the NPA are adapting their tactics to the changed military strategy of the enemy to render its offensives ineffective.
The Marcos regime’s “insurgency free” claims are belied by their own actions, particularly by the continuing massive military operations involving thousands of troops across the country, with huge expenditures running to hundreds of billions of pesos. By deploying massive numbers of troops and establishing their armed presence in rural villages, however, they succeed only in suppressing the people’s democratic rights, but not without further rousing the masses’ deep hatred of the fascist military. The more terrorist violence they unleash, the more resolute the peasant masses become in their determination to resist and fight back.
PC: If there has been such a decline, when and where did it begin? In the 1980s, the Party was “the most significant threat to the stability of the Philippine state and the hegemonic force on the Left,” and the common narrative is that since then it has never really reached a similar high point. Statements sympathetic to the movement complicate the picture. In 2014, founding chairman Prof. José Ma. Sison claimed that the Party had 150,000 members and operated in 115 guerrilla fronts; in 2015, he gave the figure of 200,000; and in 2022, this had returned to 150,000. Your latest anniversary statement, from 2023, indicates that the people’s war is in the “middle phase of the strategic defensive,” whereas as early as 2006, you were already “approaching and developing the middle phase of the strategic defensive.” So, once and for all, please give us a sketch of how the people’s war has progressed since its inception in the late 1960s, with particular emphasis on its ebbs and flows, its retreats and advances, and the objective and subjective contexts in which those occurred.
MV: To understand the history of advances and retreats of the people’s war in the past decades, it is crucial to understand that the middle phase is the longest phase of the strategic defensive stage. This phase comes after the early phase of launching or initiating the people’s war and building the people’s army as a nationwide force; and before the phase of rapid progress towards the stage of strategic stalemate. The people’s war does not progress in a straight line. The middle phase, in particular, has been characterized by ebbs and flows, gains and setbacks. This is evident in the recent history of the people’s war, as highlighted by the Party leadership. There was a steady advance during the 1970s up until 1987, major losses from 1988 to 1992, a general trend of advance from 1992 to 2017, and setbacks from 2018 to 2022. In the past year, some parts of the NPA suffered losses due to continuing internal weaknesses and the enemy’s relentless offensives. However, other parts have made headway by redeploying guerrilla units to counter the enemy’s strategy. This has allowed them to effectively resist and frustrate the enemy’s focused military operations.
PC: Last year, the Central Committee took advantage of the Party’s 55th anniversary to call “on the entire Party to wage a rectification movement on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the Party’s basic principles as enunciated by Ka Joma.” How has this Third Rectification Movement, as it has come to be called, been going? In what ways is it similar or different from previous struggles for rectification? Notably, why no “Great,” as in the First and Second?
MV: The current rectification movement is in many ways similar to the first and second, in so far as it upholds Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as the the Party’s ideological guide, and reaffirms the basic analysis of Philippine society as semicolonial and semifeudal and the need to wage a people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war, along the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. It is also similar in that it calls for a study campaign to raise the theoretical level of the Party as a way of raising its capability to apply Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as guide to advance revolutionary practice.
On the other hand, the current rectification movement is also different from the first and second rectification movements. The first two rectification movements arose from a situation in which the basic ideological line, principles, and program of the Party were systematically questioned, distorted, and attacked by people who later became out and out revisionists and traitors. The current rectification movement, on the other hand, arose from a situation in which the malady of empiricism slowly weakened the overall grasp of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and weakened the Party internally. This situation allowed various types of petty-bourgeois subjectivism to exist, resulting in mistaken ideas to exist alongside correct ideas, becoming a hindrance to further growth.
Since launching the current rectification movement, the Party has intensified efforts to root out and repudiate petty-bourgeois subjectivism in all its forms. Party cadres and all revolutionary activists are determined to make this ideological campaign a success, ensure that the current rectification movement is as great as, or even greater than, the first two, to surpass all past achievements and bring the revolution to unprecedented heights.
PC: Also last year, the Party declared a holiday ceasefire—the first one since 2019, under Duterte—as what I understand to be a gesture of goodwill towards the government, with whom the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) agreed “to a principled and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict” last November in Oslo. Notably, the government did not reciprocate. Was there any hope that they would? Why was a holiday ceasefire possible then but, as you have asserted in a recent statement, not this time?
MV: The Party issued a ceasefire declaration in December 2023 without expectation that it would be reciprocated by the Marcos government. It was a gesture of solidarity with the Filipino people’s traditional holidays, as well as a way of marking the 55th anniversary of the CPP. It was also an affirmation of the Party’s support for the efforts of the NDFP to resume peace negotiations with the GRP [Government of the Republic of the Philippines], after the signing of the November 23, 2023 Oslo Joint Declaration. The AFP, however, treacherously took advantage of the NPA’s ceasefire and staged attacks against NPA units, targeting civilian communities. In the face of the unremitting armed offensives of the AFP and without clear prospects of peace negotiations progressing under Marcos, the Party could not declare a holiday ceasefire last December 2024, as much as it wanted to.
PC: Regarding its counterinsurgency tactics specifically, what, in your opinion, has the Marcos régime done “right”? And, conversely, where has the revolutionary movement gone “wrong”?
MV: Marcos continues to wrong the Filipino people by waging the ruthless US-supported and -funded counterrevolutionary war. He has ordered the AFP to escalate its campaigns of gradual constriction, which since 2017 has overrun wider areas, intensifying oppressive military operations lasting years, unleashing superior aerial, artillery and infantry firepower, and inflicting grave hardships on the peasant masses. The AFP took advantage of the problem of self-constriction of some guerrilla units of the NPA. Some NPA units were induced to further self-constrict instead of spreading and shifting to widen the area for guerrilla maneuver and base building. This problem is presently being surmounted by the NPA. Its guerrilla units are now more mobile and agile, making them less vulnerable to enemy encirclement, leaving the enemy deaf and blind.
PC: While we’re at it, would it still be accurate to call it the “Marcos-Duterte régime”? Or should Duterte be struck out given her seemingly diminishing power in government vis-à-vis the Marcos-Romuáldez clique?
MV: The collusion between the Marcos and Duterte ruling cliques has given way to conflict, which has become increasingly irreconcilable and antagonistic since 2023, just one year after putting up the façade of unity. Since Marcos assumed power in 2022, the Party always referred to the ruling regime as the “Marcos regime” or “US-Marcos regime,” to underscore that Marcos is the one who principally wields reactionary political power. It only once referred to the ruling regime as Marcos-Duterte in 2023 to underscore its fascist-terrorism. For all intents and purposes, the reins of political power have been in Marcos’ hands since 2022, with the Dutertes being less and less accommodated.
PC: How do you view the whole conflict between Marcos and Duterte? Is it, as a few people have put forward, a sham, or a genuine struggle between two competing factions of the ruling class? If it is the latter, then why is Marcos so unwilling to go the full way and move for Duterte’s impeachment? If in fact the two are colluding with each other in some scheme to deceive the Filipino people, then what might their ends be?
MV: The conflicts between the Marcoses and Dutertes are real and intense, involving control over hundreds of billions of pesos worth of government contracts, as well as influence and control over the armed forces and police. Despite promises of accomodation, the Dutertes since 2022 have lost billions of pesos in bribes and kickbacks in state infrastructure projects (such as the Mindanao railway and a few other big-ticket projects) which Marcos renegotiated and re-awarded to other foreign banks and local contractors by the second half of 2023. During this time, Duterte’s influence in the military had begun to wane with the retirement of generals he had appointed to key positions. Since stepping down and having to give up command of the military and police, Duterte lost complete overlordship of the drug trade and other criminal syndicates. In fact, he is now being investigated for the drug killings, and for allowing the proliferation of POGOs [Philippine offshore gaming operators] as fronts for criminal operations during his term.
You are right to observe that, despite his declaration that he will reciprocate (“papatulan”) Sara Duterte’s assassination threats, Marcos appears to be dilly-dallying with her impeachment, likely calculating how much influence the Dutertes have within the military who might be triggered by an impeachment. Others surmise that Marcos is waiting for the 2025 elections to secure a majority in the Senate to ensure that the impeachment trial will result in a conviction against Sara Duterte. Having regained political power close to 40 years after being ousted, we can expect the Marcoses to seek to perpetuate their power beyond 2028, and aim to eliminate all stumbling blocks, including the Dutertes.
PC: How can the legal, aboveground national-democratic Left take advantage of these apparent splits among the powers that be? Would it be possible for the Makabáyan Coalition to unite the rest of the Left and the Liberal Opposition behind it in an effort to impeach Duterte?
MV: For the Filipino people, the conflict between the Marcoses and Dutertes is one between bureaucrat capitalists and fascists for control of political power. They should take advantage of the conflict to pursue their demand for justice. Without siding with the Marcoses, they stand on just ground in pushing to have Rodrigo Duterte arrested by the ICC, and to have Sara Duterte impeached and tried for corruption. Indeed, the mass-based opposition represented by Makabayan and other political parties including the Liberal Party can unite in pushing for the impeachment of Sara Duterte, as well as for Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and trial before the ICC.
PC: Some commentators claim that a Marcos-dominated government is better than one dominated by Duterte, citing Marcos’s “softer hand” and “more liberal” leanings. Under Duterte, they argue, it would be rabid and unbridled fascism, whereas under Marcos progressive forces at least have some leeway to be critical, do mass work, and so on. How do you respond?
MV: There is nothing “soft” or “liberal” with the Marcos regime. Like his predecessor, and like his father, Marcos is waging a ruthless and brutal war of suppression marked by wanton violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, both in the cities and countryside, but moreso in the rural communities. Marcos utilizes the Anti-Terror and Terrorism Financing laws to suppress democratic rights, further narrowing the space for legal resistance. He uses military agents to conduct surveillance against union leaders, community associations, organizations of students, church people, women and other democratic sectors. He continues to use the NTF-ELCAC [National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Terror] as a tool for political repression and fascist propaganda.
Marcos has avoided the acerbic anti-communist rhetoric of Duterte, but has adapted the same tactics of state terrorism to suppress and oppress the Filipino people. Marcos employs deception to erect a façade of magnanimity and unity to conceal his tyrannical schemes. He is a political sly who is now busy consolidating his power. He is tightening his grip on the military, congress, bureaucracy and judiciary, and further reinforcing the tyrannical state. Marcos’ aim is to monopolize political power, expand the family wealth and perpetuate the Marcos dynasty.
However, Marcos is bound to shed this “soft” public persona when he faces a growing protest movement that is certain to rise as widespread corruption is exposed, and as people suffer from worsening socioeconomic hardships resulting from his anti-people and anti-poor neoliberal policies.
PC: Many observers have noted Makabáyan’s unprecedented participation in the coming senatorial elections: the last time the national-democrats fielded its own candidates for the Senate was in 1987, with the Partído ng Báyan, and that failed miserably (not without the help of massive fraud and terrorism on the part of Aquino et al.). How do you look upon Makabáyan’s campaign?
MV: I don’t think that Partido ng Bayan “failed miserably” in 1987, unless one takes a limited view of electoral struggles as focus in the overall struggle for national democracy. In fact, the PnB mounted such a successful electoral campaign in 1987 that the reactionary ruling classes employed the full force of the military to suppress it. From a broader perspective, the 1987 PnB campaign opened the field of electoral politics as a new field of political struggle for the national democratic forces, even if it took them more than a decade to make headway with their participation in the party-list elections in the early 2000s.
The decision of the Makabayan bloc to field an almost full slate in the upcoming elections was welcomed by the broad masses of the people. The toiling masses have long grown tired of the same faces of reactionary politicians representing old political dynasties who for generations have wielded political power to perpetuate their power and privileges and oppress the people. Workers, peasants and other basic sectors see the participation of Makabayan as an opportunity to discuss and seek solutions to their pressing problems, especially amid the deepening economic crisis caused by Marcos’ anti-people and anti-poor policies.
Of course, Makabayan is up against the reactionary goliaths. This, however, should not stop them from carrying out an all-out campaign to draw votes, build their chapters to organize and mobilize the people in great numbers, and forge alliances, along the general line of defending the people’s rights and welfare and fighting for their national democratic aspirations. Their success will be measured in terms of votes, but equally important, in terms of building their organized strength for even greater struggles in the future, both in and outside the field of elections.
PC:. Have these parliamentary squabbles had any effect at all on the régime’s campaign of counterrevolution in the countryside? How about the revolutionary movement itself?
MV: I assume you refer to the squabble between the Marcoses and Dutertes. While the Marcoses and Dutertes squabble over the loot of the bureaucrat capitalist state, they are basically united in the counterrevolutionary aim of suppressing the resistance of the oppressed and exploited classes.
PC: Let us take a broader view. Would it be fair to say that the Marcos camp is basically representative of US interests in the Philippines and the Duterte camp of Chinese interests?
MV: I think the dynamics are more nuanced than that. While Marcos has been more brazen in his subservience to US economic and military interests in the Philippines, Duterte, during his time, did not actually stand against US imperialist domination in the country. Despite his occasional anti-US rhetoric, he actually allowed the US to construct its first four Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites, and allowed the US to establish in Western Mindanao the base of the Operation Pacific Eagle-Philippines (OPE-P) in 2017 (after the Trump visit). Of course, Duterte sidled up to China hoping to get a share of the multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative, although he was already quite late in the game, as the Chinese economy began to reel from debt defaults. China is also wary of investing billions of dollars in the Philippines in the face of rising US protectionist push that extends to securing its semicolonies such as the Philippines.
PC: Speaking of the US and China, what is your perspective on events abroad this past year? What is the Party’s analysis of, for example, the recently attempted coup in South Korea and the “dirty war” that may still happen against the North? What is the likelihood of such a war and how might it involve the Philippines?
MV: The world is currently entangled in rising inter-imperialist conflict, driven by the aggressive push of the US to reassert its dominance as the sole imperialist superpower amid economic stagnation and crisis. The US is increasingly bellicose as it seeks to redivide the world in line with its own interests, threatening to upend the current balance.
The attempt to impose martial law in Korea is an indication of the increasing push to the Right or a return to open fascist rule amid rising social discontent among workers and people. The failed attempt shows the high level of political consciousness and militance of Korean workers, with the biggest unions leading the resistance and pushing the parliament to impeach the president. The crisis saw the active intervention of the US imperialists as they sought to placate the people’s anger against the US puppet, by allowing it to be replaced by another puppet. It made sure that references to the US military and nuclear power in Korea be stricken out of the articles of impeachment.
Through its military bases in South Korea where missiles with nuclear warheads are stockpiled, the US continues to threaten the DPRK with war. With the experience of having used its proxies such as Ukraine against Russia and Israel against Syria and Iran, the US is certainly emboldened to reignite the war in the Korean peninsula and use South Korea as proxy against the DPRK. I won’t go into prospects at the moment, but I think there is urgency for people around the world to stand up firmly against such threats of war. It is critical for the American people, in particular, to rise in protest against US war policies around the world.
PC: Some have noticed that there is a seeming continuum of ongoing conflicts stretching from the Crimea to the western tip of Arabia: Russia against the Ukraine, the US-Israeli campaign of mass terror and genocide against the Palestinian, Lebanese, Syrian, and Iranian peoples, and the futile attempts by the US to dislodge the Yemenis from the Red Sea. Do you think such a continuum does exist? If so, what is its basis for existing and what are its repercussions upon the liberal “rules-based international order”? Does such an order still exist?
MV: As pointed to above, the common thread in all these conflicts is the US push to redivide the world in line with its aim of establishing its hegemony around global regions. In doing so, it has undermined its imperialist rivals and attacked countries assertive of their national sovereignty and fueled armed conflicts.
Presently, the US is waging wars or proxy wars in Eastern Europe (using Ukraine against Russia), in the Middle East (using its alliance with Israel against Iran, also in establishing its foothold in Syria after the ouster of the Assad regime by US-Israel-Turkey-NATO supported armed groups) and in Asia (using the Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Australia, Taiwan and others to increase its military presence, encircle and contain China, and raise the temperatures of armed conflict).
PC: Do you subscribe to the notion that 7 October, when Hamas and other Palestinian revolutionary groups launched the first invasion into Israeli territory since 1948, was a (if not the) turning point in modern history, exposing the Zionist entity for its genocidal and settler-colonialist character and forcing US imperialism’s hand, either in support of the Israeli-led Holocaust (which would destroy any pretence of international rules-based liberalism) or against it (directly contravening its decades-long policy of aggression and exploitation in the Middle East)?
MV: The October 7, 2023 Al-Aqsa Flood was a reassertion of the historical right of the Palestinian people over their land. It is a new nodal point in the Palestinian people’s continuing history of armed and non-armed resistance over the course of the past seven decades since the Zionists occupied their land and carved out the Jewish state of Israel. The response of the Zionists to the Al-Aqsa Flood is marked by gross brutality unprecedented in scale since Al Naqba.
The US has never made pretenses in its support for the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people. By providing the Zionists with close to $18 billion in military aid since October 2023, the US imperialists have blood on their hands, with the lives of over 45,000 Palestinians lost in one of the most brutal wars in modern history.
PC: Does the Party have relations, fraternal or otherwise, with any of the groups currently involved in the struggle for Palestinian liberation?
MV: The Party has long supported the revolutionary and democratic organizations of the Palestinian people in their revolutionary struggle for national freedom and self-determination.
PC: How does the Party see Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and similar states? (Which is to say, states which at least seem to stand opposed to US imperialism.) From all the contradictions between them and the US, might there come a Third World War? What would the character of such a war be? And again, what would the consequences for the Filipino people be?
MV: The Party calls for establishing an international united front against US imperialist wars, war provocations and threats of war. The Party considers the revolutionary movements fighting wars for national liberation, including those in the Philippines, India, Turkey and other countries as the core of this united front. The alliance and solidarity of people’s movements waging anti-imperialist resistance form the broader core of this united front. This anti-imperialist united front can be further broadened to include states defending their countries’ sovereignty, including the DPRK, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and other countries across Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. They must take advantage of splits among the imperialists, not only between the US and its main imperialist rivals China and Russia, but also between the US and its imperialist allies in NATO.
PC: Could the US use the senatorial elections next year to push for further militarisation of the Philippines as part of its plan to counter and entrap China? How? What could its other means be, and what are its means at present?
MV: Overall, the Philippine Senate has been supportive of the Marcos regime’s foreign policy of subservience to the US. It has, so far, expressed no resistance to increasing US militarization of the Philippines, as well as the US push to bring in the military forces of Japan, South Korea, Australia and its NATO allies into the South China Sea.
PC: Besides militarily, what are the other ways in which US imperialism is deepening Philippine dependence on and subservience to the US?
MV: The US continues to use economic, political and cultural means to reinforce its dominance in the Philippines. There is a renewed push to expand the operations of US companies in the country, particularly in so-called green projects, to expand the market for US monopoly capitalists. An example would be the US push to promote “modular nuclear power,” as well as expansion of solar power farms that are financed by US banks. At the same time, the US is leading a psychological warfare campaign to fuel Sinophobia among Filipinos, a tactic aimed at manipulating public opinion in favor of the US.
PC: Relatedly, can the country still be called semifeudal? Is it still, as in the words of nationalist economist Alejandro Lichauco, a “raw-material economy”? A few facts to consider: (1) the service sector is now the biggest in the economy, continuing to prosper to the literal and quantitative detriment of agriculture and manufacturing, both in consistent decline; (2) the peasantry as a class is also in decline, falling from 75 to 80 percent of the population when Philippine Society and Revolution was written to a mere 50 to 60 to-day; and (3) the class in most conspicuous growth is neither the industrial proletariat nor the peasantry, but the service-based proletariat—those in call centres, malls, tourist destinations, and so on. It would seem to some that instead of raw materials, labour has become the principal export of the neocolony, especially given what is among the proportionally largest diasporic populations in the world (over 10 percent of all Filipinos are overseas). What is the Party’s analysis? If the Philippine is still semifeudal, how does it account for the decline of the peasantry and of agriculture? Does it agree that among the neocolonies, the Philippines occupies a unique position as primarily an exporter of labour rather than an exporter of natural resources? If so, how does it explain this?
MV: The mode of production in the Philippines remains semicolonial and semifeudal. The local economy remains non-industrial, agrarian and backward. Production is principally geared towards exports of agricultural products and other raw materials. There are no basic and strategic industries. The country is not on the path of capitalist development.
There are no basic and independent industries capable of producing both commodities for consumption of the local population, as well as capital goods necessary for expanding production. What the reactionaries boast of as “industrial production” in the Philippines are actually semiprocessing or assembly plants and do not constitute industrialization. These are largely concentrated in the labor enclaves and form part of the global assembly line (the so-called “global value chain”) of multinational corporations. For the most part, these are divorced from the rest of the economy.
There has been no genuine land reform and land remains in the hands of big landlords or big bourgeois compradors and its foreign capitalist partners. Agricultural production remains mostly manual and small-scale in the main crop lines of rice, corn, coconut, and backward even in rubber, pineapple, and oil palm plantations. The country remains an exporter of raw materials. The Philippines’ biggest exports are still fruits (bananas) and mineral ores, along with assembled electronic products, wiring, vehicle parts and other semiprocessed import-dependent semimanufacturers that are part of the international division of labor of multinational corporations. (Of course, in trade, we do not actually count labor as exports, in the same way that we count bananas, as “labor” is not a commodity produced by any industry.)
We must critically analyze the purported relative rise of the “service sector” and relative decline of manufacturing and agriculture. In a capitalist system, the service sector is generally a subsidiary to the production sector. The service sector includes transportation, distribution, logistics, sales, finance and other occupations that are auxiliary and derivative to the direct production of commodities and value. This capitalist dynamic is not evident in the Philippines, where the so-called “service sector” is largely a hodgepodge of informal occupations that the vast army of unemployed are forced to create in order to survive the country’s chronic economic crisis.
Philippine official statistics have given up efforts in previous decades to conjure the illusion of a growing industrial sector relative to agriculture, and are now trying to create the notion of an economy that is neither industrial nor agrarian. This is a vain attempt to put to question the Marxist analyst of the Philippine economy as semifeudal. There is statistical dishonesty and distortions, such as counting odd jobbers, domestic helpers, unpaid family workers and other elementary occupations as service workers to bloat the service sector. (Note here that BPO workers, who are also part of the functions of foreign mulitinational corporations, form only a small percentage, roughly 7%, of the “service workers.” Also, sales workers actually serve as distributors principally of imported goods, not locally produced commodities). These statistics are actually evidence of gross aberrations of the semicolonial and semifeudal system, and the continuing deterioration and destruction of productive forces. It indicates the large number of people economically displaced (rendered unproductive) who are counted as employed for merely eking out a living. The even larger mass of idled labor are the rural semiproletariat, who remain bound to the natural economy, and are usually uncounted.
PC: What do you think the endgame of US imperialism is in the Philippines given its current economic policy? A purely service-based economy? Call centres for ever and ever?
MV: With the protectionist thrust of the US since 2008, in an effort to revive local industrial production, US imperialism has been further pushing the Philippines to serve as a source of raw materials, particularly for mineral resources, and dumping ground for surplus commodities.
PC: Would you say that the national bourgeoisie is still a vital force and a necessary part of the Philippine revolution? Is it still possible for this class to achieve such gains as it did under President García, when the “Filipino First” policy stimulated industrialisation to a limited extent before being snuffed out by US imperialism? Or, as the world imperialist-capitalist system descends deeper into terminal decline, does this class become weaker and weaker, more and more peripheral?
MV: The national bourgeoisie suffer under the weight of imperialist domination, made more oppressive under the neoliberal policy regime of the past four decades. They survive and continue to assert in certain cracks and crevices of the economy that have not been reached by imperialist and big bourgeois comprador operations or which are viable only for middle or national bourgeois operations. These include small-scale food processing, retail trade in provincial town centers, manufacturing of local traditional commodities, e.g. including some household items, even as they contend with the weight of import liberalization. Indeed, with the deepening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system, the national bourgeoisie are more and more subsumed as peripherals of big bourgeois comprador operations, and are increasingly politically neutralized. However, a resurgence of the national democratic movement in the face of a sharpening downturn in the economic crisis will surely embolden the more Left section of the national bourgeoisie to lend their voice in the people’s demand for genuine national industrialization.
PC: Theoretically and practically speaking, how is the petty bourgeoisie defined in the local context? Philippine Society and Revolution (PSR) includes salaried professionals in this class, but shouldn’t they be considered proletarians on account of their being wage-earners?
MV: The PSR has sufficiently defined the petty bourgeoisie as the segment of the local bourgeoisie that “possesses the smallest amount of property” who are “mainly characterized by relative economic self-sufficiency accruing either from the ownership of a small amount of productive means or the possession of some special training or skills…” Salaried professionals, including office clerks, employees, technical workers, and others who have acquired special skills through education or training, belong to this class. They are exploited in that they do not get a fair share of the profits of their employers and are not paid enough to compensate for their cost of living, but not in the way that the industrial proletariat are exploited through capitalist extraction of surplus value. Although oppressed, the petty bourgeoisie enjoy a higher and more stable standard of living relative to the proletariat, which form the basis for their characteristic political vacillation. However, the economic gap between the working class and the petty bourgeoisie is rapidly closing due to wage suppression and high cost of living which pull down the relative social standing of the petty bourgeoisie, particularly its lower and middle strata. As a result, the petty bourgeoisie are becoming even more receptive to revolutionary ideas and calls to action.
PC: A common anti-Communist talking point is that the leadership of ostensibly proletarian movements is very often not proletarian at all. Mao, for instance, was educated (in a country where at most 10 percent of the population was literate) and worked for years as a teacher and a librarian. Prof. Joma came from a big-landlord family and found employment as a professor. Lenin actually noted this phenomenon, saying that without the intervention of revolutionary petty-bourgeois thinkers (like Marx), proletarian action cannot advance past trade-unionism. Why do you think this is? Is it true in the case of the Philippines? If so, how does the Party ensure that cadres uphold proletarian theory and practice despite their upper-class or nonproletarian origins?
MV: Indeed Lenin made the observation that revolutionary proletarian leaders will not spontaneously arise from workers’ economic struggles. This is generally true, although you can cite some examples of proletarian leaders such as Crisanto Evangelista who worked as a typesetter, Ho Chi Minh who worked as a baker and cook among other jobs he did as a immigrant in France, and others who are neither professional intellectuals or academics. They studied, embraced and imbibed the proletarian class ideology (Marxism) and applied it to their concrete social and historical conditions.
History has shown that in any revolution, revolutionary theory must first be drawn from previous experience, in order to draw up a program for revolutionary action that can be put forward for the masses to act upon. The correctness of the program is tested by the extent that it is embraced by the masses as their own. In the course of revolutionary action, intellectuals from the working class emerge and grow in number, joining the Party and undergoing training as cadres and leaders. To maintain fidelity to proletarian ideology, the Party must ensure that its cadres continuously engage in theoretical study through formal Marxist-Leninist-Maoist education and reading programs, as well by conducting social investigation and class analysis, assessments and summing-up of experiences. They must remain deeply rooted among the working class and uphold the militant determination of the oppressed and exploited. Proletarian revolutionaries must constantly remould themselves through criticism and self-criticism, knowing how they are daily bombarded by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideas. They must consciously wage a two-line struggle. The current rectification movement, in fact, is an effort to strengthen the ideological mettle of the Party’s cadres as they face great sacrifices and carry the historic tasks of the proletariat.
PC: For the benefit of our readers, please describe the rôles of the CPP, NPA, and NDFP in the context of the revolution and how they complement and relate to each other.
MV: The CPP is the party of the Filipino working class, guided by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the universal theory of the proletariat. It leads the people’s democratic revolution in the Philippines that aims to end US imperialist domination and the oppressive and exploitative class rule of the big bourgeois compradors and big landlords, and the moribund semicolonial and semifeudal system. It seeks to carry out a program of national industrialization and genuine land reform, as key components to free the country from the shackles of economic backwardness, and as preparation for socialist revolution and construction.
To achieve this, the CPP leads the New People’s Army to wage revolutionary armed struggle in the form of a protracted people’s war following the strategic line of encircling the cities from the countryside. The NPA is mainly a peasant army, which establishes base areas among the peasant masses by combining the armed struggle with the agrarian revolution. The Party also strengthens the NDFP as the most concentrated expression of the national united front of democratic, progressive and patriotic classes in the Philippines. The NDFP was established in 1973 on the initiative of the CPP, and now has at least 18 allied organizations representing various classes and sectors, which support or take part in the revolutionary armed struggle.
PC: It is often said that the revolutionary movement has a “mass base in the millions.” Can you give a more precise estimate? And, to begin with, what does a mass base entail—for both the individual considered a part of it and for the Party member, Red fighter, or organiser?
MV: The mass base of the revolutionary movement primarily consists of the mass organizations, and the people within the ambit of their influence and leadership. In rural areas, in particular, the mass base includes the population living within the stable areas of operation of the New People’s Army, and in the territories under the authority of the people’s democratic government. The mass base of the revolutionary movement currently runs to the millions but can also fluctuate owing to the fluidity of the people’s war.
PC: On the subject of logistics and administration, can you give us a practical view of how the people’s government and its organs function in the countryside? How does it mete out justice, collect taxes, marshal resources, and so on? Where do the CPP, NPA, and NDFP come in?
MV: Organs of the people’s democratic government (PDG) draw its authority from the mass base. The Barrio Revolutionary Committee or corresponding organs at the municipal or interbarrio level are elected in conferences, either at large or by representatives, depending on the military situation. It forms subcommittees on organization, education, economy, defense and health. It can also form other subcommittees for cultural work or for local arbitration and justice. It implements taxation policies based on the rules for establishing the PDG. They secure the committee and PDG, the local militia unit, an NPA formation, can be mobilized, as well as village self-defense units and self-defense corps of mass organizations. Guerrilla units of the NPA can also help secure the PDG. The PDG is a form of united front, and is established along the three-thirds (3/3) policy, with 1/3 representing the Party, 1/3 representing the basic classes, and 1/3 representing the middle forces in the village. The local Party branch or section exercises leadership over the PDG through the Party representative. The masses are encouraged to be concerned with the affairs of the PDG and supervise it through their mass organizations.
PC: November was a particularly devastating year for Filipinos on account of all the typhoons that hit, many of them record-breaking in terms of magnitude and other metrics. One killed over 100 people. What was the revolutionary forces’ response to the devastation?
MV: Wherever they are established, Party branches helped mobilize the masses to carry out an organized response to the disasters, to coordinate resources for emergency relief, and to fight for their rights to just compensation from the state. In areas with units of the NPA, Red fighters assist in rebuilding homes and restoring farm plots, to help alleviate the sufferings of the masses in times of disasters.
PC: What would a negotiated peace look like? What are the chances of such a peace now?
MV: The Hague Declaration of 1992 (co-signed by the NDFP and GRP) outlines what a negotiated peace can look like. It outlines the overall agenda and sequence of the talks: human rights and international humanitarian law, socioeconomic reforms, political and constitutional reforms and disposition of forces. The idea is that each substantive item is negotiated, signed and implemented in sequence, where each successful stage proves each other’s commitment to resolving the roots of the armed conflict, thus creating conditions for the next stage, until the final agreement
Since the period of Duterte, the GRP has been pushing to change the framework of the talks to collapse all parts of the peace negotiations to one “Final Agreement” along the notion of “demobilization, disarmament and reintegration” which pushes first for the surrender of the revolutionary forces before any reform is carried out.
PC: In our last interview, you said that a revolutionary cannot help but be an optimist. With all the reversals of the past few years and all the suffering that is certain to come, do you still stand by that?
MV: Revolutionaries are eternal optimists, even in the face of adversity and difficulties. Their optimism is grounded from a firm conviction that to break the chains of oppression, the exploited classes of workers and other toiling people have no other option but to rise in revolution. Revolutionaries are eternal optimists because they have a firm grasp of the basic class contradictions of the moribund semicolonial and semifeudal system in the Philippines, and know that these need to be resolved in order to unleash the forces of progress. Revolutionaries are optimists because they are selfless. They are willing to give everything for the revolution, knowing that even if they could not personally witness ultimate victory, all their sacrifices will bear the fruit of a socialist future to be reaped and cherished by a liberated people.
Revolutionary optimism stems from a dialectical understanding of the world, recognizing that all things are in a constant state of flux and transformation. At each stage of the struggle, a revolutionary employs critical thinking to analyze and take stock of the situation and identify the key tasks to advance the revolution. We are optimistic that the current rectification movement will propel the Party and revolutionary movement forward in the next year and coming years.