Celebrate Ka Fidel’s lifetime struggle for freedom, democracy and peace
Dear Compatriots and Friends,
I wish to express warmest greetings of solidarity to the Pilgrims for Peace, BAYAN, ACT for Peace, Migrante International and other organizations and people celebrating the 78th birthday of the late Fidel V. Agcaoili in order honor him for his lifetime of struggle for freedom, democracy and peace. He was an outstanding model for his generation and remains so for subsequent generations as a revolutionary fighter for national liberation, people’s democracy and a just peace.
I am proud to have been a close comrade of Ka Fidel since the early 1960s when he joined the Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines, the Kabataang Makabayan and the Communist Party of the Philippines. We developed together ideologically, politically and organizationally for the purpose of realizing the new democratic revolution under the leadership of the proletariat in the era of modern imperialism and the world proletarian revolution.
As in my tribute to him at his funeral in 2020, I affirm that Ka Fidel is a great Filipino patriot and outstanding communist fighter who made highly significant contributions to the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation. We must honor and perpetuate his memory in order to inspire the people to struggle for full national independence and real democracy against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists.
Let us learn lessons from the record of Ka Fidel as a revolutionary leader. He upheld revolutionary principles and excelled at carrying out missions and tasks for advancing the armed revolution and likewise in promoting the people’s demands in peace negotiations between the GRP and NDFP. The range of his achievements show that the enemy is willing to talk peace only if the revolutionary movement is strong enough to compel him to negotiate and as the revolutionary forces may agree to negotiate in order to address the root causes of the civil war.
The Filipino people can surely achieve a just peace by defeating the forces of oppression and exploitation and win total victory in the people’s democratic proletarian. However, peace negotiations with the reactionary state can be undertaken in order to discuss and agree on the basic social, economic and political reforms needed to satisfy the people’s demands and end the armed conflict.
But we must also consider seriously that the exploitative and oppressive character of the ruling system continues to worsen and prevent peace negotiations. The tyrant Duterte unilaterally trashed all the joint agreements of the GRP and NDFP since 1992 and wants the Marcos II regime to carry out an all-out war against the people and the revolutionary movement. In the current situation, the worst of political dynasties are in power in the Philippines.
Chief of these dynasties are those of the Marcoses and Dutertes. Combined with them are the dynasties of the Arroyos, Estradas, Enrile and others. Through automated electoral cheating , the outgoing president Duterte has installed as president the junior of the late fascist dictator Marcos and wants him to continue the all-out war against the people and the revolutionary movement and prevent peace negotiations by tagging all revolutionary forces and their allies as “communist terrorists” under the so-called Anti-Terror Law and other instruments of state terrorism.
There is therefore no choice for the people and their revolutionary movement as well as the legal patriotic and democratic forces but to wage resolute and militant mass struggles against the ultra-reactionary brutal and corrupt Marcos-Duterte rule. After all, the crisis conditions of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system and the world capitalist system are in the extreme and are exceedingly favorable to the people’s democratic revolution.
Let us remember that when the Marcos I regime shunned peace negotiations from 1969 to 1986, this became a period for the revolutionary movement and people’s army to grow from small and weak to big and strong enough to become a major factor for the overthrow of the Marcos fascist dictatorship in 1986. Marcos Junior will have an ignominious end like his father if he follows the path of treason, fascism, mass murders and unbridled corruption.
Long live the memory of Ka Fidel V. Agcaoili!
Fight for the complete victory of the Philippine revolution!
Long live the Filipino people!