http://www.alternet.org/story/153695/revolutionary_jose_maria_sison_on_us_imperialism_and_a_way_forward_for_the_philippines
at alternet fletch interviews comrade sison:
"....conditions have become more fertile for people's war in the Philippines....."
"The prices of the raw materials and semi-manufactures produced for export by the Philippines are depressed"
"foreign loans to cover the trade deficits and debt service are becoming more onerous"
".. demand for overseas contract workers... (**** ) .... remittances are decreasing"
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status of the armed struggle ?
"...the Aquino regime ....is implementing the US-designed Oplan Bayanihan, which is the same dog as Arroyo's Oplan Bantay Laya but which tries to be different by dressing up brutal military operations as peace and development operations and maintaining human rights desks in the reactionary army and national police for the purpose of shifting the blame for human rights violations to the revolutionaries."
"... the New People's Army ... is carrying out a five-year plan to advance from the strategic defensive to strategic stalemate in the people's war,increasing the number of guerrilla fronts from 120 to 180."
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parallel negotiations between the Aquino government and the NDFP :
"the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) are supposed to engage in peace negotiations in order to address the roots of the armed conflict by forging agreements on social, economic and political reforms........The biggest obstacle to the peace negotiations is US political and military intervention.."
"..the Aquino regime drew up Oplan Bayanihan under US Counterinsurgency Guidlines... peace negotiations are a mere psy-war device for outwitting, isolating and destroying the revolutionary movement. ..... peace negotiations are only a means to enhance the triad of psy-war, intelligence-gathering and combat operations...... I am not optimistic that negotiations can result in a settlement...the .government is not seriously interested in peace negotiations "
" , the Aquino regime ....has shown no inclination to assert national independence and undo unequal treaties, agreements and arrangements that keep the Philippines semi-colonial. It also has shown no inclination to realize democracy through significant representation of workers and peasants in government and through land reform and national industrialization."
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Mindanao
"The NDFP supports the Moro people's struggle for self-determination, including the right to secede from an oppressive state or opt for regional autonomy in a non-oppressive political system. "
"The Moro people ... are not free in their own homeland and are victims of Christian chauvinism and discrimination. They have been deprived of their ancestral domain. They have been robbed of agricultural land as well as forest, mineral and marine resources.....
The Moro people have all the right to fight for national and social liberation."
" The NDFP has therefore found common ground for alliance ...with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ..The US government and the US media exaggerate the threat of Muslim fundamentalist terrorism because they wish to promote the entry of US corporations for the purpose of plundering the rich natural resources of Mindanao, especially oil, gold and deuterium. They also wish to justify the current stationing of US military forces and eventually the basing of larger US military forces for the purpose of strategic control over Islamic countries in Southeast Asia and strategic countervailing of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Northeast Asia....
the US Manila governments depict the Abu Sayyaf as a Muslim fundamentalist group and as an extension of the Al Qaeda,."
".Moro land is a second front in the so-called global war on terror."
however:
" There are indications that the US and Philippine governments continue to arm and finance the Abu Sayyaf in order to block the advance of the MILF in Sulu and to provide the pretext for US military intervention in the Philippines."
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US policies towards the Philippines under President Obama
" ..From the Bush II to the Obama regime, there has been no change in US policy towards the Philippines."
" Obama continues the policy of .. manipulating the puppet regime and its military forces, preventing land reform and national industrialization, controlling the fundamentals and direction of the Philippine cultural and educational system ...and maintaining a permanent relay of US military forces.
" Obama is a good servant of US imperialism. He used his glibness to make himself look better than the brazenly brutal Bush. But he is using the same glibness to cover many acts as bad as or even worse than those that made Bush infamous."
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sison's web site:
http://www.josemariasison.org/
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(****)
"The scarcity of employment opportunities in the Philippines has compelled nearly 10 per cent of the population to seek employment abroad as overseas contract workers and undocumented workers ..."
