The leadership and entire membership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and all revolutionary forces applaud the Red fighters of the New People’s Army (NPA) for the victorious ambush yesterday morning against the fascist troops of the 85th IB in Barangay Mapulot, Tagkawayan, Quezon.
The NPA-Quezon (Apolonio Mendoza Command) reported having seized five high powered rifles (HPRs) from the ambush. These weapons are much needed to arm new recruits of the NPA and further strengthen the people’s armed resistance against the campaign of state terrorism in Quezon, as well as across the country.
At least five state terrorist troops were killed in action, while four others were wounded and ran away from battle.
The successful ambush in Quezon, following the recent tactical offensives in Negros and Masbate, clearly demonstrates the robust armed resistance being waged by the NPA against all-out state terrorism under the US-Marcos fascist regime. It inspires more young people, especially among the peasant masses, to join the NPA in order to fight back and defend their land and their lives.
The successful NPA ambush in Quezon elicits cheers from the peasants and broad masses of the Filipino people. It is a form of justice for the thousands of victims of extrajudicial killings, torture, military hamlets, endless harassments, aerial bombing and other forms of state terrorism perpetrated by the AFP.
Despite having just been outwitted by the NPA, the AFP insists on having intelligence information that the ambush was carried out by an NPA unit from the Bicol region, and not from Quezon, in a desperate attempt to buttress their much hyped claim that Quezon is already “insurgency-free.”
Indeed, the ambush in Quezon is a major slap on the face of the AFP and the National Task Force (NTF)-Elcac. It proves that the peasant masses and people in Quezon, as in the rest of the country, are ever determined to wage armed resistance against the AFP’s campaign of state terrorism under the US-Marcos regime.
The Quezon ambush, as well as recent tactical offensives of the NPA in Negros and Masbate, clearly proves by action how empty the recent proclamations of the AFP and Marcos regime that Quezon and other provinces are “insurgency-free.” All these declarations will be proven false sooner or later.
After the NPA ambush in Quezon, the statement yesterday by General Eduardo Año, Marcos National Security Adviser, that the “insurgency will end under the Marcos government” rings hollow. It is a mere repetition of baseless pronouncements made by the AFP over the past two or three decades.
The CPP calls on the NPA across the country to continue waging armed resistance with even greater vigor and determination. All units of the NPA must strengthen their ties with the peasant masses and and carry out big and small tactical offensives against the enemy and take away the weapons of the agents of state terrorism.
In the face of the US-Marcos regime’s all-out campaign of state terrorism that accompanies widespread rural dislocation, land dispossession and economic aggression by mining companies, plantations, “renewable energy” and other destructive infrastructure projects, waging armed resistance becomes even more urgent and just.
In the face of massacres and rampant violations of human rights by the US-Marcos regime, the people have no other recourse but to join the NPA, resist their oppressors and exploiters, defend their rights and fight for their aspirations of social and national liberation.