PHOTO ESSAY
Celebrating the Cause

Red fighters certainly know how to make merry, as the guerrillas of the NPA-Northeastern Mindanao showed Dec. 26 during the 36^th anniversary celebration of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). But in this case the play was part of the fight.

PHOTOS BY BARRY OHAYLAN

TEXT AND CAPTIONS BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO

Bulatlat

Who says the New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas are all fight and no play? Last Dec. 26, fighters of the NPA-Northeastern Mindanao celebrated the 36^th anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in a remote mountain somewhere in Agusan del Sur.

The NPA-Northeastern Mindanao Command also celebrated the victories of the CPP-led revolutionary movement in what Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos, spokesperson of the National Democratic Front (NDF)-Mindanao called a “struggle of the people to attain genuine democracy.”

Ka Oris talked about the NPA’s confiscation of high-powered rifles from 1998 to 2001, including the raid of the Picop armory which gave them 97 firearms. The underground revolutionary movement also supported the increase in workers’ wages and hemp prices in its area of jurisdiction, among others.

These were achieved, NDF leader said, through their unity with the “revolutionary masses.”

In the celebration, the NPA fighters shared light-hearted moments with the masses who came to witness and participate in the event.

Even as they celebrated these victories, the guerrillas also remembered the injustices committed by the state and the ruling elite against workers and peasants – to stress that the fight goes on, 36 years after the birth of the CPP. Bulatlat

Bearers of CPP, NPA, and NDF flags lead parade

Red fighters depict offensive in skit

Lumad NPA guerrilla tends a child

Gun and bullets at rest amid hats with stickers proclaiming CPP anniversary 

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