Its consistent pronouncements regarding its main methods of achieving deep social changes excluded participating in what it calls as “reactionary elections.”

By MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Like in past elections, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) reiterated in an emailed message to the media that it does not participate in the elections of the Government of the Republic of the Philippine (GRP) nor does it endorse or support any of the presidential candidates.

The Communist Party has been leading an armed “national democratic revolution” for nearly half a century now in the Philippines. Its consistent pronouncements regarding its main methods of achieving deep social changes excluded participating in what it calls as “reactionary elections.” Its annual statements report instead on its own revolutionary base building in countrysides, with its own government and “organs of power.”

The CPP reacted to statements yesterday by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago that presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is the “official candidate” of the New People’s Army (NPA). “Contrary to Senator Santiago’s claims yesterday, Mayor Duterte is not being endorsed nor supported by the Party or NPA,” said the CPP.

The CPP also dismissed as “pure lies” the reports by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that NPA members in Samar are campaigning for Duterte.

The communist rebels acknowledged that “Mayor Duterte has espoused certain advocacies that strike a chord among the Filipino people and their national democratic forces, including calling for peace negotiations to address the roots of the armed conflict.” But it noted at the same time that “Duterte has also advocated counter-progressive neoliberal economic policies as expanding the public-private partnership program, prohibiting unions and strikes, providing big bourgeois compradors with state-guaranteed profits, liberalizing trade and providing foreign investors with even more incentives.”