The NDFP-Mindanao joins the Filipino nation in celebrating the hard work, courage and determination of oppressed and exploited women in the country and the world over on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

We remember the revolutionary zeal of Russian proletarian women who on February 27 (March 8), after having been organized by the Bolsheviks, banded together to support the general strikes and armed uprising that sparked the beginning of the 1917 February revolt, which, later on, evolved into the great October revolution, which paved the way for Russia’s socialist future.

These courageous women committed themselves wholeheartedly to the revolutionary armed uprising to help win for the Russian people their emancipation from decades of oppression and exploitation by the Czar and other ruling classes in Russia as well as from the colonization of other imperialist countries.

Today, similarly, we honor the brave women of the Philippine revolution whose lives are dedicated to the advancement of the people’s war, which will win for the Filipino people their emancipation from the oppression and exploitation of the ruling classes of landlords, big comprador bourgeoisie and US imperialism.

We give praise to women Party cadres, women Red commanders and fighters of the New People’s Army and other women revolutionary mass leaders who have devoted their time, strength and intellect in arousing, organizing and mobilizing the masses of peasants and workers for the victory of the national-democratic revolution, which is the nation’s stepping stone towards its socialist future.

In all of 50 years since the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the exemplary dedication of these women revolutionary leaders have helped steer the movement along the right path during the First and Second Great Rectification Movements, and in every subsequent challenge and twist & turn the revolutionary movement has had to confront and resolve.

Women mass leaders who hail from the peasantry have braved every challenge in waging agrarian revolution, as well as those from the working class, who for their part, have helped strengthen the militant workers’ movement in the country.

Indeed, marks of the true liberation of women can be seen and experienced from inside the revolutionary movement, where women possess the freedom to fully participate in political discussions and decision-making as they are recognized, and are respected as leaders, political guides, educators, fighters, and stand as inspiration to the people. Thus, women’s struggle must be inextricably linked with the national democratic revolution.

Thus, the AFP’s claim that women in the revolutionary movement are “maltreated” is purely fake and poison news, propagated by the fascist US-Duterte regime and the AFP/PNP to cover up their own sheer anti-women character. Duterte himself has on several occasions spoke about “raping women” in his speeches either as a “joke” or a stern warning to women all over. He also finds it amusing to shoot captured women Red fighters in the genitals. He has also mentioned that he will grant free trips abroad to so-called “surrenderees” especially the “women surrendrees.”

These quips, whether uttered as a matter-of-fact or as a whimsical form of sarcasm, can only be adjudged as incorrigibly anti-women, which is to say the least of Duterte’s depraved and demented choice catchphrases. And since these are words that come out from the mouth of a head of state, these become policy statements that give license to his fascist minions – the AFP, PNP, CAFGU and other paramilitary forces – to abuse women, especially those whom they construe as “enemies of the state,” who is practically anyone whom they so fancy.

Duterte’s Oplan Kapayapaan is intrinsically anti-women, where hundreds of women, including girls, have become victims of rape and other forms of abuse, especially in their military operations in the hinterlands of Mindanao. Peasant women have become victims of extrajudicial killings.

In the US-Duterte regime’s ongoing crackdown against legitimate progressive organizations, women leaders and members have fallen victims to political killings, illegal arrests, torture, psywar tactics and have been levelled with trumped-up charges. The PNP’s brutal anti-drug campaign Oplan Tokhang or Double Barrel has been used to illegally arrest women activists along with others, who are victimized by police depravity and brutality.

In like manner, economic policies, such as the TRAIN Law, inflict more hardship to the people, especially to women, by way of increases in the prices of the most basic of commodities and whatever social services left given by the reactionary state. The reactionary state’s policy of exporting its people to other countries continues to be in place, even as overseas workers like Joanna Demafeliz are getting murdered and others continue to face unspeakable forms of suffering.

The Duterte regime seethes with hypocrisy as it offered its sympathy with the Demafeliz family but negates the implementation of national industrialization, which will provide meaningful jobs to its own people. Duterte plucked out the Filipino workers from Kuwait only to throw them to China.

Thus, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, we call upon all struggling women of the country to unite and link the women’s struggle with the national democratic revolution. Unite with the Filipino people to oust the inveterately anti-woman, anti-people US-Duterte regime.#

Ka Joaquin Jacinto, Spokesperson

NDFP Mindanao

8 March 2018