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In the past few months, consultations and activities under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC were launched one after another in several municipalities and barangays in Mt. Province.

Within the said consultations where “people’s issues were tackled” and task forces were formed, there were also medical and dental missions, workshops and seminars, and promises of delivery of services in ELCAC areas, or those said to be “strongly influenced” by the CPP and NPA.

OLD TUNES. There is nothing new with ELCAC – just another one of the many repressive and deceptive tactics of tje reactionary State and its armed force to cow the people’s struggle into submission.

No matter how they try to make it seem new, legitimate, and humane (“Enhancing Local Community to Accelerate Change”), we cannot treat as separate ELCAC from Duterte’s bloody all-out war.

FASCIST CAMPAIGN. While ELCAC was unleashing its claws in Mt. Province, the AFP-PNP launched large-scale combat operations in the province and neighboring localities.

The State on one hand is pouring projects and services; on the other, its armed force is complicit in widespread intelligence operations, psychological warfare, harassment, abuse, and human rights violations.

Example is the PNP SAF’s shooting of Jether Mangallay, a native of Ambagiw, Besao, last November after a series of firefights between the AFP-PNP and NPA.

From September to December, the AFP-PNP’s disinformation, encampment inside the ili, drone and recon plane operations, indiscriminate firing and bombing has sown widespread fear among and caused disturbance to the livelihood of the people.

In addition, the AFP-PNP’s Community Support Program Team or CSPT are currently encamped in various communities in Sagada, an outright violation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law or CARHRIHL.

More than ever, AFP-PNP troops are shoving into surrender those they deem NPA supporters or sympathizers – just so they could rip money off the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program or E-CLIP.

As the AFP-PNP’s fascist tactics are intensified, the counterinsurgency campaign’s true colors come to the fore.

OPPRESSION. ELCAC will fail to end the armed conflict in Mt. Province, in Cordillera, or anywhere else in the Philippines because the oppression of the people remains.

In truth, the struggle of the people of Mt. Province will only grow stronger due to the deception and repression of ELCAC and the giant, destructive projects in energy and mining that it represents.

ELCAC paves the way for the swift and smooth entry and operation of the BREDCO hydropower project in Besao; the HEDCOR hydropower plant in Bauko and Sabangan; the Chico River Pump Irrigation Project; the APEC/Chevron geothermal power plant; and CEXCI.

ELCAC only aggravates the national oppression of the Kaigorotan. The State has long ignored and even violated the Cordillera people’s right to ancestral domain and to self-determination. No amount of riches from these companies can compensate for their plundering of the Kaigorotan’s ancestral lands and resources.

No amount of medical and dental missions, seminars and workshops can make up for the widespread and long-term dangers and damages caused by the said projects – all while the basic needs like genuine land reform and national industry are neglected.

PEOPLE’S WAR. The ELCAC cannot mask the rotting face of the regime it represents, the reactionary State, and the ruling classes of landlords and bourgeois compradors.

Whatever oplan or task force the State aims to launch, there can be no genuine change in the lives of farmers, national minorities, and toiling masses until the roots of poverty – imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat-capitalism – are resolved.

If Duterte and agents of the reactionary State truly desire to “end the armed conflict”, they should heed the people’s call – for basic needs and social services; for the self-determination of the Kaigorotan and other national minorities; for peace based on justice.

Until then, if they stay blind and deaf to our true situation, if they show no sincerity to propel the peace negotiations with NDFP, if they keep answering our just struggle with tyranny – the oppressed masses have no other choice but to forward until victory the people’s war that the CPP has effectively led for 51 years.

Expose and frustrate the repressive NTF-ELCAC!

Overthrow the fascist US-Duterte regime!

Advance the people’s democratic revolution with a socialist perspective!

Fetad inggana as balligi!