The country’s legitimate armed force, the Philippine Army, had long dismantled the so-called political apparatuses of the Communist terrorists in the countryside, the so-called guerrilla fronts that were romanticized by the dead (thankfully) Jose Ma. Sison as administrative zones of the underground movement.
While Sison defined the guerrilla zones or larangan gerilya in Party literature as covering five to seven towns or cities that are the equivalent of a political districts of the Philippine government, these are actually nothing more than spheres of terror – the equivalent of a Mafia family’s territory or a street gang’s sona where the Oxo or Sigue Sigue gang, for example, could conduct gangster activities.
I used to defend the ‘sovereignty’ of these guerrilla zones as a young Communist operatives who led urban propaganda for CPP fronts, particularly Bayan that I used to project as actually the NPA or the New Patriotic Alliance in the city.
I have, however, realized only now that projecting the guerrilla front as proof of power of the so-called revolutionary underground is only in furthermore of the status of belligerency it had been claiming since the 1980s after EDSA People Power 1 that almost led to the death of the CPP.
The projection of a belligerent status gives the CPP a moral stature in the community of nations. This gives it more credibility in seeking funds or material support from foreigners and Filipinos abroad in the guise of “developing communities” or helping poor people in the countryside largely ignored by the “reactionary government.”
Now, as the war against these terrorists shift to the urban centers, it has become more urgent for the citizenry to engage the terrorists in mental combat.
While the Army had done its share of shattering the blunt instruments of terror with the dismantling of seven guerrilla fronts and the regional leadership in Negros island, the fight has ventured into a territory that even the Army cannot enter: our hearts and minds.
The Army’s civil military operations can only provide persuasion, an external force that is not decisive in the overall conduct of battle for in the end only the individual is sovereign.
Only the individual can choose whether to let the terrorist win in his mind and give in to the delusions being peddled mostly by juveniles who cannot even make their own bed or have to choose daily if they are a man, woman or beast
This war in our minds and hearts is what underpins the dictum: winning hearts and minds but it is not a battle for the Army or government to fight.
It is only mine to fight.
Or yours.
The fight requires mental diligence, most of all.
It requires mental clarity, a steady heart and tons of mental courage.
For the enemy is a malevolent force, like the demons in the The Exorcist tormenting Fr. Karras, that will use guilt and shame to bend us to their will.
The Communist terrorist thought is practically a virus. It is a foreign qthogen from Russia and China that germinated in Pampanga and made Negros it’s laboratory.
More than half a century later, it has become a full blown terror group that kills the poor indiscriminately, extorts from them to make their privileged leaders live in comfort and wants to replace our democracy, however defective it is, with their vision of a free society even if it were to be ruled by a dictatorship of the proletariat.
The ugly truth is, the Communists only pretend to fight for the so-called weak and marginalized.
In fact, our secretary in the Regional Iran-White Area Committee once told us during our meeting that 70 to 90 percent of members of Party branches come from the petty bourgeoisie class and only a small percentage are actually peasants or workers.
In short, the entire national democratic revolution disguised as an uprising of the poor is but a power grab by the petty bourgeoisie and the elite out of power who cannot win n election.
As it is, these city dwellers who make it appear that their revolution is meek, peaceful and pro people are not concerned with the slaughter of civilians in the countryside.
Either they are too glued to their social media feeds, oblivious to the events of the real world or are simply parotting the lines given to them by their Communist lords as they happily sip on their frozen lattes in some novelty coffeeshops in the city.
I have been a reporter long enough and was a Communist long enough to have seen the breadth and depth of the land I was born in and continue to live in and to finally understand that while miserable and desperate poverty is true, it is a lie that armed revolution is the solution.
I have seen more, I would suppose, of the hardships in Negros more than any of the terrorist propagandist in Cebu or even by any of their so-called honorable legislators funneling public funds to terrorism.
In the end, to struggle is not entirely bad but we should do so with the goal of finding true peace and progress for people, especially those in the countryside.
That struggle, however must not be endless and pointless, bloody and violent such as what the Communist terrorists espouse, meant only to achieve their selfish ends.
Clarity is needed. That is what Rodrigo Duterte’s EO70 gave to the nation. That is what he showed to the nation as president.
The ultimate truth that we must hold on to is that Communist terrorism is bad. Democracy is good.
