11-15-07, 9:28 am

On November 7, 2007, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930) celebrated the 77th anniversary of the public proclamation of its founding and the 90th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution with a motorcade and public assembly in the province of Bulacan (just north of metropolitan Manila). The celebration began in the early morning with a motorcade of 35 vehicles and 20 motorcycles that started out from the provincial capital in Malolos. From there, it wound through four other municipalities, distributing a new party leaflet for the occasion entitled 'Continued Struggle: The Answer to Growing Poverty.' The motorcade then proceeded to the municipal gymnasium in the town of Bustos where a meeting was held with around 500 party members and friends in attendance (predominantly from the central Luzon region).
The meeting started with a minute of silence in honor of the thousands of Party members who have been martyred in the struggle against US colonialism, Japanese militarism, and US neo-colonialism. The participants were then welcomed by the mayor of Bustos, Carlito Reyes, who paid tribute to the Party's continuing struggle for national sovereignty and social justice. Following Mayor Reyes, Comrade Juanito Pascual, the Acting First Secretary of the Bulacan Provincial Party Committee, welcomed the participants on behalf of the host party committee. Comrade Pascual stressed the significance of the occasion, calling it an important manifestation of the continued struggle for national democracy and socialism by the PKP-1930, and of PKP-1930's firm loyalty to the principles of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Cuban Ambassador Jorge Rey Jimenez then addressed the meeting, paying tribute to the inspiration that the Great October Socialist Revolution has given to the cause of socialism. He also spoke about the ongoing struggle of socialist Cuba against the criminal US blockade and the fight for the release of the five anti-terrorist Cuban heroes who are incarcerated in US jails. Ambassador Reyes also read a fraternal message of solidarity from the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba to PKP-1930. Charge d'Affaires Manuel Perez Iturbe of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela next addressed the meeting, again paying tribute to the Great October Socialist Revolution, and focusing on the firm resistance to US imperialism shown by the Venezuelan people. He also spoke about the efforts of the government of President Hugo Chavez to strengthen Latin American integration through the Bolivarian Alternative (ALBA), as well as the efforts to achieve socialism in Venezuela and throughout the region. In his speech, PKP-1930 General Secretary Pedro P. Baguisa gave an account of the Party's founding and public proclamation, events which were inspired by the Great October Socialist Revolution. He gave a brief exposition about the great significance of the October Revolution, which blazed a trail for humanity's transition to a new epoch of socialism. Socialist construction in the USSR, the essential contribution of the USSR to defeating fascism during World War II, the great achievements of the socialist community until the 1980s, and the important internationalist assistance that the socialist community gave to national-liberation movements around the world, are all, he said, indelible landmarks in world history and are themselves the products of the Great October Socialist Revolution. Comrade Baguisa stressed that the transition to socialism begun by the Great October Socialist Revolution provides the main compass for the world to this day. It is, he said, a transition that is unstoppable, because working people everywhere have an innate need to put an end to the international imperialist system, a system which brings war and military occupation, subjects entire regions of the globe to exploitation, and squanders precious resources on the achievement of military power and the production of weapons of mass destruction. It is a system which exhibits gross disregard for the earth’s environment and causes wholesale human suffering. The transition to socialism is imperative, he stressed, in order for the people of the developing world to break the chains of neo-colonialism which keep them in that debt peonage and political subjugation which is primarily responsible for the world’s growing poverty and hunger.

Although the socialist cause suffered setbacks in the homeland of the October Revolution and Eastern Europe (primarily due to internal subversion carried out by the special agents of imperialism, who wormed their way into positions of leadership in the former ruling parties), these setbacks are only temporary. Despite the changed global balance of forces between the socialist and imperialist camps, international progressive developments remain propelled by three main currents: the struggle for peace and progress in the socialist countries, working-class struggles in the developed capitalist countries, and national-democratic struggles in the neo-colonial countries. Everywhere the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution 90 years ago remains an inspiration, as the people of all countries demand an end to imperialism and the reign of modern-day global czars. Turning to the Philippine situation, Comrade Baguisa said that the worsening crisis in the everyday life of the Filipino masses is directly rooted in the neo-colonial system – which opens the country’s natural resources to imperialist plunder and degradation; which protects monopoly control by the transnational corporations over the major commodity needs of the Filipino people; which prevents our country from industrializing and providing sufficient employment for its people; and which forces Filipinos to seek work abroad, despite all the personal humiliation and social costs involved, so that their remittances can help keep the country afloat. It is US imperialism, Comrade Baguisa said, which has propped up successive regimes in the Philippines, whose uniform hallmarks have been a puppet-like response in the face of US dictates, human rights violations, graft and illegal practices such as granting 'sovereign guarantees' for debts incurred by big-time Filipino carpetbaggers who serve the interests of American imperialism – debts which ultimately are added to the foreign debts that the Filipino people are forced to pay in the form of higher taxes). He also stressed that it is US imperialism which continues to prop up the present Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime, despite the widespread opposition of the people to her continued rule because of widespread electoral fraud, the militarization of the country, the growth of bureaucracy, and the gross corruption – exemplified by bribes from gambling and smuggling lords, commissions from big-time foreign contractors, etc., etc. – which have irreversibly stained her regime. The hike in the price of petroleum products, which in turn increases the cost of all basic commodities, coupled with a ballooning foreign debt that further burdens the masses through regressive taxes (more and more Filipinos today consider themselves poor, some 50% of all families, according to the latest surveys), has now kindled more widespread opposition to the continued rule of the hopelessly corrupt and illegitimate Arroyo regime. Thus, there is a now a broader groundwork being laid for mass unity in the current anti-poverty struggle. Comrade Baguisa concluded by stating that the PKP-1930 will do all it can to sharpen this struggle into a more organized campaign against the neo-colonial system – and into a more conscious struggle for national democracy and socialism.