Fulfill and carry forward the tasks of the second propaganda movement
to advance the National Democratic Revolution!
Jorge "Ka Oris" Madlos
National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Mindanao
November 30, 2010
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines - Mindanao salutes all the members as well as the heroes and martyrs of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) on the occasion of its 46th founding anniversary.
Andres Bonifacio, one of the great revolutionary leaders whose 101st birth date was chosen to be the founding date of KM, must have been proud to see the sons and daughters of the revolution today carrying onward with fervent and vigor the aspirations of the Filipino people to be free from the clutches of oppression and exploitation by foreign power and its local agents.
True to its goals and ideals, the KM, has performed and has continued to do so its historic role of being the vanguard organization of the Filipino youth. Since its founding in 1964, the patriotic Kabataang Makabayan took on their significant task of carrying forward the national-democratic propaganda movement to stimulate the positive revolutionary potential of their fellow youth and students, and, more importantly, to help in rousing the revolutionary might of the masses of workers and peasants.
Amid sharpening social contradiction, the swelling youth protest movement, then led by KM among others, sparked the historical wave of the First Quarter Storm that shook the reactionary puppet regimes of Macapagal and, remarkably, of Marcos. The quickening pace of a political upheaval combined with an ideological ferment that was imbued with Marxism, Leninism and Mao thought among the youth produced some of the brightest young minds of our generation who offered themselves to become professional revolutionaries who, as cadres and mass activists, immersed with the struggle of the basic masses, and contributed significantly to the nationalist-democratic liberation movement.
When declared illegal in 1972 under Marcos's military rule, the KM went underground, many of whom immersed among the masses of the workers and peasants. Many of them also became leading cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) who aroused, organized and mobilized the basic masses; and became cadres and Red fighters of the New People's Army (NPA). The patriotism of the KM has inspired the youth from the intelligentsia to remold themselves in the service of the Filipino people and course the revolutionary armed struggle towards national liberation and democracy.
The role of the KM is now more than ever relevant to the current situation of the Filipino youth and the whole nation, because we are beset with the same three basic problems of the society: US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, which have all turned even more malevolent in exploiting and oppressing the toiling masses. As was its task to expose and oppose the pro-imperialist and fascist character of the dictator Marcos as well as that of the reactionary regimes of Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo, it is the KM's challenge currently to unmask the duplicity of the US-Aquino regime.
Past regimes have trampled on the youth's basic right to access quality education. This is even made worse under the new US-Aquino regime because the budget for state colleges and universities has been reduced, and tie-ups with private firms, pushed. In Mindanao, this means affecting the more or less 30 state colleges and universities, increasing the number of school drop-outs, imposing more burden on their parents, and pushing the youth towards further exploitation.
In cities, the youth and their families continue to wallow in poverty, poor health system and the utter lack of other basic social services, and are pushed to anti-social activities. In the countryside, the youth and children of peasant families continue to be exploited by big landlords and multinational companies, depriving them of their own land to till and preventing them from making ends meet. To safeguard landlord and capitalist interests, their communities are also subjected to massive militarization, which always inflict grave human rights abuses, snuffing out their chances at education, and for an assured future.
Under these worsening economic crises and hapless state of the youth, the KM is reminded of its goal to rouse the broader number of youth in order to assist in advancing the revolutionary aspirations of the masses of peasants and workers. The youth is a significant force for revolutionary social change as they are open to revolutionary ideas, and are energetic; they possess the time and ability to scrutinize our social ills, and, if aroused, can be a significant moving force alongside the peasants and workers.
Thus, instead of allowing the massive potentials of the youth to be denigrated under the exploitative charge of US imperialism and the local ruling class of big landlords and big comprador bourgeois, their talent and abilities must be utilized to advance the just cause of the revolution. After all, real education that is oriented towards liberating the masses from exploitation and oppression can be obtained only through revolutionary struggle, and not within the stifling walls of bourgeois universities and institutions
To celebrate the founding anniversary of KM, therefore, means to reaffirm its tasks in carrying out vigorously the nationalist and democratic propaganda movement, and to bond themselves with the worker and peasant masses to help advance and attain victory for the people's democratic revolution, steadily envisioning the march towards socialism.
And as we strive to fulfill the requirements of the strategic stalemate phase of the people's protracted war, the Kabataang Makabayan, as the vanguard of the revolutionary youth movement in the country, is ever more challenged to rally tens of thousands of young blood from the peasant, worker and intelligentsia classes to take the road to revolution. Because as Mao once said: "You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you."
The NDFP-Mindanao calls upon the Kabataang Makabayan and the rest of the Filipino youth to harness and direct their immense energies toward resolutely carrying out its tasks of the second propaganda movement for the nationalist democratic people's revolution.
We ardently bid the youth to join the New People's Army! It is only the revolutionary road which genuinely attends to the aspirations of the Filipino youth; it is the road that promises a bright tomorrow for the youth and the whole Filipino people!
* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2010/11/fulfill-and-carry-forward-tasks-of.html
