NDFP-Mindanao sympathizes with the broad masses of Japan and our Filipino compatriots in the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe*
Jorge "Ka Oris" Madlos
NDFP-Mindanao
March 23, 2011
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the entire revolutionary forces in Mindanao sympathize with the broad masses of Japan as well as with Filipino compatriots there who are suffering because of the devastation, including the direct threat of nuclear exposure, brought on by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
We are confident that the Japanese masses could muster heroic strength to rebuild and surge forward. As in the past, if the Japanese masses were able to rise from the destruction wreaked by two US imperialist atomic bombs, inhumanly dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II, so shall they in the face of this recent unspeakable tragedy. We salute the heroism of the Japanese masses, particularly the indomitable courage shown by the Nameless 50 in Fukushima!
The Filipino and the entire peoples of the world must resolutely unite to aid the Japanese masses in their hour of great need as well as in the process of rebuilding, bearing in mind that natural and man-made calamities of such proportions that recently hit Japan could happen to any country across the globe.
There are serious lessons to be learned from a tragedy of this scale: One, imperialist destructive competition led them to use destructive technology such as nuclear energy to ensure the raking-in of profit from their own home economies as well as super-profit the world over. In the arena of inter-imperialist mega-competition for markets and super-profit, environmental consideration has become insignificant.
Two, massive environmental destruction worldwide, mostly caused by imperialist mining, logging and agribusiness plantations, result to thousands upon thousands of deaths around the world. The rapid depletion of mineral, forest and other natural resources, including the non-renewable crude oil, makes the world more vulnerable to cataclysmic catastrophes.
Presently, the ruling big bourgeoisie in Japan, the US, Germany, France and other imperialist--ruled countries dictates the rapidity of "development," exacerbating the exploitation and oppression of millions of workers and peasants, and the wanton destruction of the natural environment. In Japan, the basic working masses bear the brunt of the folly of the monopoly capitalists' destructive industries and their profiteering concept of "development," which result in catastrophic disasters.
The Chernobyl, Long Island and the recent Fukushima nuclear catastrophes clearly expose the bankruptcy of the twisted logic of the imperialist and their local cohorts in the Aquino government who are just waiting for an opportune time to open and operate the country's own multi-billion dollar ticking poison bomb: the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
In Mindanao, the proliferation of open pit mining, logging and large agri-business companies, including large-scale fishing, have negatively impacted the environment. Natural diversity is destroyed, in particular, with the precedence of cash crops over food crops, wrecking ecological balance and putting us at risk during catastrophes.
If the reactionary government continues to make compromises with regard to the already depleted state of our environment, we, the Filipino people today and future generations, shall be left defenceless, with no natural resources of our own to cater to our needs, interests, and certainly no natural environment to shield us from disasters.
The NDFP-Mindanao firmly stands by the program of the National Democratic Revolution on the preservation and protection of the natural environment by working towards a nationalist industrialization that corresponds to the level and genuine development of our agriculture.
We, therefore, call on the Filipino people to demand from the Aquino government to: 1) stop large-scale mining, logging, agri-business and other similar businesses that cause irreparable damage to the natural environment; 2) cancel and completely shut-down the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) and place emphasis on tapping other environmentally-safe power sources; and 3) seriously work towards nationalist industrialization along with genuine agrarian reform.
