Communist Party of the Philippines: Background to the 1993 Split

[Editor’s note: This article was originally published under the headline “Communist Party of the Philippines: Background to the 1993 Split” in Issue 1 of LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal, April-June 1994 (pp. 43-56). It is only now appearing for the first time online. LINKS is uploading this article. with the help of a reader, as it provides some important history and background to the Philippine left today. Filipino socialist activist Merck Maguddayao, from the Partido Lakas ng Masa, will be speaking at Ecosocialism 2025, September 5-7, Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. For more information on the conference visit ecosocialism.org.au.]

After 25 years of struggle and growth, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has entered a period of major internal upheaval. So great is this upheaval that it seems likely to lead to the formation of one or more new left parties. In July 1993 the Manila branch of the CPP, known as the Manila-Rizal Regional Committee (MRRC), declared its autonomy from the central leadership. In the months following, several other regional committees and party units also declared their autonomy. According to these opposition groups, they represent just under half of the CPP’s national membership and the majority of its working class and urban poor membership. To date none of these committees or units have fully broken from the CPP and most still call for a “unity congress” to resolve the differences and elect a democratic leadership.

However, the formal standing of most of these committees and units has been revoked by the central leadership of the CPP. Further, in a series of press releases and public statements, the central leadership of the CPP has denounced the leaders of the party units which have declared autonomy as “traitors,” “psychological war agents of the US-Ramos dictatorship” and “gangsters”. Their identities have been exposed and they have been tried in abstentia by secret “people’s courts” organised by the central leadership. There have even been threats to use armed units against the opposition. The Philippines military has moved to exploit these threats, assassinating one well-known oppositionist and arresting the main leader of the CPP’s Visayas territorial commission, which had declared autonomy.

While a struggle still continues throughout the country as each grouping works to consolidate its support among rank and file cadre, in Manila, the forces of the MRRC have been able to support a number of new initiatives by their sympathisers who organise and mobilise on the legal level, (the CPP operates as an underground organisation). A new left trade union political centre (BMP), a new legal socialist propaganda organisation (Makabayan), several new youth and student organisations and a new federation of mass organisations (SANLAKAS) have been formed.

These new legal organisations were able to organise a number of street mobilisations in Manila, involving between 35,000–70,000 people. On November 30, 1993 (Bonifacio Day — commemorating national hero Andres Bonifacio) they contributed 70,000 people to a joint left mobilisation of over 100,000 people. These Manila-based forces also played an important role in the formation of a wage increase campaign coalition (LAWIN 35), which involved left unions as well as more moderate and even conservative trade unions. They played a similar role in January-February 1994 in the establishment of a broad coalition to campaign against oil price rises, involving left forces, social democrats as well as sections of the capitalist class.

The ability of the MRRC and its sympathising forces to launch these initiatives and organise these mobilisations has confirmed its position as the CPP force with the strongest on the ground mass support. Since the split, mobilisations by forces still loyal to the existing central leadership of the CPP have been relatively small. The battle of words continues between MRRC and the central leadership to influence rank and file cadre. However the MRRC leadership’s support seems at the moment to be quite solid.

The foundations of the split

The view of the MRRC and its supporters is that the struggle between the MRRC and the central CPP leadership is essentially a Leninist versus Stalinist struggle. The issues of the nature of democratic centralism, absolutist deviations, and militarist thinking are very central to the case put forward by the MRRC leadership. Also important are the rejection of the Maoist approach to guerrilla warfare, which envisages both the political and military struggle, that is, the progress of the revolution, unfolding in stages reflecting a change in the balance of military forces and the gradual surrounding of the cities by the guerrilla army in the countryside.

It is worth examining some of the recent history of the Filipino left in order to put the current stage of this struggle into context and to help us understand where it might lead. At this point in time (March 1994) the ultimate outcome of these developments is still not clear. Will there be a new party? Will there be more than one new party? Will there be a unity congress? What would be the political basis of any new party(ies)? What left united fronts may be possible? Will this lead to a sustained resurgence of the revolutionary left in the Philippines?

The CPP was founded in 1968 by leaders of the youth of the old Communist Party (PKP), which had declined in its authority and status following a series of military and political defeats. The break was led by Jose Maria Sison, a student leader in the PKP, and the new party was founded on the programmatic basis of a series of documents espousing orthodox Maoist strategy and tactics and Maoist philosophy. It grew slowly but steadily during its early years but then leapt in size in 1970 when student rebellion broke out in Manila in response to the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of the Marcos government and the Philippines support for American intervention against the Vietnamese revolution.

By the time Marcos declared martial law in September 1972, the CPP was a well-organised party, operating underground, with branches in most provinces. It was also further strengthened by its establishment of a network of guerilla bases and units, the New People’s Army (NPA). As the level of repression under the Marcos dictatorship (1972- 86) worsened, the CPP forces developed as the backbone of the popular resistance to Marcos.

There was a major political dispute within the CPP in 1978 when the Manila branch of the party, under the leadership of Filemon Lagman, insisted on participating in congressional elections through an alliance with the anti-Marcos section of the big bourgeoisie, led by Senator Benigno Aquino. The central leadership at the time opposed participation in the elections. The Manila leadership was later disciplined and reassigned to the countryside. This dispute did not disrupt the general operations of the CPP.

1983 events

While the CPP had always provided the backbone and the organised forces for protest activity against Marcos, many other sections of Filipino society were also hostile to the dictator. The CPP’s main base was among sections of the peasantry desperate for land and aid, workers at the mercy of foreign and local corporations taking advantage of the high levels of repression to keep wages and conditions from improving, and students moved by the plight of the masses.

But Marcos’ corruption and nepotism had also alienated big sections of the so-called “middle forces”, comprising professionals, small and middle business people and the large numbers of well-educated white collar workers employed in foreign and local banks and corporations. Furthermore, Marcos had also waged a campaign against the country’s established big bourgeoisie, even imprisoning some big bourgeois. Some had also had their corporations taken from them. At the same time, Marcos used his power to facilitate the business expansion of his cronies. The twin phenomenon of corruption and “crony capitalism,” as it became called, alienated sections of the big bourgeoisie as well.

Until 1983, the various streams of opposition against the dictatorship remained more separate from each other than united. This was a major weakness of the anti-dictatorship movement. While it was true that the CPP’s forces were the best organised among the masses, it was also true that the political leaders of the big bourgeoisie, such as Senator Aquino, also wielded enormous authority among the masses. Several decades of operation of a more-or-less liberal political party system, a congress, and a media system financed by the big bourgeoisie and backed by the very influential Catholic church meant that the political leaderships of the established bourgeois parties continued to be able to influence mass opinion. The separation of the CPP’s mass following and the bourgeois leaders’ mass following always worked in Marcos’ favour.

This situation dramatically changed in 1983 when Senator Aquino returned from exile in the United States only to be assassinated at Manila airport. This assassination sparked off mass demonstrations peaking in the early stages with two million people attending Senator Aquino’s funeral. The assassination and the mass protests that followed brought into being a range of new organisations, which combined with the CPP forces (known as the national democrats or Natdems1) to form the basis of an anti-dictatorship movement that continued to surge forward during the coming three years. A number of formal alliances were formed with middle forces and bourgeois political groupings during those years, the first alliance being the Justice for Aquino, Justice for All (JAJA).

The level of mass mobilisations after 1983 continued to increase greatly, drawing in not only peasants and factory and transport workers but also white collar workers. The Makati business district became famous for its demonstrations of office workers and middle management personnel. In Manila, as well as in other areas, especially Mindanao, the tactic of the welgang bayan (peoples’ strike) emerged. The welgang bayan, organised by the Natdem forces, would combine transport strikes, factory strikes and mass demonstrations. The rallies, welgang bayan, and mass congresses of opposition forces became known as the “parliament of the streets”.

As this “parliament of the streets” became more and more powerful, a new discussion emerged on the left. The essence of this debate revolved around the issue of whether or not the Marcos dictatorship could be overthrown through anything short of a full-blown revolution led by the CPP/NPA, that is, short of a situation where the NPA was ready to enter the city and the whole ruling class was in disarray. A symptom of this difference among the anti-dictatorship movement was the use by the CPP/Natdem forces and the rest of the anti-dictatorship movement of different anti-Marcos slogans. The CPP/Natdems’ main slogan was “Dismantle the US-Marcos Dictatorship!”. The rest of the anti-Marcos dictatorship force’s rallying cry was “Marcos resign!”

This difference did, of course, reflect the fact that the non-Natdem forces included some elements that were supportive of a continuing US role in the Philippines. However, underlying this difference was the assessment of the non-Natdem forces that it was indeed possible for the “parliament of the streets” to dislodge Marcos by simply making it impossible for him to govern. The escalation of the “parliament of the streets”, more mobilisations, etc, was to be the key strategy. The CPP viewed the Marcos dictatorship as an integral part of US imperialism’s hold over the Philippines. The CPP, therefore, entered into the last stages of the battle with Marcos handicapped by the conviction that he could not be dislodged. Only the defeat of US imperialism would enable that, went the argument, and the NPA’s armed struggle was not yet at that stage, that is, at the stage of the “strategic offensive” (the strategic offensive is characterised by the revolutionary forces’ ability to initiate major military offensives against the opposing army).

A fundamental assumption behind the CPP’s approach was that urban mass mobilisations can only be secondary means of political offensives, incapable of inflicting any serious defeats on a reactionary government, except in the propaganda field. Urban mass mobilisation only becomes a force capable of delivering real blows against the enemy during the last stages of the “strategic offensive” of the rural based NPA.

Boycott campaign

By the end of 1985, the Philippines was approaching crisis point. It was becoming more and more impossible for Marcos to govern. The Armed Forces were also becoming factionalised as concern spread about the extent of the breakdown of order and as Marcos himself moved to increase the control of his cronies within the Armed Forces. Finally, Marcos succumbed to pressure, including from the United States, to hold early elections. The majority of the opposition immediately seized on this opportunity to announce a campaign against Marcos. Cory Aquino, the wife of assassinated Benigno Aquino was to be the anti-dictatorship movement’s presidential candidate. Given the general level of political mobilisation, and the political weight and activism of the “parliament of the streets”, the elections meant that the “parliament of the streets” would now face Marcos directly in the electoral arena.

The Natdem forces, however, decided to abstain from this confrontation between the parliament of the streets and the dictatorship. Indeed, they decided to launch a campaign actively calling on people to boycott participation in this confrontation in the electoral arena.

The parliament of the streets campaign against Marcos, under the banner of Aquino’s candidacy and the call for an end to dictatorship and a return to democracy, ultimately culminated in over two million people occupying key main streets of Manila in defiance of Marcos’ own declaration of victory after massive cheating in the vote counting. The militancy of the voters in their active defence of ballot boxes, walkouts by computer operators in the vote counting centre and continuing demonstrations made it abundantly clear that Marcos could continue to rule only at the price of continuing chaos. At this point sections of the military leadership broke with Marcos. Over two million of the Filipino masses stood between these military and those sent by Marcos to crush them.

The boycott campaign of the Natdem forces collapsed, resulting in the serious marginalisation of precisely those forces that had previously been the organisational backbone of the anti-dictatorship movement. Indeed, until the boycott decision the Natdem forces were an extremely important part of the vanguard of the anti-dictatorship movement.

There was, in fact, considerable debate inside the Natdem forces about the decision to boycott the 1986 elections. A part of their reasoning was that Aquino’s electoral platform fell far short of what was needed to start to solve the country’s problems. But the underlying reason was that the CPP and Natdems were sure that the elections could not possibly lead to the ouster of Marcos. They argued that the elections would not be free and fair — which was true — and the US would still back Marcos, which turned out to be true only up until a certain point. Their view was that a “truly fair, free and clean election” would allow the ouster of Marcos but that these elections would be none of these. In other words, they saw the elections only as a voting exercise and not a chance for the “parliament of the streets” to further exercise its power to undermine the Marcos regime. Because the elections would not be fair, the voting exercise was useless and the elections would only be a “noisy and empty political battle.”

Indeed the main legal Natdem organisation, BAYAN, summarised its views on the likely outcome of the elections as:

There is no sense believing, therefore, that the snap election shall lead to the ouster of Marcos from power. In truth it shall only fortify the US-backed Marcos dictatorship.

Marcos, however, was unable to respond effectively to the last wave of mass mobilisations, and with US help, had to flee from the Philippines to Hawaii.

It is interesting to note that the only factors considered in the argumentation against participating in the struggle in the electoral arena were the conditions under which the vote would operate and the attitude of the US. There was no consideration of the impact of participating in the electoral struggle on the advancing of the organisation, activism or militancy of the masses themselves or of the strength of the mass movement itself. This position is also another reflection of the assumption of the general impotence of mass struggle before the achievement of the “strategic offensive”.

The CPP after the boycott

The CPP went from being a key player in the leadership of the anti-dictatorship movement, to a force alienated from the broad range of anti-dictatorship forces and their mass followings. At the same time, the CPP was able to maintain the cohesion of the majority of its own forces. Its misreading of the situation — after all it had predicted that the elections would “fortify” the dictatorship — and its alienation from so much of the mass base of the anti-dictatorship movement provoked an intense debate within the CPP about the boycott decision. In May 1986 in the CPP Bulletin Ang Bayan, the Central Committee of the CPP issued a statement entitled Party Conducts Assessment, Says Boycott Was Wrong.2

It is worth quoting key sections of this statement:

[The boycott decision] failed to grasp the essence of the whole situation that was in flux at the time...

Specifically, the assessment:

1. Did not correctly understand the character and operation of US policy towards the Marcos regime... It failed to appreciate the possible effects on US policy of local developments over which the US did not have full control.

2. Underestimated the bourgeois reformists’ capabilities and determination to engage the Marcos regime in a decisive contest for state power.

3. Ignored the fact that the Marcos clique had become extremely isolated ... It failed to look more deeply into the contradictions developing within the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

4. Above all these, [it] misread the people’s deep anti-fascist sentiment and readiness to go beyond the confines of the electoral process in their determination to end the fascist dictatorship.

In hindsight, the CPP now made the assessment that:

The snap election became the main channel of large-scale mobilisation and deployment of the masses for the decisive battle to overthrow the dictatorship.

The party now recognised that:

The anti-fascist struggle united the various levels of revolutionary, democratic and anti-Marcos sentiments during and after the election, and created a mass force capable of toppling the regime.

At one level the party’s critique of its previous assessment was very comprehensive. In essence it stated that it incorrectly analysed the position of the US, the position of the bourgeois opposition, the position of the Armed Forces, the position of the Marcos regime and the position of the Filipino masses — in fact, the position, situation and capabilities of every single important political force involved in Filipino politics.

What the self-criticism did not do, however, was analyse the reasons that these mistakes were made. How, for example, did a party with obviously very close contact with the masses, the largest organised mass political formation, the organised backbone of the mass movement, “misread the people’s deep anti-fascist sentiment and readiness”.

A further insight into a possible explanation of the reasons for this misanalysis can, perhaps, be gained by looking at the general attitude taken by the CPP towards the new situation under President Aquino. Among the CPP and Natdem forces a view slowly emerged that the levels of repression under Aquino were worse than under the Marcos regime. Justification for this view included reference to the series of assassinations of Natdem leaders, culminating in the murder of Lean Alejandro, the secretary-general of BAYAN, in 1987. At the same time, statistics kept by human rights organisations indicated that the murder of grass-roots activists also increased. There were no arrests or detentions of anybody responsible for these killings and neither was there any progress made in bringing violators of human rights under Marcos to trial. No torturers or assassins from the Marcos period were ever charged, with the exception of those accused of the Aquino assassination.

After peace talks failed between the National Democratic Front (NDF) and the Aquino government, Aquino delivered a speech declaring “Total War” against the NPA. Military offensives against the NPA and the rural populations supporting them increased. Aquino also declared for a harsher policy against industrial unrest.

By 1987, the Natdem forces were using the formula of the “US- Aquino regime”, mirroring the old term of the US-Marcos dictatorship. Although falling short of calling Aquino a dictator, the general impression being given by the Natdem forces was that the situation was as bad or worse than it was under Marcos. When the ultra-rightist forces in the military, led by anti-Communist Colonel Honasan launched a coup, BAYAN issued a statement virtually declaring that it would make no difference whether Honasan and his proposed junta would rule or Aquino ruled.

There can be no doubt whatsoever that the Aquino government was a government of big capital. However, this government did withdraw many of the formal restrictions on political activity that existed under Marcos. The writ of habeas corpus was reintroduced, large numbers of political prisoners were released (including key CPP leaders), restrictions on the media virtually disappeared. Moreover, the ruling class showed itself to be divided. There were several failed coup attempts by different factions of the ruling class against Aquino. The political party system kept realigning itself as the factions fought in the congress and in the electoral arena. Meanwhile, there appeared to be no solutions in sight for the massive economic and social problems facing the country and generating more misery and suffering for the mass of the people.

In many ways, in fact, the new objective conditions favoured the revolutionary movement: relative political freedom, fractured ruling class unable to provide any real solutions to a rapidly worsening socioeconomic situation. Much of the harassment by the state and the assassinations by the ultra-right during the 1980s were possible, not because of a coordinated and conscious policy of repression by the government, but because of the vulnerability of the Natdem forces due to their alienation from all their major allies on the left, the middle forces and the more liberal elements of the bourgeoisie. This alienation was one of the products of the boycott campaign of 1986.

There was one break in this isolation. This was in 1986 during a period of ceasefire negotiations between the NDF (under whose umbrella the NPA operates) and the government. As a part of the ceasefire arrangements, the NDF leadership was able to establish legal national and regional offices in a number of cities. From these offices, the NDF was able to conduct public campaigns through the media and on the streets. These campaigns were very successful and were paving the way for rebuilding a mass movement under Natdem leadership. However, following the assassination of the head of the KMU trade unions, the NDF withdrew from the negotiations.

The withdrawal, which was generally unpopular, resulted in the end of the major campaigns to build a mass movement. With a reversion to a position of relative political isolation, the Natdems were again more vulnerable to harassment and assassination than they would otherwise have been (even though an end to this isolation would not, of course, completely end assassination attempts). In the meantime, the NDF had exposed the identity of many of its underground activists.

It is probable that this withdrawal was premature. Not so much because the NDF needed more time to test out the extent to which the government was willing to make concessions but because the NDF needed more time to test out the extent to which the ceasefire opening would have enabled them.to rebuild and indeed expand the mass movement. The official reasons given by the NDF for the withdrawal were that the Aquino government was not serious in achieving a political solution. This was no doubt true, at least insofar as such a solution would mean advancing the interests of the Filipino workers and peasants. However the premature withdrawal again reflected the unwillingness of the CPP leadership to enter new arenas of struggle.

Strategy debate

An indirect reflection of some cadres’ concerns about the CPP’s rigid Maoist strategy surfaced in a number of circulated papers canvassing an “insurrectionist” oriented strategy for the revolution. Such papers discussed the examples of Nicaragua and Vietnam where, they argued, urban insurrection was the main form of revolutionary offensive. Later papers advocated the concept of “political-military” struggle, where military action by guerillas or urban partisans were aimed at helping efforts to escalate urban mass action. These papers circulated unofficially, although some were published in the theoretical journal of the CPP National Urban Commission.

The focus of the discussion was on mass action at the moment of revolutionary upsurge: would the victory of the revolution take the form of a guerilla army entering the cities or would it take the form of an urban uprising? The debate raised no concerns about existing party building strategies but concentrated the dispute on the form of the final revolutionary upsurge.

It would be wrong to give the impression that the left generally and the largest forces, the Natdems in particular, have been inactive or in total decline during the late 1980s and 1990s. The MRRC claims a cadre force of 5000 today and in other provinces the CPP count their cadre in the thousands. It would not have been possible to maintain such numbers of cadres if there had been a total collapse of the party. The Natdem forces had also been involved in major campaigns against the US air force and naval bases in the Philippines. They had held successful May Day mobilisations. They had carried out electoral interventions in support of more progressive candidates and so on.

Despite remaining a strong organisation, there were also many cadre who felt that the political impact of the Natdems was not as great as it could be given the socioeconomic crisis in the country, the splits in the ruling class, and the relatively open political situation. Even disappearances began to slow down in the late 1980s. In the 1992 elections the presidential candidate supported by the Natdems scored an extremely low vote. An attempt at a bugso (political upsurge) during the election period also met with only limited success.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s the government was able to capture several CPP leaders. Many of these were not integrated back into the party and began to operate as independent political actors, after their release. At the same time, some key single issue coalitions, such as the Congress for Peoples Agrarian Reform, had become inactive and levels of collaboration between Natdem forces and the smaller non-Natdem left forces had dropped off. There had also been temporary but significant setbacks in the military struggle in the countryside.

By the early 1990s, there was a general sense of frustration and a desire to find a way to revive the momentum of the revolutionary movement.

‘Reaffirm Our Basic Principles’

It was in this context that Armando Liwanag (Jose Maria Sison) prepared his paper Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors. His paper, adopted by a meeting of the CPP3, canvasses a number of policies and actions which he considers to have been in error or representing deviations. These include neglect of theoretical education (in particular as regards the writings of Mao Zedong), purging and execution of suspected cadre without due process, bureaucratism and “urban-basing” and a number of other issues. Sison’s central critique is, however, summed up in the opening pages of his document:

The worst deviations and errors arise from petty-bourgeois impetuosity and subjectivism characterised by flights from the concrete conditions and the current strength of the revolutionary forces. It combines wishful thinking for the armed urban insurrection with army “regularisation”. This takes away cadres and resources from mass work in order to build prematurely higher and unsustainable military formations (companies and battalions) and top-heavy staff structures... Now we are confronted with an unprecedented loss of mass base and other related problems.

Sison identifies two central errors: “wishful thinking for the armed urban insurrection” and for “army regularisation”, that is, the formation of companies and battalions, rather than platoon size units. He calls for a rectification whose main thrust would involve a reorientation of the party’s energies back to political organising in the countryside to be carried out by the cadre of the NPA through small armed propaganda units. The general views he presents on the ceasefire negotiations and elections do not canvass the possibility of using such opportunities for rebuilding the open mass movement.

Reaffirm, while pointing to a number of real problems, articulated criticisms of the party’s practice during the last ten years and proposed solutions which ran totally counter to the ideas that had emerged within sections of the party, especially since 1986, which questioned the rural based protracted peoples’ war strategy. Reaffirm was also adopted by the CC without any extensive discussion of contrary views among the membership and broad leadership of the party. Among significant sections of the party who were already questioning the Maoist strategy, the adoption of the Reaffirm document without such debate in the party led them to accuse Sison of “absolutist” leadership. Supporters of Sison’s line have been called “Reaffirmists” and those opposing it “Rejectionists”.

The adoption of Reaffirm in this manner ultimately provoked the series of declarations of autonomy by various regional committees and party units. In some cases these declarations of autonomy preceded a decision by the central leadership to disband the committees or units, in some cases they followed such decisions by the central leadership.

The fact that the actual split in the CPP has been in response to the manner of the adoption of Reaffirm has concentrated debate at this point of time on the issue of the nature of democratic centralism. The Leninism versus Stalinism polemics between the MRRC and Sison, for example, has tended to concentrate on this issue.

It should also be noted here that not all of the sections of the party that have declared their autonomy have polemicised against Sison in the Leninist versus Stalinist framework. In fact, most other sections of the party are tending to describe themselves as the “democratic opposition” rather than a “Leninist” opposition. Discussion among these groups on the organisational questions include a tendency of rethinking Leninist organisation principles. The outcome of the debates and discussions among these groups is not yet clear. What is clear is that these discussions are proceeding from a different starting point to that taken by the MRRC, which leads a highly disciplined and effective cadre force. While this is also true of the regional committees, it is not necessarily the case for other party units or individual leaders.

As of February 1994, however, the autonomous forces were still formulating their overall counter views to the Reaffirm document. It is already clear from various interviews and statements of MRRC leaders and supporters which issues are being discussed apart from the issue of the character of democratic centralism. These include:

• the nature of the mode of production in the Philippines — whether the Philippines is a “semi-feudal, semi-colonial society” as CPP doctrine asserts;

• the role of the struggle for reforms — whether the role of such struggles goes beyond propaganda aimed at recruiting members for the underground;

• the role of the armed struggle, in the city as well as the countryside; and

• the stages which the revolutionary struggle will have to pass through.

Max Lane is the author of Urban Mass Movements in the Philippines 1983–87 (Australian National University) and was a National Executive member of the Democratic Socialist Party in Australia at the time this article was published.

• 1

  The CPP formed several other underground organisations covering the different sectors, such as workers, peasants, women etc. These included CPP members as well as non-communist activists. These organisations were then united in the National Democratic Front (NDF). Legal organisations which adopted similar positions to the NDF 10 point program for the national democratic revolution are referred to as the national democrats or “Natdems”.

• 2

  See “Call for Boycott” by BAYAN in Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Shalom, The Philippines Reader, Quezon City, 1988, pp. 343–346.

• 3

  There is dispute as to whether this meeting of the CPP CC had a quorum or was sufficiently representative to adopt such a major document.