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Monday, July 21, 2003
Young military officers cajoled to join CPP-NPA
By Harley F. Palangchao
THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) urged soldiers and junior military officers Sunday to disown the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and instead join the underground movement.
CPP Spokesman Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal disclosed in a statement that several ordinary soldiers and policemen have, in the past, approached the movement to consult their long-time grievances while in the government service.
Rosal cited the late Lt. Crispin Tagamolila, a Philippine Military Academy (PMA) graduate, who joined the underground movement before the Martial Law declaration.
"The CPP has long been aware of grievances in the AFP's rank-and-file because many ordinary soldiers and policemen have approached the revolutionary movement for advice on how they can defend their rights and welfare," Rosal said.
He also claimed that these grievances reveal how "rotten, corrupt, undemocratic and anti-people" the military organization is.
"We urge them to turn their backs on the reactionary, rotten and losing course of the AFP, uphold the tradition of the Lt. Crispin Tagamolila Movement and join and support the revolutionary movement that serves the masses and marches on the road of people's liberation," Rosal added.
"It is especially revealing how AFP generals and the DND (Department of National Defense) leadership not only wallow in large salaries, luxuries and special privileges such as mansions, but also accumulate so much wealth from corruption as well as illegal drugs, kidnapping for ransom, bank holdups and other criminal activities," the CPP-NPA statement stated.
The statement further said that top AFP and DND officials "do not have an iota of sympathy for their junior officers and common soldiers."
Rosal added that the soldiers' measly pay is not worth dying for.
"Their deaths are made even more worthless because they are defending a system that oppresses and exploits workers and peasants, the same classes that they also came from," he claimed.
(July 21, 2003 issue)
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