"We should get our comrades to understand that the twofold basic task of the leading bodies of the Communist Party is to know conditions and to master policy; the former means knowing the world and the latter changing the world." -Mao Zedong, 1941, Reform our Study
by Information Bureau,
Communist Party of the Philippines,
December 2, 2010
In celebration of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM, Patriotic Youth) 46th anniversary, hundreds of KM members joined today’s lightning rally near Malacañang, calling for support to the revolutionary movement’s objective to advance the peoples’ war.
Masked students and youth joined the lightning rally bearing placards “KABATAAN, TUMUNGO SA KANAYUNAN, SUMAPI SA NPA!”, “REHIMENG US-AQUINO IBAGSAK!”, (“Go to the countryside, join the New People’s Army!”, “Down with the US-Aquino regime!”) “FILIPINO YOUTH, AWAKEN, JOIN THE NPA!”, “DOWN WITH US IMPERIALISM!”
“The revolutionary youth under KM declares its full commitment to advance the call of the Communist Party of the Philippines of fulfilling the strategic stalemate position vis-a-vis the rotten reactionary US-Aquino regime and its mercenary state security forces within five years,” states Ma. Laya Guerrero, KM spokesperson.
The participants of the lightning rally assembled at around 12:30 noon at the R. Papa St., barely a kilometer away from Malacañang palace, marched towards Morayta and Recto and dispersed near Avenida St. At the corner of Morayta and Recto, the group held a program that lasted for 10 minutes exorting the youth to join the New People’s Army (NPA).
“This is scary but not as scary as what’s happening to our future.”
It’s a bright, cold November afternoon, and inside 30 Millbank, the headquarters of the Conservative Party, a line of riot police with shields and truncheons are facing down a groaning crowd of young people with sticks and smoke bombs.
Screams and the smash of trodden glass cram the foyer as the ceiling-high windows, entirely broken through, fill with some of the 52,000 angry students and schoolchildren who have marched through the heart of London today to voice their dissent to the government’s savage attack on public education and public services. Ministers are cowering on the third floor, and through the smoke and shouting a young man in a college hoodie crouches on top of the rubble that was once the front desk of the building, his red hair tumbling into his flushed, frightened face.
He meets my eyes, just for a second. The boy, clearly not a seasoned anarchist, has allowed rage and the crowd to carry him through the boundaries of what was once considered good behaviour, and found no one there to stop him. The grown-ups didn’t stop him. The police didn’t stop him. Even the walls didn’t stop him. His twisted expression is one I recognise in my own face, reflected in the screen as I type. It’s the terrified exhilaration of a generation that’s finally waking up to its own frantic power.