PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

AFP/PNP claim of NPAs in Metro meant to justify repression against protest actions--CPP
July 25, 2008
 
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today said that military and police claims of New People's Army (NPA) deployment in Metro Manila to assassinate key government officials, including Gloria Arroyo herself are "nothing but psywar spins to intimidate the people against joining mass protest actions during Arroyo’s SONA, attempt to block the entry of protesters from the provinces and justify mailed-fist policies against rallyists."
 
Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to join anti-Arroyo demonstrations around the vicinity of the Batasan Pambansa Complex in Quezon City and other proximate places as the president delivers her State of the Nation Address before Congress on Monday next week.
 
The protest actions are being organized by progressive organizations and alliances and other opposition forces demanding Arroyo’s removal from power. The past weeks saw successive protest actions condemning the Arroyo regime for the people’s sufferings, including the incessant oil price increases and sky-rocketing cost of living, the added burden of the 12% VAT, unabated corruption in Malacañang, the massive unemployment, grinding poverty and hunger, and widespread human rights violations.
 
"Arroyo and her security forces are apprehensive at any possibility that the widespread anger at her regime may result in the continued swelling of protest rallies and threaten to bring down her regime," said the CPP.
 
"Claims by Arroyo’s security forces about NPA hit squads now in Metro Manila are nothing but total lies, routinely made by the state military, security and police forces everytime big demonstrations against the Arroyo regime are launched," the CPP said further. "Always, these claims have been proven false."
 
"On the contrary, infiltrators ferreted out from the ranks of demonstrators have invariably turned out to be government spies and agent provocateurs," the CPP added.
 
Even as the CPP urged rallyists to guard against and resist the instigation of violence by Arroyo’s military and police forces, the CPP encouraged the people’s vigorous participation in democratic protest actions, saying that the people have all the right to express their legitimate grievances and demand drastic changes. "They have had enough of the oppressive, rotten and brutal rule of the Arroyo regime."
 
"NPA units, on their part, will continue to carry out tactical offensives as a parallel expression of struggle against the despised, rotten US-Arroyo government and in support of the people’s protest movement against the regime," added the CPP.
 
Reference:
Marco Valbuena
Media Officer
Cellphone Numbers: 09179776392 :: 09282242061
E-mail:cppme...@gmail.com