by Artemio A. Dumlao

BAGUIO CITY (December 23, 2009) – Senator Manuel Villar, standard bearer of the Nationalista Party (NP) seemed to have gotten the nod of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

In its statement on its 41st founding anniversary on December 26, the CPP, the political arm of the New Peoples Army which have been fighting the government for almost four decades said, “among the four major presidential candidates, former Senate president Villar seems to be the most patriotic and progressive insofar as he advocates the interests of Filipino businessmen, expresses sympathy for the workers and peasants and condemns human rights violations.”

Villar’s NP slate includes left-leaning Bayan Muna partylist rep. Satur Ocampo and Gabriela partlist rep. Liza Maza in its senatorial line-up.

The two partylist groups have been earlier tagged as legal fronts of the CPP.

But the Central Committee of the CPP in the same statement was quick to explain in “rooting” Villar saying, “it remains to be seen whether he can win and prove himself any better than his major political rivals who have bloodstained records of opposing the demands of the workers and peasants, like Aquino of Hacienda Luisita notoriety, Teodoro of being the mad dog defense secretary of Arroyo and Estrada of having a bellicose record during his failed presidency.”

Dousing any fundamental changes that a new President would bring to the country, the CPP said,
“whichever reactionary clique takes power through the electoral process is predisposed to follow the same path being trod by the Arroyo regime,” adding, “whichever reactionary clique gains power would tend to monopolize the bureaucratic loot and use the instruments of state violence in suppressing the intrasystemic opposition and the revolutionary movement of the people.”

Villar or whoever wins, the CPP said, “in the history of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system, every president has kowtowed to the power of US imperialism and has sought to amass wealth and power for self-aggrandizement against the rights and interests of the people.” It went on to believe, “no president ever has had the political will to undertake significant reforms that respond to the people’s demand for national independence and genuine democracy nor has used peace negotiations in order to forge agreements with the revolutionary movement on social, economic and political reforms as basis for a just peace.”

The CPP also went on to further believe that the major political parties and coalitions vying for offices in the 2010 elections, exempting Makabayan, a new coalition of left-leaning politicians, “avoid or even oppose the people’s demand for national indpendence and genuine democracy and do not criticize and repudiate “free market” globalization and the US-instigated policy of terror against the people.” It said, the ruling Lakas-Kampi party “clings to its discredited antinational and antidemocratic policies,” while “the major opposition parties, like the Liberal Party and the Partido ng Masang Pilipino concentrate on pretending to be for good governance to dissociate themselves from (the present regime).”

The CPP also sees no advance of the stalled peace negotiations between the NDF and the government
Which it alleges “it would merely pretend at being for peace negotiations and try to use these not to arrive at agreements on basic reforms with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines but merely to deceive and confuse the people and destroy the revolutionary movement.”