INDEED, we are once again talking about communism — an ideology long rendered obsolete and irrelevant, yet still embraced and espoused by the so-called Makabayan bloc and its allies.
Curiously, communism has now been repackaged as “socialism,” a softer, hipper label preferred by the woke and the socially aspirational. In truth, it is the same dog wearing a different collar.
If these self-styled socialists truly understood economics, they would not be socialists.
Let us begin with the “etcetera.”
The Court of Appeals has finally affirmed the criminal convictions of former representatives Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna and France Castro of ACT Teachers for child abuse, in connection with the alleged trafficking of 14 minors in Talaingod, Davao del Norte in 2018.
The appellate court upheld the ruling of the Tagum City Regional Trial Court Branch 2, sentencing Ocampo and Castro to imprisonment ranging from four to six years for violating Republic Act No. 7610, or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation, and Discrimination Act.
Yes, France — the taumbayan want you behind bars. And it is about time.
Which brings us to the next act.
The Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front’s declaration of a unilateral ceasefire reeks of treachery and deceit. There was no coordination with the government, no accountability mechanism, and no verification process. Worse, the CPP-NPA-NDF ordered its units to remain in “high alert/active defense mode.”
In plain language, this was not peace. It was tactical deception.
And as if to prove the point, anti-personnel mines planted by the CPP-NPA-NDF killed two soldiers in Camarines Sur just days before the supposed ceasefire. Such mines are strictly prohibited under International Humanitarian Law because they cannot distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Moving on.
Fifty years ago, they were leftists — anti-Marcos, anti-martial law. Today, they are still leftist — anti-Duterte, loudly anti-corruption — yet suddenly timid when it comes to naming the mastermind behind the corruption embedded in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.
Selective outrage is not principle; it is convenience.
A brief refresher.
The Communist Manifesto, the 1848 political pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, emerged as a response to the Industrial Revolution sweeping Europe — particularly England — where factories operated under near sub-human conditions and exploited workers, including women and children.
Communist ideology was later embraced by Vladimir Lenin in Russia and Mao Zedong in China.
Inspired by these figures, Jose Maria Sison sought to impose communism on the Philippines during the 1970s through a Maoist-Leninist model of peasant armed struggle — surrounding cities from the countryside, establishing “red areas” through the New People’s Army (NPA), and fomenting urban insurrection via labor unions and mass organizations as “white areas” under the National Democratic Front (NDF).
These strategies eventually crystallized into the CPP-NPA-NDF.
History, however, had other plans.
Russia eventually realized that communism was obsolete, irrelevant, and — most damningly — not profitable. Today, it is one of the largest capitalist economies in the world.
China? It is now the biggest trading partner of the very capitalist country it once denounced — the United States of America.
The irony is rich: both former bastions of communism embraced capitalism, along with all the trappings of a so-called decadent capitalist lifestyle — sometimes even outdoing the Americans themselves.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, CPP-NPA-NDF founder Jose Maria Sison enjoyed the comforts of capitalist decadence until his death, still fantasizing about the “withering away of the state” and a workers’ utopia in the Philippines.
Back home, poor NPA recruits and cadres in the hinterlands continue dreaming of that same “withering away of the state” — while literally withering away from hunger, disease, and abandonment.
From 89 guerrilla fronts, the CPP-NPA-NDF is now reportedly down to zero. These fronts collapsed under relentless operations by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Barangay Development Program of the NTF-ELCAC.
Even their most reliable pool of “useful idiots” is drying up.
Students at the University of the Philippines — long exploited to stage “white operations” in support of “red” armed struggle — have finally begun to realize they were being used to prop up an obsolete ideology. That, finally, is critical thinking.
Add to that the daily reality of NPA fighters surrendering to the government, choosing life over a lie.
In the end, it is easy to be a communist in a free society.
Try being free in a communist one./PN
