JOSE MARIA SISON'S UNFINISHED TASKS

Uphold the Third Rectification of the Communist Party of the Philippines!

by Maybelle Guerrero

On December 16, 2022, the Philippine revolution lost its brightest star. Jose Maria
Sison (known to his friends as “Joma”), who founded the Communist Party of the
Philippines and the indomitable New People's Army, died, leaving a historical legacy
of struggle for liberation of the Philippines from imperialism, fascism, and neo-
colonialism. In the ensuing months, leftists all over the world revisited Joma's key
writings -- writings which changed the trajectory of the left movement, such as
Philippine Society and Revolution (the organizing principal of the left), Our Urgent
Tasks, Specific Characteristics of our People's War, and Reaffirm our Basic Principles
and Rectify Errors (giving rise to the Second Great Rectification Movement). National
democratic organizations in Manila launched the Jose Maria Sison School, involving
hundreds of youth, union members and activists in a re-examination of the Joma's
teachings. Leftists from Berkeley to Rome followed suit.
While Philippine revolutionaries use Joma's writings to deep-dive into the people's
struggle, we should recognize that, in the last years of his life, Joma himself fought a
monumental struggle to influence the next phase of the Philippine revolution.
After steering the party through the First Rectification (1965) and the Second
Rectification (1992), Joma worked tirelessly toward the end of his life to complete
what he called the Third Great Rectification.
 Sison's Unfinished Tasks

Joma knew well the mortal danger faced by red-tagged activists in the cities.
Activists are often more exposed than the NPA, because of their proximity to the armed
enemy. He believed that the Central Committee should lead an effort to take advantage
of the expanding mass base to launch offensives into urban areas as a way to redress
these crimes. In an interview with the kites Editorial Committee, one month before he
died, he said:
At the moment, the CPP continues to lead the Third Rectification
Movement to combat conservatism. It admonishes against self-
satisfaction and passivity with achievements in mass work, in raising
resources for these and in having peace and calm in certain localities
while others are under enemy attack. To be truly revolutionary in the
current circumstances, all revolutionary forces and units and their CPP
cadres and NPA commanders can always find ways of raising their armed
strength by fighting the enemy. The expansion of the mass base ought to
enable more tactical offensives and provide more ways for security for
elderly comrades who are already non-combatants but are being
butchered by the cowardly enemy.
kites Editorial Committee Interview, November 03, 2022
Here, Joma's mention of elderly comrades "being butchered by the cowardly
enemy" is likely a reference to the unanswered assassinations of Randy Echanis,
Agaton Topacio and Eugenia Magpantay. These activists were slain in cold blood by
police forces in their homes. He denounced the failure to protect these elderly kasamas
in the urban areas as a symptom of conservatism within the CPP-NPA. The Third
Rectification was intended to address this.
The Third Rectification Movement Against Conservatism is not finished. As this
article demonstrates, Joma's work is not complete. It is up to the revolutionaries of
today to finish these tasks.
As part of the rectification movement, Joma returned, again and again, to the
NPA's neglect of urban warfare, a systemic problem that has gotten worse over the
years and likely arose from an over-correction from the Second Great Rectification
Movement of 1992. Over the course of three decades, the NPA had effectively
abandoned urban warfare tactics, which allowed Duterte the freedom to remake the
cities into a right-wing hellscape of drug killings and red-tagging. Now that Duterte is

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removed to the International Criminal Court, Bong Bong Marcos Jr. has committed to
expand the program, and boosting the budget of the NTF-ELCAC's terrorist red-
tagging campaign from $31.2 million in 2020 to $178.5 million in 2022. Therefore,
red-tagging is no longer associated with Duterte, but has become the program of the
fascist state itself.
Joma repeatedly argued that in light of Duterte's terror campaign, the armed city
partisans, also known as sparrows, must be revived. The issue came to a head in a
meeting in 2020.
On December 26, 2020, members of Compatriots (a member organization of the
NDFP representing Filipino migrants) organized an online forum with Christians for
National Liberation (CNL) in cooperation with the NDFP International Information
Office. Guest speakers included Joma, Luis Jalandoni, senior adviser of the peace
panel and Coni Ledesma, peace panel member. The official NDF statement on the
meeting, dated December 28, describes the discussion regarding the need to increase
urban partisan actions:
Addressing the participants’ pressing call for punitive actions and
revolutionary justice for the unrelenting attacks against unarmed
activists, peasants and innocent civilians, particularly in the urban areas
by the AFP, PNP and Duterte’s death squads, Professor Sison
acknowledged that such popular demand is widespread and that the
conditions are ripe for the return of armed city partisans to counter the
assassinations and impunity by the Duterte regime.
NDF Statement, December 28, 2020
On January 5, 2021, after the NDF quoted Joma on the issue of partisan teams,
Joma quoted the CPP: "Other speakers and inquirers from the listening public brought
up the point that there is a strong public clamor for the revival of the armed city
partisan units of the New People’s Army in order to obtain justice for the victims of the
fascist brutality of the Duterte tyranny and to punish the most notorious human rights
violators and the most corrupt officials of the regime." He continued:
The CPP and the NPA have published their stand that there is just cause
for the revival of armed city partisans to render justice to the victims of
the fascist terrorism of the Duterte regime, punish the notorious human
rights violators as well as the corrupt officials of the regime and respond

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promptly to Duterte’s scheme to wipe out all kinds of legal opposition

and democratic organizations and to rule as fascist dictator beyond 2022
or else install his own daughter as successor by rigging the 2022
presidential elections if any.
NDF Public Statement, Jose Maria Sison, January 5, 2022
In this statement, Joma exercises leadership yet is deferential to the CPP. Essentially,
he acknowledges the "public clamor" for the revival of armed city partisans, but does
not want to step on the toes of the central committee. The fact that these statements
appear in the party organs of the NDF confirm that the need for revival of the armed
city partisans is the official view of the party, and that those who hold it are trying to
forge a consensus for implementation.
Joma also emphasized that the revival of armed city partisans will in no way mark
a shift toward urban insurrectionism, a strategy which the CPP has stood against since
the publication of his landmark document of the Second Great Rectification, Reaffirm
our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors in 1992. He observed that "Because of the
presence of many developed guerrilla fronts around many urban centers including the
national capital region, the people’s army partisans could easily withdraw to the safety
of these guerrilla fronts." Therefore, urban partisan operations will not distract from
the rural struggle, but can arise organically from the NPA's extensive rural base.
Armed city partisan operations are a form of struggle that arose naturally out of the
national democratic movement of the Philippines. In Lenin's words, a Marxist-Leninist
party refuses to bind "the movement to any one particular form of struggle. It
recognizes the most varied forms of struggle; and it does not 'concoct' them, but only
generalizes, organizes, gives conscious expression to those forms of struggle of the
revolutionary classes which arise of themselves in the course of the movement." V.
Lenin, Guerilla Warfare.
Lenin also instructed: "To attempt to answer yes or no to the question whether any
particular means of struggle should be used, without making a detailed examination of
the concrete situation of the given movement at the given stage of its development,
means completely to abandon the Marxist position."
We will now turn toward a detailed examination of the Philippine struggle as it
relates to urban partisan warfare.

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 Maybelle Guerrero

________________________________

The NPA conducted partisan operations from its early days, as a means of
eliminating informants in the towns and villages who threatened its first tiny guerrilla
formations. As the NPA grew in size and reach, the fear of "sparrows" intimidated the
collaborators with the fascist state, and kept Marcos' henchmen from feeling safe in
their homes.
By 1985, the Armed Forces of the Philippines estimated that the NPA conducted
more than 130 liquidations per month, not including local government officials. That
would come out to over 1500 liquidations per year. The number might have been four
or five times higher than the official estimate, because the family of dead informants
often refused to report. Further, it must be understood that not all partisan actions
result in a killing, because the NPA may threaten the target to leave the area or to
provide intelligence on the enemy. Therefore, by the mid-1980's, urban partisan
actions were much broader than the 1500 liquidations per year estimated by the AFP.
Among the NPA's founders, Bernabe Buscayno (Kumander Dante) was legendary
for planning effective sparrow operations. He was not alone. According to journalist
Ross Munro, "As early as 1970, about one-third of the ranking NPA members belonged
to liquidation squads."
As the 70's gave way to the 80's, the NPA's armed city partisans worked hand in
hand with a growing rural base. The growth of the NPA forced most analysts to admit
that a communist victory was not just a possibility but a certainty. Munro noted that by
the 1980's, the Marcos regime's soldiers were "huddling in their barracks, demoralized
and on the defensive." While the guerillas followed the Maoist strategy to surround
the cities from the countryside, the NPA used sparrows to project their reach into the
cities, gathering valuable intel and achieving influence in every aspect of Philippines
society.
Armed city partisans do not seize territory; they uphold the revolution in enemy-
controlled areas. From the 1970's through 1990's, their continued presence allowed for
a free speech environment so that revolutionary thought could blossom in the union
movement, among the peasants, and on the university campuses. In such an
environment, no one would dare to disrespect the revolution or openly talk of

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murdering activists.
With this history in mind, it is clear from his writings and public statements that
Joma saw the need to revive the armed partisan teams in the present day. He was not
alone. The CPP's recognition of a "strong public clamor" for revival of the partisans is
quite accurate. The clamor is most frequently heard among urban dwellers, activists,
and within the rank-and-file NPA who demand a response to the state's terrorist crimes.
The issue of sparrows is so commonly raised that conservative-minded CPP leaders
have developed a common response.
The response of these conservatives is always "We're working on it." Often this
response is accompanied by a knowing wink, as if the revival of partisan units has
already happened without anyone noticing. "Just wait and see." This suggests that the
NPA has a top secret invisible sparrow corps, hiding in an underground lair.
One problem with this subjectivist suggestion that the urban partisan teams have
already secretly returned is that throughout the history of the NPA, partisan operations
have never been concealed. There would be no reason for partisan teams to covertly
kill people like ninja assassins. Joma has always maintained that the NPA is a
political-military force, and partisan teams are no exception. They organize highly
publicized actions designed to demonstrate the revolution's ability to strike the enemies
of the masses, regardless of rank, anytime, anywhere. Concealing partisan actions
would defeat their entire purpose as political-military operations.
The subjectivist “wait and see” view of the problem will never lead to an effective
solution, because it does not see the problem at all. Before one can discuss the need to
revive the urban partisan teams, one must first understand the current status of these
operations with a sober and objective approach.

__________________________

Urban partisan operations have drastically declined from 1985, when the AFP
reported 1500 liquidations per year, to less than 8 per year from 2019 to 2023 across
the entire Philippines. Many would argue that the numbers are small because minor
partisan operations went unreported. Even assuming that the number of partisan
operations are four or five times higher than what is reported, the partisan activity falls

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far short of 1985 levels, by more than a factor of fifty. The readers can draw their own
conclusions from this comprehensive tally of announced NPA partisan operations from
2019 to 2023, drawn from the reports of Ang Bayan and NDF-CPP-NPA press releases:

2019 (SIX OPERATIONS)

DATE TARGET CATEGORY NPA COMMAND
1/6/19 Joseph Gavia CAFGU NPA-Central Negros
(Leonardo Panaligan Command)
1/8/19 PO3 Rodelph De Saldajeno PNP-Rizal NPA-Southern Tagalog
4/5/19 Peter Delos Santos (released) CAFGU NPA-Negros
Rocky Bueta (released)
Remando Malupa (arrested)
5/12/19 2 unnamed soldiers AFP NPA-Eastern Visayas
9/7/19 Boy Singkit (after trial) Death Squad NPA-Northern Samar
(Rodante Urtal Command)
10/20/19 Jason “Dasoy” Ribay Death Squad NPA-Northern Samar
(after trial) (Rodante Urtal Command)

2020 (FOUR OPERATIONS)

DATE TARGET CATEGORY NPA COMMAND
6/11/20 Macky Pacunla CAFGU NPA-Central Negros
8/17/20 Elmo Cardinas informer NPA-Southeast Negros (Rachelle
(after trial) Mae Palang Command)
8/18/20 PSSgt. Restie Dandan AFP NPA-Surigao del Norte
9/4/20 Benedicto Omblero informer NPA-Northern Negros
(Roselyn Jean Pelle Command)

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2021 (SEVEN OPERATIONS)

DATE TARGET CATEGORY NPA COMMAND
3/28/21 Norberto Bandojo alias Patrick informer NPA-Sorsogon
3/28/21 Raymundo Fombuena alias Kaday informer NPA-Sorsogon
6/13/2021 Ronie Cabania Criminal Gang NPA-Quezon
Leader
8/18/21 Jessie Silva Informer NPA-Central Negros
Leonardo Panaligan Command
9/2/21 Cerilo "Jerlo" Paderna CAFGU NPA-Central Negros
Commander Leonardo Panaligan Command
9/3/21 Elmer Caratu CAFGU NPA-Central Negros
Commander Leonardo Panaligan Command
9/25/21 SSgt. Allan Madellar PNP SBC-NPA-Albay

2022 (TWO OPERATIONS)

DATE TARGET CATEGORY NPA COMMAND
9/5/22 MSgt. Israel Rebosura PNP Intel NPA-Sorsogon
9/24/22 Joselito Raboy CAFGU NPA-Central Negros
Leonardo Panaligan Command

2023 (SIX OPERATIONS)

DATE TARGET CATEGORY NPA COMMAND
2/20/23 Pvt. John Paul C. Adalim AFP NPA-Albay
Pvt. Mark June D. Esico
4/16/23 Jorge Javier Informer A-Negros
4/18/23 Joven Pasinabo (after trial) Informer NPA-Central Negros
Nene Tobias (after trial) Leonardo Panaligan Command
10/14/23 Rey Esposado alias Rigor Death Squad NPA-Sorsogon
Celso Minguez Command
12/15/23 Romel Hapa alias Ian (after trial) Criminal NPA-Sorsogon
Celso Minguez Command
12/27/23 Sunnyboy Teves CAFGU (NPA)-Central Negros
Leonardo Panaligan Command

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Based on this low activity, it is no wonder that on November 28. 2018, PNP
Director Oscar Albayalde doubted whether NPA sparrow teams currently exist. If they
do, they are ad hoc formations that assemble infrequently for a specific mission, and
then disband.
It should be noted that this tally includes the years in which Joma was exhorting
the CPP to urgently revive the sparrow teams in order to counter Duterte's reign of
terror. Despite Joma's efforts, these numbers do not show any significant increase, all
the way up to Joma's death.
Urban Partisan Operations by Year
8
6
4
2
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Joma said that the strategy of reviving partisan units is to "render justice to the
victims of the fascist terrorism of the Duterte regime, punish the notorious human
rights violators as well as the corrupt officials." The pattern of targets above, however,
does not follow a strategy. The chart is full of low-ranking nobodies, mostly targets of
opportunity who were caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. Absent from the
chart are any high-ranking commanders, or any key leaders of the national red-tagging
operations of NTF-ELCAC. Assuming that the CPP-NPA would report its most
significant operations, the low quantity of targets is also of very low quality.
Another hint to the absence of strategy is that partisan operations are not
happening in the strategically important areas. For example, the CPP-NPA has not
conducted a single strike in the Manila NCR region during the period studied, and
probably for decades. This suggests that Manila is a safe haven for reactionaries,
completely out of the reach of the NPA.

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PARTISAN TARGETS BY CATEGORY, 2019-2023

CAFGU 30% INFORMER 30%

CAFGU
AFP
PNP
DEATH SQUAD
INFORMER
AFP 13% DEATH SQUAD 13%
PNP 13%

It is obvious that the enemy combatants today stand only a tiny chance of being
targeted by an NPA partisan unit. To understand this, the rate of less than 8 partisan
operations per year must be weighed in comparison with the size of the police and
military. The AFP has 150,000 members and the PNP has 228,000 officers.
Statistically, government soldiers and police are more likely to die of smoking or heart
disease, rather than from urban warfare with the NPA. Since partisan operations
currently pose such a small risk, it is difficult to see how they would have influenced
the course of events during Duterte's reign. Just the opposite: the lack of NPA presence
in the cities likely emboldened Duterte's behavior.
The NPA's progress was so unimpressive that Joma had to re-announce the revival
of the partisan teams on several different occasions since 2019. By 2023, Joma could
not withhold his disappointment, and in his last interview, gave his analysis as to what
is going wrong:
The organization of rural-based NPA units for (Armed City Partisan)-
type operations in the urban areas has been dormant or too slow until
now probably because the regional and central organs of leadership have
been unable to provide the command to coordinate the rural-based and
urban-based regional leaderships. There might also have been a problem
of defining the physical and personality targets on the basis of
intelligence and prosecutorial collection of evidence as basis for arrest of

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die-hard enemies or punitive operations in urban areas by the NPA. The

critique of conservatism covers these matters.
Jose Maria Sison’s analysis of complacency and conservatism that caused this sluggish
progress is inseparable from his critique of right opportunism. For Joma, these
tendencies are not neutral or apolitical—they represent a retreat from the revolutionary
path and are ideologically rooted in petty-bourgeois fear and comfort-seeking. Through
documents like Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rectify Errors, Sison called for a
constant ideological struggle within the Party to prevent these rightist deviations from
taking root. His legacy reminds revolutionary forces that victory can only be achieved
by upholding a militant and class-conscious line, rejecting all forms of compromise,
conservatism, and complacency.

__________________________________________________

The NPA's failure in partisan operations has gotten so profound that targets are
unharmed even when the CPP publicly announces that they are targets.
When the CPP makes a public call for the NPA to take action, the masses should
expect that the NPA will faithfully follow its principles, specifically, Rule #1 of the
Basic Rules of the New People's Army:
The New People’s Army shall always adhere to the leadership of the
Communist Party of the Philippines and thus, it must abide with all
decisions, orders and directives of the National Congress, Central
Committee, Political Bureau and the Military Commission of the Party.
Accordingly, when the CPP and the NPA make a public announcement that justice will
be served, the masses should expect that the job will get done.

The NPA Condemns Aran Boller for Multiple Murder,

and Then Leaves Him Unharmed.
The NPA put their integrity on the line when it publicly announced a sanction
against a mayor who had served with the Alsa Masa death squads and was now
employing murder for his own political gain.
In November 2018, the Arnulfo Ortiz Command (AOC) of the New People’s Army
in Western Samar publicly announced: "The special operations group of the AOC

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attempted to carry out the decision of the people’s court to impose the death penalty on
Aran Boller, ex-mayor of Matuguinao, who managed to escape justice. Boller was
found guilty as the criminal mastermind behind the series of unsolved killings and
other acts of reactionary violence in the town." Boller was known to be a prominent
member of the Alsa Masa death squad, and to have murdered his political opponents.
Seven years later, Aran Boller is not only alive and well, but he
has regained his seat as mayor, and is openly supportive of the NTF-
ELCAC, the government office charged with red-tagging activists.
To date, the NPA has failed to enforce the decision of the
people's court, and a dangerous Alsa Masa murderer has been free to
reign over the people for years.

Due to the NPA's Failure, A Colonel Goes Free and Subsequently Kills
Concha Araneta's Husband, Reynaldo Bocala.
On January 5, 2021, the Communist Party of the Philippines called on the New
People’s Army to “avenge the Tumandok people and heed their clamor for justice”
after soldiers and police massacred 9 and arrested 17 on Panay Island.
The CPP statement said, "Elements of the Criminal Investigation and Detection
Group (CIDG) Region 6 commanded by Lt. Col. Gervacio Balmaceda were
responsible for the crime."
Responding to a media query, Marco Valbuena, Chief Information Officer of the
CPP, tweeted that there is a standing order for the NPA to “form partisan teams to mete
out punishment” against armed enemy units who have committed crimes against the
people, including the Tumandok massacre.
Unfortunately, it appears that the NPA did not heed the CPP's public call.
Balmaceda was untouched.
This failure led to serious consequences. After the NPA failed to act for four
months, Balmaceda went to Iloilo on May 29, 2021, where he shot and killed 74 year-
old Reynaldo Bocala, a peace consultant for the National Democratic Front and
husband to fellow peace consultant Concha Araneta.

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 Maybelle Guerrero

The NTF-ELCAC praised Balmaceda's assassination of Bocala as "a giant leap in

the government’s anti-insurgency campaign." Even after the heinous killing of a
beloved kasama, the NPA seemed unwilling or unable to carry out the CPP's directive
to mete out justice.
To date, not only is Balmaceda is alive and well, but he was transferred to Cebu
City, where he was promoted to full colonel.
On January 3, 2024, Ang Bayan Ngayon reported that people's organizations
marked the third anniversary of the Tumandok Massacre. The report states: "To date,
none of the perpetrators have been punished or even charged."

The CPP Vows Justice for the Perpetrators of the Calabarzon Bloody
Sunday Massacre, Then Does Nothing.
The CPP and the NPA promised bold action following the public outcry over what
is now known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre.
On March 9, 2021, Marco Valbuena, Chief Information Officer of the CPP, stated:
"The Filipino people and the revolutionary movement consider as criminals the police
personnel under the PNP-Calabarzon and military forces under the Southern Luzon
Command who are directly involved in the bloody March 7 mass murder of nine
workers and peasant leaders and activists in Southern Tagalog."

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The language of the CPP announcement could not have been clearer. Valbuena
stated: "In line with the overall plan to dispatch special partisan units to carry out select
tactical offensives to punish fascist criminals, concerned NPA units can take the
initiative to mount these actions at the soonest possible time."
Subsequent to the CPP's announcement, government prosecutors named and
charged 17 PNP police officers for the Bloody Sunday murders. The Philippine courts
summarily dismissed all charges.
Despite CPP's bold promise to “dispatch special partisan units to carry out select
tactical offensives to punish fascist criminals. . . at the soonest possible time," it
appears that no special partisan unit was ever dispatched against the 17 police officers.
Four years have passed.
In all of the above cases -- Aran Boller, Col. Balmaceda, and the officers of the
Bloody Sunday Massacre -- the CPP and the NPA took no action, and have allowed
the perpetrators of these injustices to remain unharmed, free to continue their crimes.
What makes these failures notable is that the CPP and the NPA publicly committed
to these operations, and then failed to carry them out, apparently in violation of NPA's
Basic Rule #1, that the NPA "must abide with all decisions, orders and directives of the
National Congress, Central Committee, Political Bureau and the Military Commission
of the Party."

______________________________________

Duterte eventually took advantage of the NPA's 30-year withdrawal of urban

partisan teams to conduct a broad terrorist campaign against the left in the cities,
because Duterte knew that the reactionary forces could act with total impunity.
In December 2018, following the collapse of peace talks with the NDF, Duterte
established the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-
ELCAC) through Executive Order No. 70. Its mission is to carry out red-tagging, a
psyops terror tactic of publicly accusing activists and opposition politicians as
communists across social media and traditional media. This public shaming amplifies
the effect of military operations, prior to killing the targets or detaining them on
trumped up charges.
Red-tagging was used in preparation to nearly all of Duterte's extrajudicial killings

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or false arrests. During his reign, Duterte wrongly detained 801 political activists, and
assassinated 442 human rights defenders, LGBT activists, church and health workers,
journalists, environmentalists, women, peasants and indigenous people serving the
masses.
The staff of the NTF-ELCAC and local politicians have nothing to fear in the
urban areas, and therefore, they wage war on the masses as a regular 9-to-5 job. The
red-tagging staff call for violence, while they themselves have no fear of repercussions
for their heinous actions. They are even known to bring barangay leaders to deliver
death threats to union officials and their families, right in their houses.
NTF-ELCAC bureaucrats see no need to take security precautions, because they
have never been targeted by partisan action. They conduct themselves like a digital
P.R. firm, tending to their facebook page of over 200,000 followers.
NTF-ELCAC's explicit goal is to dominate public discourse in schools, in
workplaces, in barangay halls, as well as on television, radio, and social media –
anywhere in which an individual may learn of alternatives to the ruling system. By
suppressing the ability to protest, the entire Filipino population is intimidated into
compliance.
Whenever cadres call for the CPP to take action against red-tagging, conservatives
within the CPP continually downplay the problem. They dismiss these concerns,
arguing that the economic conditions will keep the masses supporting the revolution,
despite NTF-ELCAC's violence-backed propaganda.
The conservative CPP members who hold this dismissive view are mostly older
cadres who grew up without social media. Their mindset is in the 1970's and 1980's.
They have failed to do a social investigation into current conditions, to see that the red-
tagging effort is a very successful multi-channel psyop to maximize the effect of
extrajudicial killings of valuable activists.
One of the few older leaders who understood NTF-ELCAC's threat was Professor
Sison, who, despite being from the martial law generation, was not only a consumer
but an avid producer of social media content. For many years, Joma sounded the alarm
against red-tagging, repeatedly calling for partisan teams to be activated to deal with
the threat.

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_________________________________

The reasons for the CPP-NPA's 30-year history of dismantling urban partisan
teams are not entirely clear. Even today, NPA veterans from the 1980's who served in
sparrow teams will explain that they were ordered to disband because of “ideological
errors.” Those same cadres are generally unaware that Joma had been advocating,
since as early as 2015, for the reactivation of partisan teams, and that the CPP central
committee called for the return of urban partisan teams as recently as 2021.
The decision to stand down the partisan teams can be best explained as an over-
correction from the Second Great Rectification of 1992. Starting in 1986, the NPA
leadership came to realize that many units had veered from the Maoist path of
strengthening its mass base in the countryside. Instead, some NPA units formed large
conventional forces, with the intention to march on the capital to ignite a spontaneous
urban insurrection. These adventurist strategies failed, because the large formations
were vulnerable to government air strikes and artillery.
Following military defeats such as in Marag Valley in Northern Luzon and several
in Mindanao, paranoia spread. Mindanao interim party chief Ricardo Reyes blamed
these military defeats on an infiltration of deep penetration agents within the rank and
file. Reyes launched Kampanyang Ahos, using partisan teams to arrest, torture, and
assassinate leftists whom they suspected of betraying the revolution. As a result, about
900 NPA fighters and civilian activists – innocent brothers and sisters of the revolution
– were tortured and killed by their own comrades.
As NPA leadership became aware of these atrocities, they also realized that
Romulo Kintanar, the NPA commander of Mindanao forces, was involved in
criminality such as bank robberies and kidnappings for personal gain. Again, urban
partisan teams were prominently featured in these crimes.
Professor Sison and other cadres responded in the 1992 party plenum by launching
the Second Great Rectification. Joma called for the CPP-NPA to return to the strategy
of focusing on the mass base in the countryside, and to avoid the errors of both left
opportunism and right opportunism, which he considered to be the root of the NPA's
recent defeats and excesses.
Left opportunism involves urban insurrectionism, adventurism, and sectarianism.

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This tendency is marked by a disregard for objective conditions, leading to premature

or isolated armed actions and a rejection of necessary alliances and mass work. On the
other hand, right opportunism is characterized by reformism, revisionism, and
capitulation. Right opportunists tend to overestimate the enemy strength, and seek
compromises with the ruling class that dilute the revolutionary essence of the
movement. Joma called for leftist cadres to avoid both these tendencies, and return to
the path of encircling the cities from the countryside.
The Second Rectification did not simply involve a correction of ideology, but led
to major policy changes. The CPP-NPA painfully admitted that its leaders committed
atrocities, and sought to punish those responsible.
The CPP-NPA never properly mourned the loss of their kasamas from
Kampanyang Ahos, and it took many years to remove the taint of the criminal actions
of Kintanar and others. These atrocities left a lasting trauma, and affected the self-
confidence of the revolutionaries, whose dedication to justice should have prevented
these travesties.
During this rectification, urban partisan teams became associated with urban
insurrectionism, criminality and human rights abuses. Therefore, between 1992 and
2016, NPA commanders gradually disbanded their sparrow teams, because they wanted
to break with a shameful past.
The ensuing years after 1992 were marked by growth and stability as the NPA
focused on building its rural peasant base under the leadership of Benito and Wilma
Tiamzon. But the elimination of partisan teams had negative consequences. It lowered
the NPA's influence in the urban areas to the point where the Philippine police and
military could treat cities as safe rear areas for rest and rearming of their forces.
Eventually, the government would use its own assassination squads to deny these rear
areas to the left, by targeting any civilians who appear to question the imperialist
system. The NPA sat back and watched the government commit atrocities in the cities,
because the NPA had abandoned its only tool for fighting back – the urban partisan
teams.
The Second Rectification succeeded in combating left opportunism. But it was so
successful in building the rural base that NPA members started to develop an
institutional mindset, sliding into right opportunism. According to Joma, the Third
Rectification Against Conservatism is a response to this swing toward right

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 Sison's Unfinished Tasks

opportunism. As Joma had said, “The refusal to launch offensives when the enemy is
vulnerable, or to mobilize the masses when conditions are ripe, is a clear indicator of
right opportunist thinking. It allows the enemy to regain strength while our forces
stagnate” (Reaffirm, 1992).
By 2017, Joma saw the need for the sparrows' return. In an interview with Kodao
in 2017, he said, “When there is impunity in the killing of revolutionaries, and the
killing of people without arms, the armed revolutionary movement can launch punitive
actions... Urban partisans can take action against those who are notorious for
extrajudicial killings and human rights violations.”
Complacency within the Party, Joma explained, stems from a sense of satisfaction
with minimal achievements—maintaining organizational stability, limited mass
influence, or legal presence—while avoiding the more dangerous and dynamic aspects
of revolutionary struggle. This desire to "keep things as they are" reflects a bourgeois-
conservative mindset, one that fundamentally contradicts the dialectical materialist
view that reality is constantly changing and that revolutionary forces must constantly
adjust and intensify their engagement with class contradictions. In Reaffirm, Joma
warned against getting too comfortable: “There is a tendency among some cadres to
rest on past laurels, cling to their positions, and treat revolutionary work like a
bureaucratic career... This conservatism is nothing but right opportunism in ideological
disguise.”
The CPP central committee has published statements formally agreeing with
Joma's insistence on the revival of urban partisan teams. It appears, however, that no
one in the CPP leadership has made a serious plan for meeting the enormous
challenges that such a mission would entail. At this point, the NPA has not maintained
standing urban partisan teams for at least two generations. A revival of partisan teams
would require not just an abandonment of right opportunistic thinking, but a change in
organization, a sharing of best practices from the few partisan teams that remain, and a
complete re-training that could take months if not years. It can be expected that
mistakes would be made. In addition, successful partisan operations requires
improvement in gathering and sharing of intelligence. To match Duterte's right wing
vision of terror and autocracy, the Philippine left must construct a militant strategy of
the same scope and scale.
If the CPP-NPA revives the city partisans, red tagging will not cease overnight.

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 Maybelle Guerrero

Even during the Martial Law years when the sparrows were at their height, leftists
continued to face assassination. But a revival of partisan teams in the 21st century
would send a clear a message to the masses that the CPP-NPA is the most disciplined
and effective organization in the Philippines working on their behalf. Further, it will
curtail the red-taggers' freedom of movement, and demonstrate that the revolution will
mete out justice for the masses anytime, anywhere. If the sparrows return, red taggers
and state terrorists will be on notice that there is no place to hide. Only then can we
say that we have fulfilled the tasks that Joma began in the Third Rectification.

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