Today, the 22nd of April, as the world commemorates Earth Day, the

National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Mindanao wishes to renew

its unwavering commitment in the struggle to save and to defend our

one and only planet Earth. But sad to say that today, the survival of

our generation and the generations thereafter is seriously threatened

by the seemingly unstoppable destruction of the habitat of the human

race.

This is so mainly because of the imperialists’ global impunity to

plunder and destroy our planet’s environ, placing super-profit above

the interest and welfare of the whole humanity. Our commitment to

Mother Earth is the commitment to fight side-by-side with all the

peoples of the world in the struggle against the plunderer, oppressive

and exploitative US imperialist-led global order.

The US-imperialist-led globalization and China’s modern revisionist

block are scrambling to plunder both the human and natural resources

of Third World countries such as the Philippines in their destructive

capitalist competition for raw materials, thereby destroying the

environment of these client countries, and degrading as a whole the

global environment with their extremely pollutant factories and heavy

industries.

Lately, the thousands of US-imperialist troops have come like

conquerors masquerading through the “Balikatan” exercises (US-RP

joint military exercises), but in fact they are here to secure their

plunder in our country and in the Asia Pacific region, in the same

breath that the Chinese modern revisionists wish to plunder our

resource-rich islands in the West Philippine Sea to fill their need

for raw materials.

These are the very imperialist countries that have refused to sign the

Kyoto Protocol in 1997 attended by no less than 130 countries that

aims to drastically reduce the levels of pollution worldwide. Their

unrestrained and unplanned over-production in the name of super-profit

not only chokes our world environment, they also literally choke the

lives of workers, peasants and the whole working class of the world,

and imperil the very survival of the whole humanity.

We have seen how this has been happening in the last six decades here

in Mindanao. First, there was the forest denudation due to wanton

logging, then followed the land monopoly and complete scraping of vast

tracts of lands for mono-crop plantations, and now the complete

destruction and depletion of our mineral lands by large-scale mining.

All of these resulted to periodic catastrophes with such disastrous

effect to Mindanao, as was seen in the aftermath of typhoon Sendong.

Mindanao, once touted as the “land of promise,” held no promise

for poor peasants, workers and even the middle classes, but for

imperialists, big bourgeois compradors and big landlord classes in

their insatiable pursuit for super-profit. These imperialists are the

US, Japan, China, Great Britain and other countries with similar

imperialist rapacity, colluding with big bourgeois compradors and big

landlord classes such as Pangilinan, Zamora, Gutierrez, Enrile,

Alcantara, Floreindo, Lobregat and others from their class.

Although they are in cut-throat competition against one another,

together as a class, they connive these past decades to deplete,

destroy and denude our forests; they conspire with malevolence to grab

and monopolize vast tracts of land for agri-business and to prevent

land reform and national industrialization; and, they stop at nothing

to build giant industries highly injurious to the ecosystem, causing

erosion, landslides and siltation, poisoning and polluting land, air,

water, and marine resources – all of which inflict unimaginable

damage to property, and untold misery to our people in Mindanao.

They conspire with the reactionary regimes to create laws and policies

that can satisfy their greed for super-profit, such as the policies on

logging ban, Agrarian Reform Law, the Mining Act of 1995, CADT/CADC,

and many other similar anti-people, anti-environment laws. They have

funded media apologists and pseudo people’s and non-government

organizations to peddle palliative solutions to our environmental

woes, such as ecology-related campaigns and even faking land reform,

passing on their environmental crimes to other sectors while veering

away from the more fundamental issues of patrimony, sovereignty,

genuine land reform and national industrialization.

As the people continue to oppose these devious schemes, fascist as

they are, they crush all forms of resistance, if only to show that

nothing can block their interest. We are witness to the massive

militarization in the countryside in areas where large-scale

multi-national mining corporations and large-scale plantations are

operating, such as in mineral-rich Caraga, Compostela Valley and Davao

Provinces; in the Cotabato provinces where the biggest gold mining in

Southeast Asia, the SMI-Xstrata, and the Dole plantations are; in the

Zamboanga Peninsula where the highly militarized Toronto Ventures Inc

(TVI) is; and, in other parts of Mindanao.

The US-Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan (OPB) combat and

civil-military operations are designed to clear the area for the

establishment and protection of these multinational corporations, such

as the Taganito Mining Corporation, Sumitomo THPAL, SRMI, Xstrata,

TVI, Del Monte, Sumifru, Dolephil plantations, and others. In behalf

of these companies, the Army, Police, Cafgu and fanatical armed groups

launch with impunity extra-judicial killings, RSOT/COPD, and sustained

and periodic military campaigns and operations.

Saving Mother Earth is a must; we must act now! If left unchecked, our

planet will no longer be a safe habitat for human beings, but for

“mutants.” The principal plunderers and Earth destroyers must be

punished, as we have done so to the large-scale mining companies of

Taganito, SRMI, SMI-Xstrata, and to the plantations of Dole, Del Monte

and Sumifru. They must be rendered incapable of inflicting even more

large-scale damage to Mother Earth!

Thus, it is imperative for the Filipino people to unite and overthrow

the puppet regime that allows these plunderers to trample on our

sovereignty and patrimony. It is imperative for the Filipino people to

unite with the peoples of the world to stop and set asunder the menace

that plague Mother Earth – the imperialist global order.

The imperialists and their cohorts may appear invincible, but the

Chinese and Vietnamese revolutionaries have shown to the world that,

indeed, they can collectively defeat these imperialist paper tigers,

drive them off their shores, and drown them in the sea of the

people’s war. Defeating these imperialists and their local lackeys

through a protracted people’s war in our soil is but one small

contribution in the world scale fight to save our planet from total

perdition, but surely a great one for our people’s national

liberation.

Save our country, defeat the imperialist and their local running dogs!

People of the world unite, set asunder imperialist global order to

save Mother Earth!