2 February 2014

Answers to Brazilian Comrade Thalles Castellani's request for clarification regarding the NDFP
view of the Moro people and their armed resistance movement.
Dear Comrade Thalles Castellani,
We received your questions and consider these as an honest request for clarification regarding the
NDFP's views regarding the Moro people and their armed resistance movement.
Hereunder are our clarifications regarding the Moro people's revolutionary struggle.
Sincerely yours,
Luis G. Jalandoni
Chief International Representative
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
The NDFP recognizes, respects and supports the historical and current struggle of the Moro people
for national self-determination. The Moro people have this inalienable right of national selfdetermination. This right includes the right to secede from an oppressive state and to have a genuine
regional autonomy under conditions of non-oppression.
The Moro people have the right to wage armed struggle against an oppressive state. They have long
been exploited and oppressed. They include workers, peasants, rural and urban petty bourgeoisie
and the middle bourgeoisie.. Not included in the term people are the exploiting and oppressor
classes of landlords and compradors (agents and cohorts of the foreign monopoly bourgeoisie.).
As Comrade Mao Zedong declared: Whoever sides with the revolutionary people is a
revolutionary. Whoever sides with imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism is a
counterrevolutionary. Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in words only but acts otherwise
is a revolutionary in speech. Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in deed as well as in word
is a revolutionary in the full sense.
We hold that the Moro people's struggle for self determination is a revolutionary struggle against
the counterrevolutionary government based in Manila and backed by US imperialism.
There is an estimated five million Moros in the Philippines.. They are mostly in southwestern
Philippines. They suffer from the forcible grabbing of their ancestral lands and other forms of
exploitation and oppression, including chauvinism..
There are various organizations of the Moros:
1. The Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization (MRLO) consists of revolutionary Moros who
struggle for the Moro people's self determination and support the Filipino people's revolutionary
struggle led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. It is an allied member organization of the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The NDFP can ally itself to any Moro
organization that fights for the right to self-determinatiom Thus, it has allied itself with the MNLF
or the MILF at one time or another, especially under conditions of waging armed struggle against
the Manila reactionary government as enemy.

2. The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which has forged the Framework Agreement with the
Government of the Philippines (GPH) under the Aquino administration. It has signed Annexes on
Normalization (including Decommissioning of its Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces), Wealth and
Power Sharing and Transition. It has agreed to an arrangement under the reactionary Manila
government in a sub-state to state relationship. It remains to be seen whether the GPH and MILF
can really go into a peace agreement.
3. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which signed a final peace agreement with the
GPH in 1996, but is now opposing the GPH-MILF Framework Agreement and is complaining of
being left out of the GPH-MILF peace negotiations. It has announced preparations for starting
armed actions against the Manila government.
4. The Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) which split from the MILF in 2008 and
continues to wage armed struggle for independence against the Aquino reactionary government.
Often in the news is the Abu Sayyaf group. It is referred as as a jihadist group linked to the Al
Qada. In fact, it was organized by the CIA and the Philippine military in 1991 in order to
undermine the Moro people's struggle for national self-determination. It is a relatively small group
that is used by the CIA and the reactionary government and military. It engages in kidnap for
ransom and other anti-people actions.
The overwhelming majority of provinces in Mindanao are inhabited by non-Islamic people and
are covered by revolutionary organizations of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New
People's Army and other revolutionary organizations. Only five provinces of Mindanao have been
considered as belonging to the Bangsamoro (Moroland) inhabited mostly by Muslims.
There is a significant number of non-Islamic tribal communities called Lumads (People of the
Earth) numbering several millions. They are mostly poor peasants and workers who also fight for
their ancestral lands and militantly oppose foreign mining and plantation corporations that grab
their lands and destroy the environment. An increasing number are joining the revolutionary
movement of the Filipino people.#