The NPA didn't succeed in the revolution, but they still provide a lot of support to rural population, in healthcare notably. We have to give them that.
I've heard a lot of negative things from communist friends in the Philippines about them, though they do provide support to rural populations, they're no Shining Path.
I don't have communist friends in the Philippines, so I don't have the insights that you got, most of what I know about them is from the documentaries "Inside the New People's Army" and "Revolution Selfie", which might present a idealised view of their revolution. But I know that their split with PKP was rather dirty, and the bombing Plaza Miranda was a terrible accelerationist move.
Other than their support to the rural population, I appreciate their effort to try to preserve the environment from companies known to disregard it by sabotaging their operations, and also their support for LGBT rights.
I'm open to hearing more about the criticism Filipino communists have towards them.
I have heard the opposite with then environment, they're well known for taking bribes from corpos who mine the areas they control. They're obviously not going to mention this in their own documentaries about themselves.
From what I've heard, they are generally what gives communism in the Philippines a bad name. They're seen as harassing people in remote villages, making them a part of the "revolution" whether they want to or not. Like most Maoist groups, they don't seem to respect the people's right to neutrality. They also spend a lot of their time on PR for random westerners on the internet, a lot of blogs and stuff advertising how well their latest raid of a military convoy went. They feel very...I don't know if LARPy is quite the right word, because they are out there actually doing things, but they seem very focused on adventurism and "being the heroes" rather than organizing the people. This is all second hand knowledge, and my mates could be wrong about them, but they have gotten into some pretty damn heated discussions about the uselessness of the CPP with terminally online western Maoists who seem to think that they're seconds away from liberating the entire country, when they aren't. They're a tiny group hiding out in the mountains, that only continue to exist because the government doesn't view them as a big enough threat to actually bother stamping them out.
One of the biggest reasons I dislike Maoism is because I've seen far too many Maoists accept everything their PR department says at face value, and rejects the actual opinion of the people of the Philippines. Communism is a people's movement, and if a communist movement loses the support of the people, they can't ever hope to win, no matter how "universal" their PPW is.
The NPA didn't succeed in the revolution, but they still provide a lot of support to rural population, in healthcare notably. We have to give them that.
I've heard a lot of negative things from communist friends in the Philippines about them, though they do provide support to rural populations, they're no Shining Path.
I don't have communist friends in the Philippines, so I don't have the insights that you got, most of what I know about them is from the documentaries "Inside the New People's Army" and "Revolution Selfie", which might present a idealised view of their revolution. But I know that their split with PKP was rather dirty, and the bombing Plaza Miranda was a terrible accelerationist move.
Other than their support to the rural population, I appreciate their effort to try to preserve the environment from companies known to disregard it by sabotaging their operations, and also their support for LGBT rights.
I'm open to hearing more about the criticism Filipino communists have towards them.
I have heard the opposite with then environment, they're well known for taking bribes from corpos who mine the areas they control. They're obviously not going to mention this in their own documentaries about themselves.
From what I've heard, they are generally what gives communism in the Philippines a bad name. They're seen as harassing people in remote villages, making them a part of the "revolution" whether they want to or not. Like most Maoist groups, they don't seem to respect the people's right to neutrality. They also spend a lot of their time on PR for random westerners on the internet, a lot of blogs and stuff advertising how well their latest raid of a military convoy went. They feel very...I don't know if LARPy is quite the right word, because they are out there actually doing things, but they seem very focused on adventurism and "being the heroes" rather than organizing the people. This is all second hand knowledge, and my mates could be wrong about them, but they have gotten into some pretty damn heated discussions about the uselessness of the CPP with terminally online western Maoists who seem to think that they're seconds away from liberating the entire country, when they aren't. They're a tiny group hiding out in the mountains, that only continue to exist because the government doesn't view them as a big enough threat to actually bother stamping them out.
One of the biggest reasons I dislike Maoism is because I've seen far too many Maoists accept everything their PR department says at face value, and rejects the actual opinion of the people of the Philippines. Communism is a people's movement, and if a communist movement loses the support of the people, they can't ever hope to win, no matter how "universal" their PPW is.