The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) extends its warmest greetings of solidarity and felicitations to the many generations of Abertzales gathered here today for the Founding Congress of SORTU. Together with the revolutionary people of the Philippines, we reiterate our firm support for the Basque people in their continuing struggle for national liberation and genuine democracy.

We commend your efforts to unite independent leftists, socialists, workers, and the least favored citizens under the banner of SORTU, and to build a new social framework based on the recognition of the Basque country and its inalienable right to self-determination. Your aspirations of being an instrument for freedom and democracy for the Basque people is equally commendable.

The Filipino people are themselves in the midst of a life-and-death struggle for national freedom and genuine democracy. They live under the yoke of semi-feudal exploitation and repression by the local comprador big bourgeoisie and landlords, and suffer neo-colonial oppression by US imperialism.

Despite the rich natural resources of the country, a vast majority of Filipinos live below the poverty line. The country's riches are plundered by the local economic elite and foreign monopoly corporations led by the US. Local and national government officials earn big money from these corporations in return for keeping down wages and brutally suppressing the people's rights to decent living.

In order to break these historical chains of neo-colonialism and feudalism, the NDFP and the revolutionary people of the Philippines have been waging various forms of struggle in the last four decades. The revolutionary forces currently operate in more than 100 guerilla fronts across the entire archipelago. The New People's Army, under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines, fights to weaken the security forces of the reactionary government and the local warlords mainly in the countryside. Peasant organizations, assisted by the NPA, implement the revolutionary agrarian reform program, in order to reduce land rent, wipe out usury, increase farm workers' wages, increase farm gate prices, and improve agricultural productivity. These same organizations build the foundations of the people's political power in the countryside, the nucleus of the People's Democratic Government.

The Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army, and the 15 other allied organizations of the NDFP are confident of thwarting every attempt of the current US-Aquino regime to debilitate or destroy the revolutionary movement. We are confident in achieving greater victories in implementing agrarian revolution, in destroying the counter-revolutionary armed forces piece by piece, in establishing the People's Democratic Government across the country, and in achieving nationwide victory for the national democratic revolution.

We are hopeful that the bonds of solidarity between the revolutionary Filipino and the Basque peoples will continue to strengthen in our common quest for national liberation and genuine democracy. We are hopeful that SORTU will be instrumental in strengthening these bonds and in pushing the struggle forward towards a free Basque Country.

Long live SORTU!
Victory to the struggle for a free Basque Country!
Long live the solidarity between the Filipino and the Basque peoples! Long live anti-imperialist international solidarity!

LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chief International Representative
National Democratic Front of the Philippines