PAMALAKAYA - The CPP’s Propaganda Instrument in the Fisherfolk Sector

In the ongoing political and social turbulence in the country, one of the most consistent tools used to spread anti-government narratives is the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA). Behind its public image as a fisherfolk advocacy group lies its deeper function - an organized instrument of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for propaganda, agitation, and ideological influence among coastal communities.

Founded in 1987, shortly after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, PAMALAKAYA was not merely a spontaneous people’s organization. It was formed within the broader framework of the CPP’s “revolutionary dual tactics” - a strategy that combines legal, open, and democratic movements with underground revolutionary struggle. Under this scheme, sectoral organizations like PAMALAKAYA serve as the legal and public face of the CPP’s united front operations, enabling the Party to operate within a legal framework while advancing its revolutionary objectives.

Through PAMALAKAYA, the CPP systematically penetrated fishing communities, presenting itself as a champion of the poor while using legitimate sectoral issues as vehicles of propaganda. These issues include coastal reclamation, foreign intrusion in fishing grounds, and now, the much-publicized flood control corruption controversy. Each issue is exploited not to achieve genuine reform, but to agitate the people and erode trust in the government and its institutions.

The CPP’s propaganda machinery works in layers:

1. Identify legitimate social grievances - poverty, corruption, and environmental degradation.

2. Use legal organizations like PAMALAKAYA to appear as the legitimate voice of affected sectors.

3. Inject the Party’s ideological framing, painting all government actions as “fascist,” “anti-people,” or “pro-imperialist.”

4. Divert public anger away from accountability and toward the total delegitimization of the state.

This process has been evident in recent months as PAMALAKAYA and its leaders aggressively linked the flood control project scandals to a broader claim of “militarization” and “state fascism.” The group’s public statements have not only condemned corruption but also attacked the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) - an institution that the CPP has long targeted in its propaganda war. Such attacks are consistent with the Party’s playbook: to weaken public confidence in the AFP and to discredit its programs, including TIKAS, which are intended to strengthen the country’s defense capability and efficiency.

Public attention often centers on Fernando “Ka Pando” Hicap, PAMALAKAYA’s national chairperson and former Anakpawis Party-list representative in the 16th Congress (2013 – 2016), in the legal arena, but a cadre of the CPP in the underground movement. He rose from the fisherfolk networks in Bicol, a region with a long history of the CPP-NPA-NDF presence. His career in the national democratic bloc and his consistent messaging against “imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism” are proof of his firm adherence to the CPP’s ideological line and one of its most enduring sectoral figures.

By weaponizing issues of corruption and social injustice, the CPP seeks to turn legitimate discontent into revolutionary momentum. PAMALAKAYA thus becomes a conduit for disseminating the Party’s central political line — that the Philippine government is “rotten beyond repair” and must be replaced by a so-called “people’s democratic government.”

In this sense, PAMALAKAYA’s campaigns and pronouncements, while framed as grassroots advocacy, operate within a larger propaganda network aimed at undermining the democratic system itself. The fisherfolk sector, like many others, is being drawn into a conflict that disguises ideology under the language of reform and justice.

The Filipino people must recognize this pattern. The struggle against corruption is legitimate and necessary, but it should not be manipulated by groups whose real purpose is to exploit public anger for revolutionary ends. PAMALAKAYA and similar fronts serve not as partners in nation-building but as instruments in a sustained propaganda offensive - one designed not to strengthen democracy, but to destroy it from within.