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The Great Pretender (NUPL Parody)

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A “matrix” was released by the Office of the President last April 22, alleging media groups and the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) as involved in the conspiracy to destabilize the Rodrigo Duterte government.

In this music video based on the popular The Platters song “The Great Pretender, some members of the NUPL sing their hearts out to protest the “association matrix” that links journalists and lawyers as purportedly behind a destabilization plot.

A hilarious–yet serious–allegation deserves no less.

‘Magic matrix’

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“The source of that is from the Office of the President, from the President himself. I don’t know how he got one but it’s coming from the President. I talked to him the other day,” chief presidential legal adviser and presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said.

Last April 16 in Tuguegarao City, Duterte said intelligence reports have been fed to him from “foreign” sources about the supposed coordinated media plot to discredit him. Panelo admitted that the President himself ordered him to release the matrix in a Malacañan press conference Monday, April 22.

Cartoon by Mark Suva/Kodao

‘Kalokohan ‘yang Red October na ‘yan’

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“Iyong Red October plot na inilalako ng gubyerno, kalokohan talaga iyon. Mabuti pa, pag-usapan na lang ang panawagan ng magsasaka dahil ang Oktubre ay Peasant Month.”—Evangeline Hernandez, Chaiperson, Hustisya

Duterte ouster more likely than CPP’s defeat, Sison says

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Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison laughed off President Rodrigo Duterte’s claim that the revolutionary movement would be finished by the middle of next year.

Sison said he thinks Duterte is taking too much of the anti-pain drug Fentanyl, leading him to have “pipe dreams.”

“Duterte is delusional by claiming that he shall have destroyed the CPP-New People’s Army (NPA) and the entire revolutionary movement of the people by the middle of next year,” Sison said after Duterte said in a speech his government is winning the war against the rebels.

In a speech at Camp Melchor dela Cruz, headquarters of the Philippine Army’s 5th Infantry Division, in Gamu, Isabela Tuesday, September 18, Duterte claimed his government is winning the war against the revolutionary movement.

“I think, God willing, this will be over by about the second quarter of next year. Many are surrendering,” Duterte said.

Duterte commended the 5th ID for its active and relentless efforts against threat groups in Cagayan Valley.

But Sison said Duterte forgets that his government’s “campaigns of mass murder, mass intimidation, fake surrenders and fake encounters under Oplan Kapayapaan are angering the people and inciting them to íntensify their resistance.”

Sison added it is Duterte’s bankrupt and weakened government that is ready to be toppled due to corruption as well as soaring prices of basic goods and services that make him the target of the “people’s rising hatred.”

“The people consider Duterte a clown” as they “reject the traitorous, tyrannical, murderous and corrupt character of his regime,” Sison said.

The communist leader said it is more likely that Duterte would be ousted from power than that he could destroy the people´s revolutionary movement by the middle of next year. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Sison, Magdalo: No conspiracy; Duterte ousting himself

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Prof. Jose Maria Sison dared Rodrigo Duterte to publicly present what the President claimed to be recorded conversations given to him by a “sympathetic foreign country.”

“Duterte is lying and bluffing by claiming that there are recorded conversations provided by a foreign government,” Sison said in a statement.

In a quick riposte to Duterte’s televised interview Tuesday with his legal adviser Salvador Panelo, Sison said he knew his former student long enough as “a congenital liar and an incorrigible political swindler.”

In his televised conversation with Panelo, Duterte claimed that Trillanes’ Magdalo Party, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and his other political opponents are conspiring to oust him.

“Sison, Magdalo, pati iyong mga ayaw sa akin. ‘Yung talagang ayaw tumanggap sa akin ever since the election – they have combined,” adding he has evidence of the plot given him by a foreign country. (Sison, Magdalo, including those who don’t want me. Those who never really accepted me ever since the election – they have combined.)

Sison and leaders of the Magdalo Party have readily denied Duterte’s accusation.

Sison said that while the broad united front promoted by the CPP against the Duterte government is open to all patriotic forces, he said that as far as he knew, there had been no talks between the CPP and [Senator Antonio] Trillanes group or the Liberal Party.

“The experts will easily expose the fakery if he dares to present anything. This could be something like his invented foreign bank accounts of Trillanes,” Sison added.

Magdalo Party Rep. Gary Alejano also denied Duterte’s accusation in a statement Tuesday night, saying “I categorically deny that the Magdalo is involved in any oust plot against the President.”

“This is only meant to divert the attention of the people from the present economic woes they themselves have failed to address. If there is someone destabilizing the present government, they should not look beyond themselves for they are ones destabilizing it,” the statement added.

Sison added Duterte has shown he is worried to death and desperate as to imagine that he would be ousted next month.

“But it might take a little more time to build up the broad united front and the mass movement and prepare the way for the key military and police officers to withdraw support from Duterte,” Sison said.

“At any rate, Duterte will be lucky if he survives 2018 and even luckier if he survives middle of 2019,” he added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)