“Hindi krimen ang lumaban. Ang tunay na krimen, mga kababayan, ay ‘yong nag=aasta lang diktador na lahat ng sabihin mo ay itinuturing na batas. Walang pakialam sa rule of law. Walang pakialam sa due process.”—Rep. Sarah Elago, Kabataan Partylist
Days before President Rodrigo Duterte’s third State of the Nation Address on July 23, the Movement Against Tyranny gathered in Quezon City to assess the government economic policies and Congressional bills.
Economic experts, legislators and legal luminaries presented before the forum their assessment of Duterte’s tax reform law as well as efforts to amend both the Human Security Law and the Constitution.
A week after Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes PA Sereno was ousted by majority of the associate justices of the Supreme Court, students from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College and other groups held another Black Friday Protest along Katipunan Avenue.
Saying the Rodrigo Duterte regime’s looming control of all branches of government does not bode well for democracy in the country, the protesters added the people must be vigilant against the possible declaration of a nationwide martial law.
Activists held a rally in front of the Bureau of Immgration in Manila last April 26, assailing the arrest and detention of Australian missionary Sr. Patricia Fox, NDS.
They called on immigration officials not to deport the nun, saying she has not violated her missionary visa in expressing solidarity with farmers and peasants.
The BI nonetheless ordered Fox’s deportation in line with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s wish to deport the missionary.
Beleaguered Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno slammed “bullying tactics” against her and the judiciary in a speech before civil libertarians last April 9 on the occasion of the Araw ng Kagitingan.
In this video, Sereno asked her audience to join her in the defense of judicial independence.
A day after the predominantly Catholic Philippines celebrated Easter Sunday, hundreds of activists, artists, journalists, past and present government officials and leaders of sectoral organizations gathered at a place in Makati City.
It was an event rarely seen in many years. Most of those who attended would rather not be seen together, much less talk to each other. They have been at odds with each other most of the time as they belong to different political colors.
But they came nonetheless, willing to find out if their love of country can make them talk to each other. They were brought together by the realization that tyranny once again rules the country.
There event had no prepared program, just songs. There were no prepared speeches, just announcements of future events. They spent hours telling stories and the need to stand up for truth, justice and human rights.
They ended the night singing songs and raising fists.
Something extraordinary happened Monday night somewhere in Makati. #
By Prof. Jose Ma. Sison/Telesur
The Negotiating Panels of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) were poised to hold the fifth round of formal peace talks in Oslo when GRP President Duterte went into a daily series of anti-communist rants from November 18, 2017 onwards and subsequently issued Proclamation 360 to terminate the peace negotiations with the NDFP and Proclamation 374 to designate the Communist of the Party of the Philippines (CPP), New People´s Army (NPA), their suspected supporters and financiers as “terrorist.”
Ironically, the two negotiating panels were about to make the biggest advance in the peace process by finalizing and initialing the drafts of the general amnesty to release all the political prisoners listed by the NDFP, Part I Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and Part II National Industrialization and Economic Development of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and the Coordinated Unilateral Ceasefires (as prelude to a bilateral ceasefire agreement).
The panels expected that within the first quarter of 2018 CASER would be ready for signing by the principals and the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms (CAPCR) would be negotiated and forged in coordination with the processes of the GRP Congress in revising the 1987 Constitution and possibly arriving at a consensus of all major political forces on what ought to be a federal system of government. But obviously Duterte had all along wished to preempt and exclude the NDFP from what is now coming to light as his scheme of fascist dictatorship under the pretense of federalism.
Duterte had allowed his panel to engage the NDFP panel in back channel consultations in October 2017 in Utrecht and in subpanel bilateral meetings in Manila from September to November 2017 to complete the aforesaid drafts for panel-to-panel processing until he abruptly changed his mind and terminated the peace negotiations. The somersault followed his extended conversations with U.S. President Trump who supposedly assured him of political and military support for a plan to crack down on the CPP and NPA and finish them off before the end of 2018.
Termination of Peace Negotiations Necessary for Duterte Fascist Dictatorship
Although the plan is overambitious and quite impossible to achieve, it is necessary for Duterte to terminate the peace negotiations and slander the CPP and NPA by labeling them as ”terrorists” to pave the way for further extension of martial law in Mindanao for the whole year of 2018 and the eventual nationwide expansion of martial law directed against the CPP and NPA. This is in line with Duterte´s scheme of imposing his fascist dictatorship on the Philippines.
Even before the first extension of the proclamation of martial law in Mindanao could lapse at the end of 2017, Duterte boasted that he had defeated the Dawlah Islamiyah (Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups) in Marawi City and therefore he had basically no more need for martial law in Mindanao. But he found in the extension of the martial law proclamation a device for including the CPP and NPA as targets in a further extension to the whole of 2018 through the expediency of terminating the peace negotiations and accusing the CPP and NPA of escalating violence and endangering public safety.
Duterte was quite confident of getting the further extension of martial law in Mindanao because of his “supermajority” in his rubber-stamp Congress. He also has a steady majority of at least eight of the justices in the Supreme Court (four are his own recent appointees and five are appointees of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) to uphold his martial law proclamation in the same way that they have been able to dismiss the plunder case against Arroyo and allow the burial of Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani due to Duterte´s super-corrupt alliance with the Luzon-based dynasties of Marcos, Arroyo, Estrada and other notorious plunderers..
Duterte is hell-bent on realizing his scheme to reimpose a fascist dictatorship on the Filipino people by revising and in effect scrapping the 1987 Constitution under the pretext of adopting a federal system of government. The trick is similar to that of Marcos in pretending to opt for a parliamentary form of government in order to scrap the 1935 Constitution and install a fascist dictatorship under the cover of transitory provisions.
Federalism As Pretext for Imposing Duterte Fascist Dictatorship on the People
Duterte is not really keen on establishing a federal system of government but on actually installing a highly centralized unitary kind of a presidential dictatorship on top of regional governments run by dynasties, including warlords and the most corrupt bureaucrat capitalists like himself. The big comprador-landlord state servile to foreign monopoly capitalism will remain intact under his scheme.
To satisfy his appetite for autocratic power, Duterte finds it absolutely necessary to use martial law nationwide in a hysterical and futile attempt to intimidate and suppress the armed revolutionary movement, dissent and opposition in general. The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus provides an effective cover and license for abducting, dispossessing, torturing and murdering revolutionaries and all people who oppose him. Even now, he cannot wait for a court to approve his designation of the CPP and NPA as “terrorists.” He has repeatedly called on his military minions to kill them upon sight.
The Bicameral Resolution No. 8 with the title “Constituting the Senate and the House of Representatives,” of the 17th Congress, into a “Constituent Assembly by Adopting a Federal Form of Government and for Other Purposes” is already on the rails and will be railroaded when congressional sessions resume in January 2018. Duterte and his cohorts will be the sole determinant of the content of the pseudo-federal charter. The charter is already slated for ratification during the May 18 barangay elections. The Kilusang Pagbabago, the Duterte troll army and the pro-Duterte hacks in print and electronic media are all arranged to rah-rah the ratification.
Even before Duterte is able to get a new constitution for his despotic purposes, the Filipino people have become familiar with his propensity for mass murder and deception in Oplan Tokhang. Combine this with the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus under martial law and you can expect a far bigger catastrophe than the Marcos fascist dictatorship in terms of of murder and mayhem.
In the absence of any revolutionary social transformation, the country will be getting more of the same ruling families of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists at all levels of government. Corruption will continue to run rampant on top of excessive expenditures for establishing and elaborating on the regional level of government. The U.S. and other multinational firms will continue to plunder and ravage the human and natural resources of the Philippines.
To get the blessings of the U.S. and other imperialist powers, the new pseudo-federal constitution will get rid of the nationality requirements or restrictions on foreign investments in violation of economic sovereignty and national patrimony by simply inserting the phrase, “unless otherwise provided by law.” Precious limited resources for economic development, at best through centralized and regional planning, will be dissipated by profit remittances and capital repatriation by foreign monopoly firms, bureaucratic corruption and rising bureaucratic and military and police personnel for the central and regional levels of government.
The ever worsening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system will continue to result in the divisiveness of the reactionary classes, the intensification of the anti-imperialist and class struggle, the further rise of the armed revolutionary movement, dissatisfaction of indigenous peoples and national minorities and stronger currents of separatism among the Bangsamoro.
Surpassing Marcos as Best Recruiter and Supplier of the Armed Revolution
Duterte is bound to surpass Marcos as the best recruiter and supply officer of the armed revolution, as the unwitting wrecker of his own regime and ruling system and as provider of an ever more fertile ground for the growth of the people´s democratic revolution through people´s war. However, Duterte does not have as many years left as Marcos had when he imposed fascist dictatorship in 1972. His aberrant speech and behavior reveal the state of his mental and physical health.
His propensity to monopolize political power and bureaucratic loot and his ability to run the reactionary government Mafia style will eventually work against him due to his own personal and class infirmities and more importantly due to the systemic crisis and lethal blows from the revolutionary movement and the people. The adverse results of his broken promises will soon bear heavily upon him. The broad masses of the people are already taking him to task for failing to solve the problem of illegal drugs, for destroying the entire Marawi City and for terminating the peace negotiations with the NDFP.
By his pseudo-independent foreign policy, Duterte is trying to turn the Philippines into a condominium of the imperialist powers. He thinks as if he can freely get, without strings attached, military equipment from these powers and limitless loans for limitless infrastructure building to buoy up the economy and keep himself in power. He has in fact allowed China to trample on the sovereign rights of the Philippines over the West Philippine Sea under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
He is aggravating the semicolonial status of the Philippines as well as the underdeveloped, agrarian and semifeudal character of the economy.
This kind of economy is ever dependent on the export of cheap raw materials, semimanufactures and cheap labor, on the import of foreign manufactures for consumption and on an ever desperate resort to increasing amounts of foreign loans and speculative capital and to higher taxation to cover trade and budgetary deficits.
The broad masses of the people are angered today by the recently railroaded Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN). This further raises the prices of basic goods and services and generates inflation by increasing indirect taxes (excise, sales and value-added taxes) just to cover tax cuts and tax holidays for the upper classes and fund the counterproductive spending and debt servicing by the state. The rates of unemployment and inflation, though understated in official statistics, are actually causing more poverty and misery on a wider scale.
Contrary to the assurances of his neoliberal economic advisers, Duterte cannot be saved by any increase in the GDP growth rate. The higher the growth rate, the bigger the take of the multinational firms, the big compradors and bureaucrat capitalists and the more severe the conditions of underdevelopment, mass unemployment and poverty afflicting the broad masses of the people. In the final analysis, the big problem for the U.S.-directed Duterte regime is that the oppressed and exploited people have an armed revolutionary movement for undertaking meaningful change in terms of national and social liberation.
Thousands of farmers from all over the country marched to Mendiola today at the culmination of their month-long Lakbay Magsasaka national peasant caravan and vowing to defeat the Rodrigo Duterte government’s “fascism”.
About 5,000 farmers, many of whom earlier joined the Lakbayan ng Visayas ang Lakbay Paraoma in Bicol arrived at the National Capital Region Monday to demand genuine land reform and an end to the killings of peasants.
“Today, the Filipino peasant masses vow to further our struggle for genuine land reform through more vigorous land occupation and collective cultivation. Our campaign to dismantle land monopoly, haciendas and plantations will continue and expand on a nationwide scale,” Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) secretary general Antonio Flores said.
The nationwide peasant caravans culminate today in a major mobilization at Mendiola, delivering a strong message to President Duterte against the government’s fascism.
“To the madman in Malacanang, we tell you this: you will never win against the Filipino people. The wars that you launched against us–Oplan Tokhang, Oplan Kapayapaan and martial law in Mindanao—will all fail. Your regime will soon be exposed as one that is fragile, unstable and easy to overthrow,” Flores said.
KMP said 91 farmer leaders and members of peasant organizations have been summarily killed under the 15-month old Duterte government.
“The ultimate sacrifice of the 91 farmers and land reform advocates who were killed in the name of their struggle for land will not be in vain. We demand justice for all the victims of peasant political killings and extrajudicial killings,” Flores said.
The KMP said its collective cultivation campaign has already covered of thousands of hectares outside of the government’s land reform program, noting farmers are already tilling Lupang Kapdula, Lupang Ramos, Hacienda Roxas, Hacienda Luisita, Hacienda Peralta, Hacienda Larrazabal, Hacienda Manubay, Hacienda Uy, Hacienda Dolores, Hacienda Gancayco, Hacienda Yulo and other medium to big landholdings across the country.
“We enjoin all landless farmers and farm workers to occupy and till abandoned lands and properties. A DAR (Department of Agrarian Reform)-sponsored land reform would never work for us. We must assert our own genuine agrarian reform program,” Flores said.
“We will continue to assert genuine land reform, one hectare at a time. We will persevere in our land cultivation activities to achieve a self-sustaining agricultural production that will lay the foundations for genuine rural development,” he added.
Duterte effigy “Dut-in-Boot” being rolled to Mendiola to be burned by participants of Lakbay Magsasaka. (Photo by Kathy Yamzon)
KMP said organized peasants will defeat Duterte’s tyranny through their collective struggle for genuine land reform and resistance to militarization and state-sponsored political killings.
Farmers and peasant leaders from Central Luzon, Cordillera, Southern Luzon, Central and Eastern Visays, Negros, Northern Mindanao, Southern Mindanao and Western Mindanao participated in the Lakbayan who will lead in the burning of another Duterte’s effigy called “Duts-In-Boot.”
KMP said similar protest actions are taking place in the cities of Iloilo, Tandag, Butuan, Surigao, Davao, Bacolod, Tuguegarao and Cebu. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
by Walkie Miraña, Concerned Artists of the Philippines
THE mural says it all. The people’s suffering and oppression will give rise to people’s resistance. It will serve as a fertile ground for the people’s struggle for genuine agrarian reform.
“Padayon” is a Visayan word which means to continue, persist or carry on. For this piece, Padayon meant “onwards with the people’s struggle for land.” It was Talusan Fernandez’s contribution to the 32nd commemoration of the September 1985 Escalante Massacre that killed 20 farmers and injured dozens others.
The artwork is most relevant three decades after “Escam”. Farmers and agricultural workers continue to suffer from the exploitations that drove them to march that Friday morning that merited them nothing but tyranny and bullets.
“My memories of the incident and my recognition of the bravery of the survivors fueled me in creating this mural,” Talusan Fernandez said.
“This piece shows wave upon wave of protests from an outline of a shouting sacada’s (sugarcane farm worker) face that symbolizes their decades of struggle against their oppression. The barbed wire, which fuses with the planted and harvested sugarcane symbolizes the repression they struggle against,” he explained of his work.
Talusan Fernandez is a social realist artist since the time of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, producing nationalist propaganda materials since 1975 and paintings since 1976.
In his four decades of activism through art, he became one of the founding members of Kaisahan in 1977, Free the Artists Movement, Concerned Artists of the Philippines in 1983, and the Artista ng Bayan (ABAY).
Talusan Fernandez currently chairs the National Commission on Culture and the Arts Committee on Visual Arts.
To the artist, “Padayon” only arouses more questions rather than answers.
PADAYON by Egai Talusan Fernandez, September 20, 2017, Escalante City, Negros Oriental
“Did their conditions change 32 years after the massacre? Have they been given justice and have they been given the land that rightfully belongs to them?” Talusan Fernandez asked.
Talusan Fernandez’s “Padayon” gains even more significance today as thousands of peasants are set to stage the biggest nationally-coordinated protest action to demand for genuine agrarian reform and to struggle against Rodrigo Duterte’s tyranny. Today is the last day of their nine-day Pambansang Lakbayan ng mga Magsasaka para sa Lupa at Laban sa Pasismo or #Lakbay Magsasaka as part of their annual commemoration of peasant month (October).
Like the wave of protests in Talusan Fernandez’s masterpiece, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and Unyon ng mga Mangagawa sa Agrikultura shall hold the culminating protest action in Mendiola, Manila with farmers and peasant leaders from Southern Mindanao, Northern Mindanao, Negros, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas, Bicol, Central Luzon, Cordillera and Cagayan Valley now getting ready at a protest camp at the Department of Agrarian Reform main office in Quezon City. Simultaneous peasant-led actions will take place in major cities and urban centers: Iloilo, Surigao, Tandag, Butuan, Davao, Bacolod and Cebu. #
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) denied having a formal alliance with the Liberal Party (LP) to overthrow the Rodrigo Duterte regime.
In a statement, the CPP denied Duterte’s allegation there is a conspiracy between the Left and the “yellow” (LP) to oust the President, even as it praised initiatives against “Duterte’s tyranny.”
“The CPP and other Left political forces may have no formal alliance with the Liberal Party and its affiliates but can recognize their initiatives and action as serving the same purpose of resisting Duterte’s tyranny,” the CPP said.
In a speech Wednesday, Duterte alleged that the Left, including Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), had joined forces because “gusto nila ako paalisin dito sa Malacañan,” a move the CPP fears stages attacks on the political opposition.
“It appears that such claims aim to set the stage to clampdown on the political opposition and all other forces standing up against moves to establishing Duterte’s authoritarian rule,” the CPP said.
What Duterte claims to be a “conspiracy” is the broad community of various political and social groups have been roused against rampant extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations by the Duterte regime, the revolutionary party added.
Creating his own ghosts
Bayan for its part flatly denied the existence of a Left-Yellow conspiracy against Duterte.
“The President is the one creating his own ghosts. There is no Left-Yellow conspiracy,” Bayan said in a statement, adding it has always been transparent with its activities including the September 21 rally it helped organize.
“The broad movement involves different groups and personalities with different political affiliations. Church groups, students and artists are also part of the growing movement,” the group said.
“Instead of complaining about an imagined Left-Yellow conspiracy, Duterte should explain why the DOJ (Department of Justice) is backing what appears to be a pro-Duterte vigilante group in the form of the Citizens National Guard. Also, more alarming than the imagined Left-Yellow conspiracy is the proliferation of disinformation using government resources,” it added.
Senator and LP President Francis Pangilinan for his part described Duterte’s allegation as a “fake ouster plot.”
“They’re (administration) just looking for something to divert attention of media and the public from the controversies of corruption, drug smuggling of the Davao group, and the ineffective war on drugs that only resulted in killings every day,” Pangilinan said.
Strong arm tactics
The CPP said Duterte is intolerant of all opposition and dissent, intent on monopolizing political power.
“Duterte wants to clampdown and silence all who disagree with his policies and methods. He has threatened to impose martial law. His officials and loyalists have openly declared plans to use all means to have all those who dissent to be imprisoned,’ the Party said.
The CPP said the so-called Citizen National Guard, a group endorsed by Duterte’s justice secretary, is more brazen in encouraging attacks against declared dissenters whom they declared as “enemies of the state.”
“Duterte’s resort to such strong-armed tactics show desperation and underscores his political isolation. His triple war of death and destruction, his fascist and bureaucrat capitalist rule, corruption and US subservience have roused widespread people’s resistance,” the CPP said.
Calls for Duterte’s ouster continue to mount, the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)