CPP/Ang Bayan: Editorial - Marcos dictatorship yesterday, rising Duterte dictatorship today

Ang Bayan propaganda editorial posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines Website (Sep 21):
Marcos dictatorship yesterday, rising Duterte dictatorship today

Communist Party of the Philippines

21 September 2017

Editorial of Ang Bayan

What better day to unite the Filipino people against threats of a fascist dictatorship by Rodrigo Duterte than today when 45 years ago Marcos imposed martial law and founded his dictatorship?

Today, tens of thousands are set to converge in the streets of the national capital and other parts of the country to manifest the Filipino people’s growing unity against political persecution, armed suppression and fascist crimes under the ruling Duterte regime.

On this occasion, the Filipino people are united in demanding justice for all the fascist crimes, corruption and puppetry under the 14-year martial law of the US-Marcos dictatorship. They want Marcos and all his cohorts and cronies to pay for the crimes they have yet to account for. They are determined to stop the Marcoses from returning to Malacañang.

After 45 years, the Filipino people have not forgotten the bloody record, corruption and rottenness of Marcos’ martial law. This collective memory has been passed on to the Filipino youth who are now one in declaring “Never Again!”. They are determined to fight the Duterte regime’s threats to impose nationwide martial law and the six-month Mindanao martial law.

Today’s rally shows the determination of the Filipino people to oppose Duterte’s plan to replicate his idol Marcos, install himself as a fascist dictator and use absolute power to control the entire state machinery and resources for himself and his clique.

The victims of Duterte’s triple fascist war are set to join the rallies. In just a year, hundreds of thousands have been directly victimized by the Oplan Tokhang “war against drugs”, the all-out war under Oplan Kapayapaan and the AFP siege of Marawi and the war to suppress the armed Moro uprising.

Duterte’s victims are now the most determined to hinder the vile fascist plot to put the entire country under martial law and intensify the campaigns of death and destruction. They are set to be joined by broad sections of Philippine society, by various political parties and groups, churches, communities and so on.

Serving as backbone of the wide range of forces rising up against fascism, corruption and puppetry of the Duterte regime are the national democratic forces. The broad masses of workers, peasants, youth and students, urban poor and other oppressed sectors are all determined to resist Duterte’s tyranny and hold him accountable for all the crimes, blood debt and oppression against the people.

Duterte trembles in fear at the prospect of street demonstrations snowballing into a broad movement demanding his ouster from power. The anticipated large demonstrations today will surely inspire more demonstrations in the coming weeks and months. Duterte’s hundreds of thousands of victims demand their grievances be heard. Assemblies must be mounted from barangay halls to coliseums to indict Duterte and express their collective anger.

Duterte threatens to use armed force to suppress the demonstrations and impede the growth of a movement demanding an end to his fascist rule. He concocts scenarios of “turmoil in the streets” to dissuade people from joining rallies. He manufactures fake stories of the “NPA joining rallies” to justify a nationwide martial law declaration.

Duterte is in a frenzy to monopolize political power and silence all those opposing his programs and policies. Through bribery and threats, he now has complete control of the AFP, PNP and the lower house of congress. He wants the Supreme Court, the Comelec and all barangays to bow to his will. He threatens anyone who refuses to march to his beat.

Duterte is pushing to establish a fascist dictatorship in the face of his political isolation, desperation to accelerate all-out liberalization of the economy and implement infrastructure projects worth hundreds of billions of pesos which his company of bureaucrat capitalists and bourgeois compradors are drooling over. He is rushing the approval of his 2018 war chest and corruption budget as well as new tax packages promised to foreign creditor banks.

Duterte has, in fact, less than five years to satiate the military officials, the bureaucrat capitalists and bourgeois compradors. Unless, of course, he succeeds in his plan to extend his term by at least eight more years by amending the constitution in the guise of “federalism.”

In relentlessly pursuing his triple war, fascist repression, corruption and anti-people and pro-imperialist programs and policies, Duterte is inciting the people to strengthen and broaden their resistance with maximum energy.

[Ang Bayan is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Ang Bayan is published in Pilipino, Bisaya, Hiligaynon, Waray and English. It can be downloaded from the Philippine Revolution Web Central at www.philippinerevolution.info. Ang Bayan is published fortnightly by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines.]

https://www.philippinerevolution.info/statements/20170921-marcos-dictatorship-yesterday-rising-duterte-dictatorship-today