Press Statement

8 February 2001

MACAPAGAL-ARROYO REGIME IS ALL SET TO BECOME AS BAD AS THE
ESTRADA REGIME OR EVEN WORSE

By Jose Maria Sison

NDFP Chief Political Consultant

There are already strong manifestations that the Arroyo regime is all set to become as bad as the Estrada regime or even worse.

1. Estrada is not being arrested for plunder. The biggest cronies of Marcos and Estrada, Eduardo Cojuangco and Lucio Tan, have been openly embraced by Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo. Shady deals are reportedly being transacted through her husband, Mike Arroyo. The recent photograph of Lucio Tan between Gloria and Mike Arroyo is emblematic of continuing corruption.
2. Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo has surrounded herself with a military cordon sanitaire, with General Renato de Villa in control of the powerful office of executive secretary. The same generals like AFP chief of staff General Angelo Reyes who collaborated with Estrada in carrying out the all-out war policy are working closely with her. Militarism is becoming blatant, with Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo herself urging military officers to reduce or eradicate the revolutionary forces.
3. The new regime, especially executive secretary General de Villa is deaf to the pleas of human rights organizations, churches and the people for the release of the political prisoners. The policy of holding on to hundreds of political prisoners is poisoning the atmosphere for a possible resumption of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.
4. The new regime is continuing Estrada’s repressive policy. It has publicly announced that it is stopping the all-out war policy and wishing the resumption of the peace negotiations. But Oplan Makabayan is still being implemented.
5. The new regime has a policy of exclusion and growing hostility towards even the legal patriotic and progressive forces of the workers, peasants, youth, women and intelligentsia that made a major and decisive contribution to the overthrow of the Estrada regime. A US-directed scheme of psychological warfare and repression against their leaders and organizations is at work.
6. The Macapagal-Arroyo regime echoes the pro-poor demagoguery of the fallen Estrada but in fact its policies and actions hew to the imperialist line of "free market" globalization and further victimize the people, especially the workers and peasants.

I will not be surprised if within a relatively short period of time the Macapagal Arroyo regime will stink more than the fallen Estrada regime.