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Press Statement
19 January 2002
REMOVAL OF MACAPAGAL FROM POWER IS PROBABLE WITHIN ONE
YEAR
By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
At the rate that Gloria Macapagal has offended the broad
masses of the people, she will face an increasingly determined
and vigorous broad-based opposition in the second year of her
administration.
Four serious issues work against her:
- Aggravation of the socioeconomic crisis and people’s
suffering due to continuing servility to the foreign
monopolies, the IMF, World Bank and WTO;
- Rampant bureaucratic corruption, shady compromises with
the biggest plunderers and cronies, and criminal syndicates
run by military and police officers;
- Escalating US military intervention in violation of
Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as
the constitutional ban on foreign bases, troops or
facilities; and
- Brutal military and police campaigns to suppress the
rising mass movement in the cities and countryside.
The relatively peaceful removal of Macapagal from power is
probable within one year or so if the following conditions
arise:
- A broad united front of forces takes shape, similar to
that which isolated and brought down Marcos and Estrada, and
generates nationwide mass protest actions focusing on the
economic and social travails of the people.
- Efforts succeed to persuade the military and police forces
to respect the democratic right of the people to assemble
and protest.
- The vice president is willing to succeed the discredited
president and preempt any military clique or
military-civilian junta from taking power.
- The armed revolutionary movements of the people of the
Philippines, including the Bangsamoro, intensify in the
countryside and serve notice to the regime that it cannot
suppress the legal democratic forces in the urban areas with
impunity.
As the socioeconomic situation further deteriorates, Gloria
Macapagal can be driven out of the presidential palace by the
widespread and converging mass actions of the hungry and angry
masses to the nationwide clanging of empty pots and pans.
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