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The Stage is Set by the Arroyo Regime
for Intensified Civil Strife in the Philippines
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
26 May 2007
The Arroyo regime has set the stage for intensified civil strife in the Philippines
by having used the most outrageous ways of vote buying, fraud and mass
intimidation to frustrate the will of the electorate, dominate the "election"
of local executive officials and the congressmen and secure the fake president
from impeachment. The delayed Comelec count in the senatorial and party list
elections has allowed the operatives of the regime to engage in further cheating
at various levels and in various ways.
Anticipating the rise of popular resistance against the widespread electoral
anomalies and the worsening conditions of exploitation and oppression, the
regime is poised to use the newly-enacted Anti-Terrorism Law as a further
license for the reactionary military and police forces to suppress the revolutionary
forces, the legal opposition forces and the broad masses of the people. Knowing
no bounds for its greed, the regime is also expected to perpetuate its leaders
in power by amending the 1987 constitution in order to shift Marcos-style from
the presidential form of government to a parliamentary one under a presidential
autocrat.
The people are suffering massive unemployment, the decline of real incomes,
the soaring costs of living, superprofit-taking by foreign monopoly corporations,
mounting tax and debt burdens, widespread poverty, hunger and malnutrition
and all the other vicissitudes under the US-dictated policy of "neoliberal
globalization". The illusion of economic growth and peso appreciation through
excessive foreign and local borrowing is going to burst like a bubble. The
worsening economic social crisis generates the worsening political crisis of
the ruling system. The contradictions among the reactionaries are further
sharpening as the ruling Arroyo clique becomes more arrogant with its fake
electoral victory and tends to monopolize power and the bureaucratic loot.
The broad masses of the people are seething with just indignation. They
are fed up with the regime's puppetry to foreign interests, unbridled corruption,
repeated electoral fraud and gross human rights violations. The legal opposition
forces are bound to develop a more effective broad united front against the
regime. The revolutionary forces belonging to the National Democratic Front
of the Philippines (NDFP) are determined to intensify the revolutionary armed
struggle for national liberation and democracy. The people hope to uphold,
defend and promote their national and democratic rights and interests through
all forms of struggle.
Through its publications, the Communist Party of the Philippines has issued
declarations to raise the people's war to a new and higher level and has directed
the New People's Army to intensify its tactical offensives against the armed
personnel of the state, violators of human rights, despotic landlords, foreign-owned
plantations, mining companies, logging companies for export and other enterprises
that are extremely exploitative and detrimental to the nation, the working people
and the environment.
Under the direction of the US war of terror, the Arroyo regime is hell-bent on
trying to destroy the revolutionary movement of the people. It is emboldened
by the constant flow of US interventionist troops and increased US military supplies.
It seeks to perpetuate itself in power beyond 2010 with the use of armed force
against the people and the revolutionary forces. Thus, it persists in preventing the
peace negotiations between the reactionary government and the NDFP. It is doing
everything to challenge and drive the people and revolutionary forces to wage armed
revolution. ###
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