For four years, the Filipino people have endured suffering under Marcos’ puppet, oppressive, and fascist regime. Despite all of Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s efforts to paint Philippine “progress,” he cannot conceal the reality of worsening conditions of the country and the Filipino people. Marcos officials have repeatedly declared the defeat of the revolutionary armed struggle, yet military operations across all guerrilla fronts throughout the archipelago remain relentless. Marcos continues to fan the flames of the people’s war.

The situation of workers, farmers, fishermen, and other basic classes and sectors comprising the majority of the people further deteriorates. On the other hand, the few ruling classes, accomplices of US imperialism, feast on wealth accumulated from oppression and exploitation of the toiling masses, bureaucratic corruption, plunder of natural resources, and grabbing people’s land and livelihood. The nation’s security is in peril as Marcos allows the US to use the Philippines as a giant military base.

Living standards plummet amid skyrocketing prices of oil, food, and daily necessities. Marcos’s photo-op gestures like rice giveaways and aid programs are hollow. Workers’ wages and the salaries of ordinary employees fall short of half what a family of five needs to live decently. Farmers are sinking deeper into debt in the face of rising costs of production and living.

The unemployment crisis is acute. Millions are jobless, especially among the youth. Thousands of Filipino workers migrate overseas daily seeking employment. This results from the decline of local production in both manufacturing and agriculture, caused by all-out import liberalization and flooding of foreign commodities. There is no program to build local national industries to produce basic needs. Marcos continues to bury the Philippines deeper into debt.

While the people struggle, factional strife over corruption and power continues unabated. The 2028 election remains far off, but maneuvering and posturing have already begun. To preempt Vice President Sara Duterte’s candidacy, the Marcos camp is pushing for her impeachment. What the people truly want is justice and accountability for all those involved in corruption and plunder of public funds, particularly Marcos himself as the highest official and chief of bureaucrat-capitalism.

Marcos surpasses all previous puppet presidents in his subservience to US imperialist dictates. In the economic field, he provides boundless incentives and privileges to foreign capitalists. Everywhere, land is being taken away by plantations and “renewable energy” projects. While no land is allocated for farmers, Marcos will open 1,620 hectares of land for an “economic security zone” for American corporations under the Pax Silica framework. Militarily, there is an unprecedented increase in US military forces within Philippine territory as they prepare an imperialist war against China. Marcos blindly allows the Philippines to be used as a vast military base and launchpad for US aggression and intervention, showing utter disregard for Filipinos who will suffer from being dragged into a US-instigated war.

The US provokes and fans fascist oppression in the Philippines to suppress the Filipino people’s anti-imperialist resistance in all forms—armed and unarmed. More than one billion dollars has been allocated by the US for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the coming five years. The US military wages all-out intervention in counter-guerrilla warfare, campaigns of suppression and martial law imposition in the countryside, under the guise of the “Salaknib” and other military exercises. The US supplies AFP units with weapons and equipment for small-scale operations desperately attempting to crush the continuing spread and expansion of the NPA.

From the people’s point of view, the Marcos regime equates to unparalleled corruption, suffering and hunger of the masses, subservience to foreign capital, and fascist oppression. Among the broad people, it is clear that Marcos represents the rotten and decrepit system ruled by US imperialism in collusion with the few ruling classes. Today, Marcos is the primary catalyst driving the Filipino people to rise up and take the difficult path of struggle.

From various corners of the country, mass struggles are bursting forth to defend land and homes, struggle for living wages, expose corruption, hold plunderers accountable, defend people’s rights, oppose the destruction of the environment, protest the presence of foreign troops, and fight for national sovereignty. They are getting organized and acting together to defend their welfare and the interests of the entire nation.

In the countryside, armed struggle advances steadily and expands across guerrilla zones and fronts. Wherever they go, Red fighters of the New People’s Army are warmly welcomed by the masses who firmly embrace them as their true army. With the NPA, the broad masses of peasants are emboldened to rise and fight against land grabbers and their fascist mercenaries.

Amid the gross sufferings of the Filipino people, the Party is determined to serve as the core and vanguard of their struggle to end oppression, alter their destiny, and establish a new sovereign and democratic nation. In the spirit of the rectification movement, cadres and Party members devote their mind and strength to the people’s cause. Wherever the masses are, the Party takes deep and wide roots to guide them along the path of struggle.

#International #ThePhilippines #AngBayan #CommunistPartyofthePhilippines #NPA #Marcos

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Ang Bayan (“The People”), the official publication of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Protest actions staged by progressive groups greeted the visit of new US Defense Sec. Peter Hegseth to the Philippines on March 28. Hegseth was in the country until March 29 to meet with Philippine defense and military officials to drive the US’s war agenda in the Philippines and Asia.

Hegseth’s agenda includes the deployment of US military equipment in the country, in line with its strategic goal of surrounding China using the first-island chain. After deploying the Typhon Missile System in northern Philippines, the US plans to deploy the NMESIS (Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System) in the country.

The NMESIS is an anti-ship missile system that can be loaded onto an unmanned ground vehicle called the ROGUE Fires Carrier, which carries the Naval Strike Missile (NSM). The NSMs are missiles that can fly up to 185 kilometers with stealth features to avoid detection. The US Marine Corps used this system for long-range attacks against ships from land.

Along with the NMESIS, the US will deploy unmanned surface vessels in the South China Sea. These drones are usually small and portable, designed for harsh sea conditions and narrow waterways. They are equipped with sensors, cameras, ISR systems, and sonar. They can be controlled directly or indirectly by humans and are used for surveillance, surveys, reconnaissance, and directing sea traffic.

The newly formed Littoral Rotational Force-Luzon of the US 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment will handle these equipment. Like previous rotational forces, their presence will be permanent in Philippine seas and coastlines, violating the reactionary constitution prohibiting the presence of foreign troops. The upcoming Balikatan 2025 will introduce this permanent force leading a “full battle test” where the US will use the Philippines as a springboard for war against China.

#International #Philippines #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

We condemn the Philippine National Police (PNP) for the unlawful and baseless arrest of retired National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant, Ruben Abenir Saluta, 75 years old, literary writer and newspaperman, together with wife Presentacion Saluta and a female companion identified as Yvonne Losaria, last night in Doña Soledad, Barangay Labangal, General Santos City.

Saluta, who is frail and suffering from hypertension, as well as from chronic pulmonary disease, has long retired from active duty since being released from imprisonment after cases against him and his wife were dismissed from 2016 to 2019. Presentacion, likewise, suffers from hypertension and heart disease.

We condemn the police for planting firearms and explosives against Saluta et al.

The Party supports the call for the immediate release of Saluta and company.

The Party denounces the gross inhumane treatment of the elderly revolutionaries who have lived lives in service of the oppressed and exploited masses.

We call on human rights defenders, as well as journalists and cultural workers to come to the aid of Saluta and raise the demand for their immediate freedom!

#Philippines #PeoplesStruggles #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #Asia

The Party today joins the Filipino people and their broad democratic and patriotic forces in marking International Human Rights Day. We cannot overemphasize the significance of this year’s commemoration of Human Rights Day as the Filipino people face increasingly worse forms of political repression under a government that employs its armed minions to terrorize the people.

The Philippines today is under a de facto martial law regime in which the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) dominate all aspects of society and government through the National Task Force (NTF)-Elcac, its RTFs, “peace and order councils”, “regional development and security” and others.

In complete contempt of the principle of civilian supremacy, the military and its fascist doctrine increasingly dominate the state, its bureaucracy, by imposing “counterinsurgency” as the central objective of the state and all its agencies, through appointment of former military and police officials, intimidation of courts and collusion with judges, and allotment of hundreds of billions of pesos to purchase more and more weapons, multiply its battalions, spend money for its widespread campaign of disinformation and psywar operations, and to line the pockets of its present and former officers.

A culture of impunity prevails among the military and police forces as they commit rampant violations of human rights in both the cities and countryside. This is in line with the vain attempt of the ruling reactionary state to quell the patriotic and democratic forces, their resistance to imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, and their heightening clamor for national democratic change. The number of police killings in the sham drug war also continue to increase, with the number under Marcos’ first six months surpassing the last six months of the previous regime.

Human rights defenders, church people as well as journalists are targeted and subjected to intimidation in order for the military to continue with their fascist rampage without fear of public culpability. The NTF-Elcac and the AFP brandish the Anti-Terror Law to threaten anyone who stand against their way. The reactionary state continues to build a machinery of mass surveillance.

In the cities, the fascist state targets union leaders, members and organizers, as well as community organizations. In violation of their right to form unions or associations, they are frequented by military and police agents who subject them to endless harassment to force them to leave their organizations or disaffiliate from national democratic centers. Big capitalists connive and fund these armed agents of the state. People in urban poor communities are being rounded up (typically in the guise of giving economic aid), made to sign blank papers, and falsely paraded as “surrenderees.” In schools and factories, the military and police deploy agents to spy on workers and students or conduct seminars that invariably ends with a threat against joining patriotic and democratic organizations.

The situation is worse in the countryside where military and police rule is imposed, especially in remote villages. Entire peasant and indigenous peoples communities are placed under hamlet. Fascist agents relentlessly carry out abductions and illegal arrests, torture, willful killings, ransacking and illegal searches of homes, food blockades, media blackouts, red-tagging, and so on. The aim of this campaign of fascist terror is to cow the people, force them to their knees, disunite them and destroy their organizations, and take away their capacity to stand up for their economic, social, political and cultural rights.

Over the past years of waging an all-out strategic offensive against the New People’s Army (NPA), the AFP has committed grave abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law. Captured revolutionaries, hors de combat and civilians have been wantonly killed in a show of utter brutality and disrespect for civilized rules of warfare. Civilian lives are put in danger by military encampment in populated areas, aerial bombing and shelling near communities, farms and forests, forced conscription into paramilitary groups, having civilians serve as guides in combat operations and so on. Child rights and special protection of children under international humanitarian law are routinely violated by the AFP and PNP in the course of its military operations.

State terrorism has continued to worsen under the US-Marcos regime in its first months of rule. This nationwide campaign of terror is instigated and funded by the US in line with its sham “war against terror” which, in fact, is an interventionist war to suppress all the Filipino people’s patriotic and democratic forces, in order to strengthen its military foothold and neocolonial rule. The US imperialists continue to pour millions of dollars for the purchase of bomber planes, bombs, artillery, and bullets for its killing machine. These campaigns serve the economic aggression of US-owned and other foreign mining companies, big plantations, dams, ecotourism, and infrastructure projects that grab land and drive people away from their homes and source of livelihood.

The Party calls on the Filipino people to stand up firmly and fight state terrorism and defend human rights and international humanitarian law. They stand on high moral ground in denouncing all fascist criminal acts perpetrated by the AFP and PNP, in demanding justice for all victims of state terrorism, in demanding the dismantling of the NTF-Elcac, and in calling for an end to US intervention and military support to the fascist Marcos regime.

At the same time, the Party directs the New People’s Army (NPA) to continue fighting state terrorism and punish the most notorious fascist criminals in the AFP and PNP. The NPA must continue to mount tactical offensives in the course of waging protracted people’s war to advance the cause of national democracy.

#Philippines #Asia