The arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte by virtue of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a victory for the Filipino people, particularly the thousands of victims of his bloody “war on drugs” and his fascist attacks on the revolutionary movement. It affirms what the people have long known – that Duterte is a mass murderer who must be held accountable for his crimes. However, this does not absolve Marcos Jr. of his own blood debts as he continues the reactionary state’s counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people.

While we welcome the ICC’s move against Duterte, we also reiterate the crimes of the Marcos Jr. administration. The 2024 International People’s Tribunal (IPT) found both Duterte and Marcos Jr., as well as the US government guilty of grave violations of international humanitarian law. The findings of the IPT reinforce the fact that state terror and impunity persist under Marcos Jr. and that the fight for justice must extend beyond Duterte’s arrest—it must challenge the continuing fascist repression being waged by the current regime.

The ICC warrant focuses on Duterte’s “war on drugs,” but his crimes extend far beyond this. His regime carried out the systematic killing of NDFP peace consultants, aerial bombings of civilian communities, and the torture and execution of captured Red fighters (hors de combat), all in blatant disregard of the laws of war. These war crimes were not just Duterte’s policy—they remain central to the Marcos Jr. regime’s counterrevolutionary war against the Filipino people. Under Marcos Jr., indiscriminate bombings, enforced disappearances, forced evacuations, and extrajudicial killings continue, proving that the reactionary state will stop at nothing to crush the people’s resistance.

Furthermore, Duterte’s crimes were not his alone, nor were they simply the product of local reactionary politics. US imperialism has long propped up Philippine fascist regimes, providing military aid, training and intelligence to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP). The US-funded “counterinsurgency” programs directly contributed to Duterte’s reign of terror. Even now, under Marcos Jr., US-backed military operations continue to target both revolutionary forces and the legal democratic mass movement. The people’s movement must continue to expose and resist the imperialist role in enabling fascist rule up to this day.

We call on the international community to sustain pressure for Duterte’s immediate prosecution. At the same time, the ICC must exert all necessary measures to compel the Marcos Jr. government to surrender Duterte to ICC jurisdiction. The NDFP International Office stands firmly with the Filipino masses in their fight for justice and genuine national and social liberation. Duterte and his cronies must face the full weight of their actions – not just for their past crimes but to end the continuing reign of impunity in the Philippines.

Duterte’s arrest, or even his potential conviction, will not dismantle the semicolonial and semifeudal system that breeds fascist rulers and US puppet regimes. Only through a national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective, led by the working class, can the roots of fascist violence be eradicated.

#International #Philippines #NDFP #Duterte #ICC

Brussels, Belgium – A packed house of several hundred people witnessed a dramatic legal proceeding this past weekend. May 18 and 19. An International People’s Tribunal was held, initiated by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle.

In its conclusion, the tribunal named Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., former President Rodrigo Duterte, U.S. President Joe Biden and the U.S. government all guilty of charges of war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.

Over two days, testimony was presented by activists and victims from different parts of The Philippines about violence, torture and murder committed by the Armed Forces of The Philippines (AFP), or by paramilitary groups working under the direction of the government.

The organizers of the tribunal described these violence acts as war crimes. Experts opened the weekend explaining that there is, in fact, a war taking place in the Philippines. The government in Manila is carrying out a counterinsurgency strategy, and even using a counterinsurgency guide designed in Washington against the guerilla New People’s Army (NPA).

International legal experts, occupied communities combine efforts

The tribunal included distinguished attorneys with expertise in international law. Some acted as jurors, others as prosecutors. Heading the panel of jurors was Professor Lennox Hinds. Formerly the U.S. attorney for Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress, Hinds also represented Assata Shakur, and was a founding member of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

The other jurors included Suzanne Adely, President of the National Lawyers Guild (U.S.); Severine De Laveleye of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium; Julen Arzuraga Gumuzio of the Basque Parliament; and Archbishop Joris Vercamen, former member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches.

Much of the two days consisted of emotionally jarring testimony of torture, extrajudicial killings, mutilation of the bodies of political activists, and attempted murder of other activists.

One dramatic video statement came from Brandon Lee, a U.S. citizen who survived an assassination attempt by members of the AFP in 2019. Multiple gun shots left Lee paralyzed from the chest down. He recounted how the military threatened him over the course of several years to end his advocacy for the rights of the indigenous Cordillera people he was working among. Like his adopted countrymen, Lee refused to back down in the face of tyranny.

Another witness was Eufemia Cullamat, an elected member of the House of Representatives from the Bayan Muna slate, and a leader of the indigenous Manobo tribe.

Her daughter, Jevilyn Cullamat, was killed by the AFP in 2020 in Surigao del Sur, Mindanao. Eufemia Cullamat learned about it on Twitter, when soldiers used photos of Jevelyn’s dead body like a trophy, posing her with a rifle in her hands. Her daughter was reportedly a medic with the NPA.

Cullamat also reported how in 2015, the AFP carried out the Lianga massacre of their community. Jevelyn witnessed the killing of her Uncle Dionel and Grandfather Jovillo.

After the first day of testimony, reflecting on the activists who struggled through their anguish to get on the historic record, Professor Hinds commented, “What we see is a community resisting.”

Background: Two figures from Philippines revolutionary history

To put the human rights violations in context, testimony was presented by Juliet De Lima, head of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating panel for the stalled peace talks with the government in Manila. De Lima noted that there is an underlying objective for the heinous crimes of the regime in the logic of counterinsurgency: to “Drain the water to expose the fish.”

The NDFP is the revolutionary united front organization of the Filipino people fighting for national freedom and for the democratic rights of the people. It includes the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army. The AFP typically justifies the atrocities it commits against civilian activists they have targeted by claiming they are members of the NPA.

Early on in the tribunal, Connie Ledesma, also a member of the negotiating panel for the NDFP, explained why the national democratic movement has committed to a peace process with the government in Manila. For almost four decades the government and the NDFP have been engaged in peace negotiations. “From the perspective of the NDFP this could be a viable arena to achieve basic social, economic and political reforms in Philippine society,” Ledesma explained, and noted that the negotiations have resulted in 38 major agreements and joint statements.

Tribunal: Justice through solidarity

Prosecutors and jurors explained that while they use the laws that govern war and international human rights, the impact of the tribunal is political. The tribunal has no power to sentence Marcos, Duterte, or Biden to prison.

On the other hand, as has been seen in the case of the Gaza genocide being carried out by the U.S. and Israel, the court systems – whether in the Philippines, the U.S., or in existing international accountability structures like the International Court of Justice – are influenced by imperialist interests.

The International People’s Tribunal gives a voice to the oppressed Filipino people and can be used to help the national liberation movement, the peasants, indigenous people and workers to exact accountability on their oppressors. The national democratic forces know that it is the solidarity of those groups, along with youth and students, that will hold accountable the bureaucrat capitalists.

But a story from the solidarity movement with South Africa is worth recalling. Edward Said, the Palestinian intellectual, wrote in his 2000 book, The End of the Peace Process, about a visit with Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu of the African National Congress (ANC) in 1991.

Said had gone to see them to learn about using international boycott, divestment and sanction tactics against apartheid. Speaking with Sisulu, at that time the head of the ANC, Said writes, “He paused for a moment and then said something that I shall never forget as long as I live: ‘Every victory that we registered in London, or Glasgow, or Iowa City, or Toulouse, or Berlin, or Stockholm gave the people at home a sense of hope, and renewed their determination not to give up the struggle.’”

The International People’s Tribunal in Brussels is a victory for the people in Bicol, Cota Bato, Panay, Surigao del Sur. The legal process of collecting and presenting evidence of international human rights abuses and war crimes will be a tool to end the repression that emanates from Manilla.

#International #Philippines #Duterte #Marcos #NPA #IADL #FFPS #Belgium #Feature

The Marcoses and the Dutertes, in collusion with the tyrant’s henchmen in the Commission on Elections (Comelec), are robbing the 2022 elections right before the very eyes of the Filipino people. The stealing is being carried out brazenly by rigging the automated elections and the Comelec’s “unofficial quick count” fed to the media, to perpetuate the six-year Duterte tyranny and bring back the thieving Marcoses to power.

The almost nightly mass rallies of hundreds of thousands of people across the country and the widespread outpouring of support both from the middle classes and toiling masses during the past several months are proof that the Robredo-Pangilinan opposition tandem are the real winners of the vote.

Thus, a great number of people are justified in their outrage against the Comelec over the thousands of malfunctioned vote counting machines. The bigger steal, however, was carried out by the Duterte-appointed Comelec preprogramming of the Smartmatic vote counting machines that shaved and padded votes in Marcos’ favor. This was combined with massive vote-buying, preshading of ballots, as well as armed coercion, harassment and red-tagging especially in the rural areas.

With absolute control over the electoral system, Duterte is stealing the 2022 elections with the same ease as he stole the 2019 elections. As we have pointed out earlier, the May 2022 elections are stacked up for Marcos with the system of “automated counting” under the control of Duterte, his Comelec appointees and their Smartmatic programmers.

The results have been preprogrammed to make it appear that Marcos won by a “wide margin” and make his “victory” appear “beyond question.” The rapid release of “unofficial” results was meant to overwhelm and paralyze the people with awe, and preempt election protests and street protest actions.

Duterte and the Comelec, however, are over weaving the illusion of a Marcos “landslide victory” over opposition leader Leni Robredo. It has left the people incredulous. Statisticians looking into the results released by the Comelec’s “transparent” server are seeing the machine-pattern of vote count increments and distribution of votes, which they believe to be inconsistent with mathematical laws.

Marcos’ preprogrammed “victory” grossly obscures the fact that the Filipino people are disenchanted with tyranny and dictatorship, and have had enough of the oppressive policies and repression under the Duterte regime which Marcos Jr. promotes and praises. The broad masses of workers and peasants, the unemployed masses, the rank-and-file employees and small professionals, who have been at the frontlines of the anti-tyranny movement, are all fed up with corruption, military and police overspending, extrajudicial killings, abductions, torture, unlawful arrests, red-tagging and terrorist-labelling, national treachery, unmitigated government borrowing, increasingly burdensome taxes, low wages and unemployment, rising prices and economic crisis due to neoliberal policies.

Because the right to count the vote has been taken away by the automated elections, the people, opposition political parties and the media have no way of independently verifying or challenging the results of the elections. Many, especially among the petty bourgeoisie (middle classes), are dismayed by the outcome of the Comelec’s “quick count.” They tend to lay the blame on “the masses” for “voting a thief.” They harbored the illusion of a “fair elections” under Duterte’s tyranny. They discount the basic fact that the elections were stolen, and that in the final analysis, the people’s votes did not matter. They must be encouraged to break out of their individual shells, get organized, unite with the broader movement of workers and peasants and help wage widespread mass resistance.

Even as the broad democratic sectors question the results of the elections, they need to come together to express the people’s collective disgust over the prospect of Marcos’ return to power through deceit and disinformation. They must denounce Duterte and the Comelec and work to frustrate their attempts to usher Marcos back to power.

Through the years, the ruling reactionary system has allowed the political and financial rehabilitation of the Marcoses. For several decades now, and especially during the past several years, historical facts were distorted and people fed with false information which not only pervaded social media, but promoted as well in textbooks which poison the minds of schoolchildren about the “golden days” of the Marcos dictatorship. Imelda and the Marcos family have evaded punishment despite conviction over a number of cases of corruption and human rights violations. The tyrant Duterte, himself, has been a key peddler of the Marcos lie.

The battle to stop the return of the Marcoses to power has not yet ended. Knowing who really won the May 9 elections, the people must be aroused, organized and mobilized to expose and fight election rigging and prevent the cheaters from seizing power.

The broad democratic sectors have to gather all their strength and courage to unite and mobilize the greatest number of people in marches and demonstrations to block the Marcos’ path back to Malacañang. They must remain indefatigable and militantly pursue their quest to make the Marcoses and the Dutertes pay for years of plunder and oppression.

The Marcos-Duterte stealing of the elections clearly show the further deterioration of the rotten ruling system. Thus, people are being drawn to join the revolution. Since last night, we have received reports how many young people are asking how to join the revolutionary underground and the New People’s Army. Conditions for wider civil war are arising in the country. The Party is determined to unite and lead the Filipino people in their struggle for democracy against tyranny and dictatorship, and carry forward the national democratic revolution with utmost resolve.

#Phillippines #Philippines #Duterte #NewPeoplesArmyNPA #Asia

Chants present at the rally include “Never again, never again! Never again to martial law!” and “The people united will never be defeated!”

Nap Pempeña of Malaya Texas stated, “What we're up against in the next few years, what is imminent, is a threat to democracy, the merging of the most vile, corrupt, heinous families in Philippines society.”

Several people who lived in the Philippines in the martial law period of the Marcos dictatorship spoke about their experiences, including a clergyman whose fellow priests had been persecuted by Marcos, and a woman whose brothers were imprisoned and tortured.

Cassandra Swart of the Dallas Anti-War Committee stated, “Just as the United States had done in Indonesia in 1965, or Chile in 1973, the United States had thousands of people killed in the Philippines in the name of anti-communism which was interlinked with the interests of American corporations worldwide.”

Swart continued, “The struggle waged by the Filipino people against a Marcos-Duterte presidency is a direct fight against U.S. imperialism. The Dallas Anti-War Committee extends its solidarity to everyone here and in the Philippines opposing Marcos, Duterte and U.S. imperialism.”

Josh Rudd of the Dallas Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines gave a speech criticizing American imperialism and discussed an ongoing campaign against Lockheed Martin, which provides weapons to Duterte to persecute activists and workers. “A lot of this military aid that goes to the Philippines comes from companies that are based and headquartered here in Dallas, here in Fort Worth, here in Grand Prairie. Those bombs that go to the Philippines and bomb the island of Mindanao, some of those are produced here. Those F-35 jets that go and patrol over the Visayas are produced here in Fort Worth,” stated Rudd.

Jhad Villena of Malaya Texas discussed their experience as a Filipino American and compared the state of politics in the Philippines and United States. “So here in 2022, how many elections have been marketed to us as this is the most important election in our life. How many times? We can barely keep count, because it's not just in the United States, it's in France, it's in Brazil, it's in the Philippines. There's a broader economic structure that ties all of these conditions together. The reason why no matter how many progressive administrations or candidates are elected or come to power, why does fascism keep coming back? There's a reason for all this, and it's not just central to the Philippines, it's central to the United States, it's a shared system,” stated Villena.

The rally was called by Malaya Texas, National Alliance for Filipino Concerns Texas, the Dallas Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Texas for Leni-Kiko, with support from the Dallas Anti-War Committee, the Palestinian Youth Movement. and the Democratic Socialists of America. The protest was one of several protests going on simultaneously across Texas, including in Houston and Austin.

#DallasTX #Philippines #Duterte #DallasAntiWarCommittee #Asia

Chicago, IL – I just returned from eight days in Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, where the capital, Manila, is located. For many years, the movement for national democracy in the Philippines has asked for international solidarity, including human rights defenders to aid them in their struggle for economic and political rights. The presence of people from other countries can help diminish the violence of the Philippine military and national police against the movement. In addition, as national elections approach on May 9 there has been a rise in human rights abuses, and so the need for international solidarity is more pressing.

In 2016, Filipinos elected Rodrigo Duterte president. I was there just after his election. He campaigned promising to bring an end to the rule of the corrupt, wealthy elite that have run the country since independence from the U.S. occupation in 1946. Instead, he proceeded to intensify the repression against the movements of farmers, indigenous communities, workers, students and professionals who he claimed to champion. Hundreds of activists have been killed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP), including priests and human rights lawyers.

War on drugs: War on the poor

Duterte also unleashed a “war on drugs” that was supposed to target the elites, including the four generals he identified in a campaign speech that he said were responsible for the flow of drugs coming into the country. In truth, it has been “a war on the poor,” as reported by INVESTIGATE PH ( https://www.investigate.ph/media/second-report) of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP).

Six years later, over 30,000 drug users and small-time dealers – or people that the police claimed were users or dealers – have been murdered by the military or paramilitaries. The effect has been to create a climate of fear from a police and military occupation in the whole country, very much like that which Black and Latino communities have faced in U.S. cities for 50 years of our “war on drugs.”

Of course, the Philippines has suffered under American imperialist domination since the U.S. intervened against Spain in 1899. Like in Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Spanish were losing, and the U.S. saw an opportunity to become an imperialist power in the Pacific. The U.S. military waged a bloody war that lasted three years and resulted in the deaths of a million Filipinos. U.S. imperialism has never left the islands, despite granting independence in 1946.

The Philippines is a land rich in agricultural and mineral wealth, but because of their leaders selling them out to foreign investors, they have failed to develop their own economy. That’s why 6000 people leave the Philippines every day to work outside the country. The biggest landowners in the Philippines are U.S. corporations – Dole, for example.

The U.S. mass media – owned by the same corporate class that determines economic developments in the Philippines – reports on some of Duterte’s human rights abuses, including his attacks on opposition in the press. But they almost never report on the military carrying out massacres of trade unionists, peasants, or indigenous activists who dare to organize against the injustices facing the people.

Duterte: Time’s up

Because of the one-term limit in their 1986 constitution, Duterte’s presidency is coming to an end, but he is hoping his successors will be his daughter as vice president and Bong Bong Marcos, the son of the old dictator, as president. He needs them in office as an insurance policy.

As Tinay Palabay of Karapatan, the leading human rights watchdog in the country, explained to me, “Duterte loses immunity July 1. We are preparing cases for the International Criminal Court (ICC). Also in the UN, July will see three reports on human rights in the Philippines: by Michelle Bachelet, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR); a Universal Periodic Review before the UN Human Rights Council; and an International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty body review.” The three reports of the INVESTIGATE PH were submitted to the UN OHCHR and at the ICC.

Palabay also noted that beyond the national democratic movement, “The anti-Marcos vote won’t settle for a BBM (Bong Bong Marcos) victory in the Philippines.” In other words, if the Marcos/Duterte slate wins, there will be a great increase in resistance to the new regime.

Electoral struggle/mass struggle: Basic demands for human rights and peace in the Philippines

Running against the Marcos/Duterte slate is Leni Robredo, the current vice president, and Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan. Leni and Kiko are also supported by 1Sambayan, a broad coalition of democratic forces banded together to pursue a common cause. Running on the senatorial slate of 1Sambayan are leading activists from the mass movements, including Congressman Neri Colmenares, who was detained and tortured under the martial law regime of dictator Ferdinand Marcos (1972 – 1986); and Elmer “Ka Bong” Labog, president of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), the most important Labor Center in the country. Kilusang Mayo Uno means May First Movement.

I was able to talk with Amirah Lidasan, a Muslim woman activist from the Moro nationality on the island of Mindanao, running for congress as a third nominee of Bayan Muna (People First) Partylist. It is one of the partylists under MAKABAYAN Bloc (Patriotic Bloc) with different member partylists including Anakpawis, which translates to “toiling masses.”

For more than 50 years, the massive national democratic movement has led heroic efforts by the Filipinos to free themselves from U.S. domination, from foreign corporations cruelly oppressing them, and to demand genuine agrarian reform – “land to the tiller” as Antonio Flores expressed it. Flores is popularly known as Ka Tonying (Comrade Tonying). He is chair of Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA), the farm workers union. It is well known that 70% of farmers in the Philippines are landless. While employment statistics suggest that the Philippines is no longer a farm economy, but a service economy, Ka Tonying said, “Farmers don’t see it that way.”

Red-tagging

Under Duterte, the AFP and PNP are carrying out more and more brazen attacks on organizers. Their targets include the KMU. In March 2021, they killed nine trade unionists in what has been called Bloody Sunday.

They have also targeted the officers of the KMU. Last week, I went to meet with KMU National Capital Region Secretary General Ed Cubelo. In March 2020, Ed was “red-tagged.” Red-tagging is what it sounds like. When authorities or anonymous actors put up vinyl banners (called tarpaulins or tarps), use spray paint, or a small picket line to accuse an activist, an elected official, or anyone of being a communist or a soldier of the New People’s Army (NPA). The purpose of red-tagging, or “terror-tagging” is to intimidate those with the courage to speak out.

In October 2021, Facebook accounts were created accusing him of membership in the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA. Then on December 13, 2021, he received death threats.

Last month, the PNP escalated. The barangay (neighborhood organization with elected officers who have roles to administer schools, fire, police, parks) held a job fair on the street in front of his house in Metro Manila. Two PNP officers entered his house without permission. As a result, brother Cubelo is no longer living at home.

On February 23, another massacre was carried out near the city of Davao on the island of Mindanao, where I visited in 2016. Known as the New Bataan Five, two teachers, a health worker, and two drivers were murdered. Most were part of the Lumad, the indigenous people of the southern Philippines.

In both this case and that of Bloody Sunday, people in the area said there was no encounter between two armed groups. These were just two more of the long string of murders carried out by a military funded and backed by the Pentagon.

Given the murders of hundreds of activists, in addition to 30,000 of the urban poor in the past six years, there is good cause for Filipino activists to be very concerned when they get red-tagged or terror-tagged. The real source of terror in the Philippines is of course Malacañang Palace, the residence of the president.

I get red-tagged

Sunday morning, April 10, at 1 a.m., men identifying themselves as CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) hung banners in front of the hotel where I was staying in Quezon City, part of Metro Manila.

The four feet by five feet vinyl banners had a full color Getty Images photo of me when I spoke at the mass rally in Manila in July 2016. Held on the occasion of President Duterte’s first State Of the Nation Address (SONA), the People’s SONA is an annual affair. I spoke as a representative of the largest international solidarity delegation – over 300 people – who were there among the 30,000 in the rally.

The banners accused me of interfering in the affairs of the Philippines and called me a “Communist Terrorist Ally.” There were more of the same banners hung at a nearby human rights office housed in the National Council of Churches building.

The next day, a missionary worker woke to find banners with the same messages and her face hanging in front of her home. She had been with me in some meetings during my eight-day visit.

The mission of CIDG is to combat organized crime groups. It’s probably not a coincidence that their offices are near where I was staying and are housed in the same building as the NTF ELCAC, Duterte’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. This body was created by Duterte to systematize red-tagging and link up police investigation work to stop protest movements more effectively.

Solidarity is not a crime

Of course, the missionary and I don’t face the prospects of being killed or tortured. I remember in 2010 when FBI agents raided my home and six other homes and an office of anti-war and international solidarity activists. They alleged the Midwest Antiwar 23 had information about or were providing material support to “foreign terrorist organizations” in Palestine and Colombia. Justice Department prosecutors also brought up the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army. The U.S. put them arbitrarily on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations after 9/11.

We were subpoenaed to appear before a kangaroo court called a federal grand jury. Each of us said then that we would never talk to the FBI or the grand jury. From files left behind in one of the raided houses, we know that the FBI and the grand jury wanted us to tell them who we knew in Palestine and Colombia. In those countries, like in the Philippines, anyone we named would face torture or death, not just prison time.

The Antiwar 23 all took the position we would rather face prison time than contribute to the torture or murder of a freedom fighter.

We said then that solidarity is not a crime. And today again, that must continue to be our stand.

Finally, U.S. imperialism, not us, is who is interfering in the Philippines.

Long Live International Solidarity!

#ChicagoIL #Philippines #InternationalSolidarity #Duterte #Manila #Asia

The Filipino people are outraged at the gross lack of preparations of the Duterte government for the rapid surge in Covid-19 infections. The new surge has long been anticipated by the scientific community with the identification of the Omicron variant which started to spread in the western hemisphere as early as November 2021.

The Duterte government's complacency is clearly manifested in the just signed 2022 budget which did not allocate enough funds to conduct free mass testing and ramp up the capacity of hospitals to accommodate the expected increase in Covid-19 patients. Funds to purchase vaccines is more than 60% less than the purchases made last year. Nor were funds allotted to improve facilities in schools to ensure the safe conduct of face-to-face classes.

Duterte himself admitted the budget does not have an “elbow room” for new surges. The regime's utter shortsightedness will be the cause of bringing back the country down to its knees in the face of the continuing pandemic.

Faced with the threat of a renewed surge, the regime is again set to resort to restrictions and lockdown measures that have long proven to be ineffective especially without concomitant mass testing and widespread contact tracing. Factories and businesses face threats of closures and will add to the widespread problem of joblessness. As a result of government's failure to ensure that school facilities were upgraded, schools are again set to be closed (although many have actually remained close) to the detriment of students.

The emergence of new Covid-19 variants is attributed to the lack of vaccines due to intellectual property rights and monopolization of production by big pharmaceutical companies, and the inequitable distribution between the advanced capitalist countries and the backward countries across the world, and between the cities and the rural areas within different countries. Worse, expired or near expired vaccines are being dumped in countries such as the Philippines.

In the country, only above 40% of the population has been vaccinated. Vaccination is concentrated in the National Capital Region leaving out many outlying provinces, especially people in the rural areas. Less than 2% have received booster shots even as the efficacy of the first round of vaccines anticipated to wane in the near future.

In the face of the renewed Covid-19 surge, there is mounting clamor for an immediate realignment of funds for the purchase of military equipment and hardware (including new aircraft, war ships, cruise missiles, bombs and cannons) and infrastructure projects in order to increase funds for public hospitals and medical facilities, public schools, transportation facilities and other public services.

There is rising demand for free mass testing (especially in work places and schools), free treatment, stepped up vaccine education and inoculation campaign, vaccine research and production, retrofitting of schools and other urgent measures. There is demand for higher wages, lower prices, economic aid and other urgent needs in the face of rising prices and economic crisis.

#Philippines #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #Duterte #COVID19

The announcement today that the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) will no longer be abrogated confirms that earlier pretend threats to terminate it is mere play-acting by Duterte to shamelessly and treacherously use the VFA and Philippine sovereignty as bargaining chip in his demand for more military aid to support his tyrannical regime.

It is clear that Duterte really had no plans to terminate the agreement, knowing that doing so would have compelled Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and the pro-U.S. generals in the AFP to move against the regime.

The withdrawal of threats to terminate the VFA was secured by the recent decision of the US State Department to allow the sale of more $2.1 billion worth of military weapons and war matériel to the Duterte regime and the initial delivery of ₱183 million worth of weapons and equipment last June 21 and ₱48.5 million worth of munitions last July 8. A week ago, the US government also delivered millions of Jannsen vaccines as part of its vaccine diplomacy to ensure the VFA’s continuation. These convinced Duterte to end his make-believe threats against the VFA.

The Filipino people should condemn the Duterte regime for using the country’s sovereignty as leverage to demand concessions for its self-serving purposes. By acquiring more military aid from the U.S., the Duterte government has further secured the AFP’s support for his regime amid plans to perpetuate himself in power beyond his term limit. With this, Duterte has further strengthened the loyalty of military generals and dissipated any threats of a coup before or after the 2022 elections.

Demand real termination of VFA

The Filipino people must continue to push for the real termination of the VFA, as well as all other lopsided military treaties including the 70-year Mutual Defense Treaty, the Mutual Logistics Service Agreement (MLSA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). These agreements give the US military extraterritorial rights in the Philippines and violate the country’s sovereignty.

Under these agreements, US forces are allowed to make use of the Philippines as a large military base, maintain military facilities, permanently station their troops, land jet fighters, dock warships and stockpile weapons in the country. These secure US economic, political, diplomatic and geostrategic interests.

On arrival of US Defense Secretary Austin and Biden support for Duterte

The Filipino people must condemn the Biden government for ramping up US military support for the tyrannical Duterte regime. The arrival of US Defense Sec. Lloyd J. Austin clearly aims to convey the continuing US support for the Duterte regime, turning a blind eye to the tyrant’s use of state terrorism against the people.

Clearly, the imperialist master Biden does not mind the blood dripping from the hands of his puppet Duterte. He has shown contempt for the loud clamor of a number of American senators and representatives for the U.S. to suspend military aid to the Philippines in the face of widespread military and police abuses and violations of human rights.

By further extending its support for the Duterte government, the Biden government has the blood of the Filipinos in its hands. U.S.-supplied weapons are in the hands of police and military forces behind the recent killing of activists in Bicol, the massacre of Lumads in Surigao del Sur, the massacre of peasants in Masbate and the relentless killings under Duterte’s drug war.

Biden’s continuing support has emboldened Duterte to pursue his scheme to cement his political dynasty and perpetuate himself in power either by rigging of the 2022 elections or declaring martial law as his backup plan.

#Philippines #VisitingForcesAgreement #Duterte #USStateDepartment #Asia

Chicago, IL – About 100 people rallied in front of the Philippines Consulate to say, “Enough is enough!” to demand an end to the war against the Filipino people by the government of the Philippines. President Duterte has especially targeted the indigenous Lumad people of the island of Mindanao. In a recent atrocity, the Armed Forces of the Philippines tortured and killed three Lumad youth, including a 12-year-old.

Speakers included Don Villar, a leader in the Communication Workers of American and today the secretary-treasurer of the Chicago Federation of Labor. Villar is the child of Filipino immigrants and recalled marching in front of the consulate 35 years ago against the dictatorship of the Philippines then-President Ferdinand Marcos.

#ChicagoIL #Philippines #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #Duterte

National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

NDFP National Council Responds to ATC Resolution No. 21

We hereby assert that the National Democratic Front of the Philippines is the revolutionary united front of patriotic and democratic forces of the Filipino people fighting for their national and social liberation against foreign domination and the local exploiting classes of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists.

We have represented all the aforesaid forces, the organs of the people’s government and the broad masses of the people in peace negotiations with the reactionary Government of the Philippines (GRP) with the mediation and facilitation by foreign governments.

The NDFP is dedicated to arousing, organizing and mobilizing the people for full national independence and genuine democracy. We are a co-belligerent force in the civil war with the GRP and we have the status of belligerency in accordance with international law. The NDFP and the GRP are co-signers of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. It is completely mendacious and malicious of the GRP to malign the NDFP as a “terrorist” organization.

We hereby condemn the act of the Anti-Terrorism Council in issuing its Resolution No. 21 designating the NDFP as a “terrorist” organization and to signal the escalation of acts of state terrorism against the allied organizations in the NDFP and their respective officers and members.

Going by its arbitrary rule of guilt by association, without any fair judicial process within its own legal system to determine culpability, the ATC considers as communist and terrorist all the noncommunist organizations within the NDFP, including the Christians for National Liberation and the Catholic and Philippine Independent Church priests, Protestant pastors, nuns, deacons and other religious people.

We expect that the terrorist attacks by the Duterte fascist gang will escalate and will also target legal sociaactivists, human rights defenders, critics and oppositionists who will be arbitrarily tagged as NDFP members and associates.

We have already seen how the armed minions of Duterte have murdered so many NDFP consultants, such as Randy Malayao, Randall Echanis, couple Agaton Topacio and Eugenia Magpantay, couple Antonio Cabanatan and Florenda Yap, Reynaldo Bocala and Rustico Tan.

They have manufactured trumped up charges and planted firearms and explosives to arrest and imprison the following NDFP consultants: Vicente Ladlad, Adelberto Silva, Rey Casambre, Renante Gamara, Ferdinand Castillo, among others.

The ATC Resolution is in line with Duterte’s policy and campaign of all-out war to enable his fascist scheme against the people and amplifies previous issuances, such as Proclamation No. 370, Proclamation No. 374, Executive Order No. 70 and the so-called Anti-Terror Law of 2020.

The Duterte regime and the ATC are maliciously trying to prejudice and preempt the petitions filed before the GRP Supreme Court. These petitions are already scheduled for decision in the months to come. The Court has to decide the issues on the violation of constitutional and democratic principles and rights.

Duterte is hell-bent on preventing negotiations for the duration of the final months of his term of office and possibly for as long as his daughter and he can stay in power after rigging the 2021 elections and using martial law to counter the anticipated people’s uprising.

The broad masses of the people have no choice but to intensify all forms of revolutionary struggle, especially armed struggle, in order to defend national sovereignty, their democratic rights and well-being against the Duterte regime of treason, tyranny, mass murder, plunder and mass deception.

The NDFP has continued to keep in place its Negotiating Panel with the hope that the Duterte regime would eventually be ousted from power and that a post-Duterte administration is willing to resume the peace negotiations for a just and lasting peace.

National Council

National Democratic Front of the Philippines

#Philippines #Duterte #NDFPNationalCouncil #AntiTerrorismCouncil #Asia

National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

NDFP National Council Responds to ATC Resolution No. 21

We hereby assert that the National Democratic Front of the Philippines is the revolutionary united front of patriotic and democratic forces of the Filipino people fighting for their national and social liberation against foreign domination and the local exploiting classes of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists.

We have represented all the aforesaid forces, the organs of the people’s government and the broad masses of the people in peace negotiations with the reactionary Government of the Philippines (GRP) with the mediation and facilitation by foreign governments.

The NDFP is dedicated to arousing, organizing and mobilizing the people for full national independence and genuine democracy. We are a co-belligerent force in the civil war with the GRP and we have the status of belligerency in accordance with international law. The NDFP and the GRP are co-signers of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. It is completely mendacious and malicious of the GRP to malign the NDFP as a “terrorist” organization.

We hereby condemn the act of the Anti-Terrorism Council in issuing its Resolution No. 21 designating the NDFP as a “terrorist” organization and to signal the escalation of acts of state terrorism against the allied organizations in the NDFP and their respective officers and members.

Going by its arbitrary rule of guilt by association, without any fair judicial process within its own legal system to determine culpability, the ATC considers as communist and terrorist all the noncommunist organizations within the NDFP, including the Christians for National Liberation and the Catholic and Philippine Independent Church priests, Protestant pastors, nuns, deacons and other religious people.

We expect that the terrorist attacks by the Duterte fascist gang will escalate and will also target legal sociaactivists, human rights defenders, critics and oppositionists who will be arbitrarily tagged as NDFP members and associates.

We have already seen how the armed minions of Duterte have murdered so many NDFP consultants, such as Randy Malayao, Randall Echanis, couple Agaton Topacio and Eugenia Magpantay, couple Antonio Cabanatan and Florenda Yap, Reynaldo Bocala and Rustico Tan.

They have manufactured trumped up charges and planted firearms and explosives to arrest and imprison the following NDFP consultants: Vicente Ladlad, Adelberto Silva, Rey Casambre, Renante Gamara, Ferdinand Castillo, among others.

The ATC Resolution is in line with Duterte’s policy and campaign of all-out war to enable his fascist scheme against the people and amplifies previous issuances, such as Proclamation No. 370, Proclamation No. 374, Executive Order No. 70 and the so-called Anti-Terror Law of 2020.

The Duterte regime and the ATC are maliciously trying to prejudice and preempt the petitions filed before the GRP Supreme Court. These petitions are already scheduled for decision in the months to come. The Court has to decide the issues on the violation of constitutional and democratic principles and rights.

Duterte is hell-bent on preventing negotiations for the duration of the final months of his term of office and possibly for as long as his daughter and he can stay in power after rigging the 2021 elections and using martial law to counter the anticipated people’s uprising.

The broad masses of the people have no choice but to intensify all forms of revolutionary struggle, especially armed struggle, in order to defend national sovereignty, their democratic rights and well-being against the Duterte regime of treason, tyranny, mass murder, plunder and mass deception.

The NDFP has continued to keep in place its Negotiating Panel with the hope that the Duterte regime would eventually be ousted from power and that a post-Duterte administration is willing to resume the peace negotiations for a just and lasting peace.

National Council

National Democratic Front of the Philippines

#Philippines #Duterte #NDFPNationalCouncil #AntiTerrorismCouncil #Asia