“By summoning Marcos, Trump aims to secure U.S. economic and military interests in the Philippines,” said Marco Valbuena, chief information officer of the CPP. Valbuena said Trump wants assurances that U.S. exports to the Philippines will not be met with counter-tariffs in response to his push to raise tariffs on all imports to the U.S., and that the U.S. military will be allowed greater and expanded presence in the Philippines.

The planned visit was first announced by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the ASEAN Regional Forum and the U.S.-Philippines-Japan Foreign Ministers’ Meetings held July 9 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was later confirmed by Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary and Palace Press Officer Claire Castro.

“Trump plans to use the recently announced 20% tariff on Philippine exports as leverage to exact even bigger deals with the Philippines in favor of U.S. interests,” added Valbuena. “It is certain that Marcos’ state visit to the U.S. and scheduled talk with Trump will shape his policy declarations that are to be delivered during his upcoming SONA.”

“Consistent with his record of subservience to the U.S., Marcos will undoubtedly assure Trump that American electronics and so-called green energy investments in the Philippines will be given favorable policies including tax-free operations and the zero-tariff importation,” added Valbuena. “In his SONA, Marcos is sure to declare more programs and policies on liberalization, privatization, deregulation and denationalization as dictated by the U.S.”

“The incoming 20th Congress lorded over by bureaucrat capitalists, and representatives of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords, are set to applaud and welcome Marcos’ U.S.-dictated policy declarations, and pass legislation to support U.S. imperialist interests,” the CPP officer said.

“These policies will deepen the neocolonial economic status of the Philippines and cause the dispossession of more and more Filipinos as plunderous American and other multinational corporations take away their land and sources of livelihood,” said Valbuena.

“The Marcos state visit to the U.S. will also serve to assure the U.S. of unimpeded access to the Philippines, in line with its aim of using the country as a war logistics hub, playground for war exercises, and springboard for military operations in the region,” Valbuena added.

He pointed out how tens of thousands of U.S. troops are now almost permanently stationed in U.S. military facilities in the Philippines, conducting successive and non-stop military maneuvers in line with its Indo-Pacific Strategy of “containing” China’s growth.” He noted, “U.S. military presence and war exercises heighten tensions in the region and impede the peaceful resolution of maritime conflicts between the Philippines and China.”

“In the face of U.S. war instigations that endanger the lives and safety of the Filipino people and violate the country’s national sovereignty, it is incumbent upon the Filipino people to unite and stand up against Marcos’ puppetry to the U.., imperialists,” he added

#Manila #Philippines #International #Marcos #Trump #CPP

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

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Sept. 15 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Units of the New People’s Army (NPA) and all revolutionary forces in North and Central Luzon, as well as in Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon, are geared to carry out rescue, relief and rehabilitation work for millions of people whose homes and livelihood were ravaged by strong winds and rains brought about by typhoon Ompong.

Over the next few days, local commands of the NPA can concentrate primarily in civic action amid the disaster even as they remain vigilant over the relentless offensive operations of the AFP.

The Party urges the Filipino people and international humanitarian agencies to unite and extend all possible help to address the welfare of the people. It urges all democratic sectors to establish Serve the People brigades to help collect and distribute relief assistance.

The broad masses of workers, peasants, minority people, fisherfolk and other basic sectors suffer the most from the damage wrought by typhoon Ompong. There is urgent need to mobilize them to carry out collective effort from the devastation and facilitate the entry and equitable distribution of all financial and material assistance.

As in the past, the people will be burdened by rampant corruption and inefficiencies in the Philippine reactionary government whose agencies always fail to squarely address their conditions.

Their clamor for wage increases, land distribution, cancellation of debt, agricultural subsidies, free irrigation and livelihood assistance and economic relief demand immediate attention and resolution.

#Philippines #Socialism #Manila #NewPeoplesArmy #Filipino

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following July 10 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines,

On Duterte’s spectre of power sharing

Duterte is weaving a big lie in claiming that past agreements forged between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) “all end up with power sharing and a coalition government.” We challenge Duterte to stand before the public and point out specifically in which agreement did he make that discovery, instead of blabbering about nonsense such as “power sharing.”

Duterte is deliberately engendering the spectre of “power sharing” to scare the ruling elite politicians and get them all behind him in his decision to terminate the NDFP-GRP peace negotiations. At the same time, he discredits the previous GRP presidents for signing previous agreements and not being as astute as him in not seeing the NDFP’s “power sharing” motives. Duterte knows that many among his fellow reactionaries do not sit well with his decision to end the talks. The broad democratic sectors denounce his one-track militarist approach.

He also wants to disparage the CPP-NPA “for having the gall” to want to share power with him when the revolutionary forces “could not even control a single barangay for one day” (or so he claims). He aims at Prof. Jose Ma. Sison who he wants to derogate to his level as a power-hungry politician. “I cannot give it to you,” he insists. Indeed, Duterte does not want to share power with the CPP/NPA/NDF. In fact, the dictator wannabe does not want to share power with anyone. He wants it all for himself.

Revolutionaries do not seek power sharing

To set the record straight, the revolutionary forces do not seek “power sharing” with the GRP. If one closely reads the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the only agreement so far which pertains to the substantive agenda of the talks, there is no single mention of “sharing power.” On the contrary, it speaks of “mutuality and reciprocity” as well as “separate duties and responsibilities”, which explicitly indicate two distinct entities. Nowhere in the agreement is it suggested that a coalition government will be established.

The same principle of “separate duties and responsibilities” is again stipulated in the NDFP’s draft of the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER). In Part II, Section 3, the NDFP further proposes: “In entering into this agreement, the GRP is guided by its Constitution and the NDFP by the Guide for Establishing the People’s Democratic Government and the Program for a People’s Democratic Revolution of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Accordingly, the Parties hold themselves responsible jointly and separately in implementing this Agreement.” The revolutionary forces do not seek to share power nor forge a coalition government with the GRP, especially not with Duterte. In peace negotiations, what the revolutionary forces aim to forge is an agreement on measures which the GRP and the NDFP, as separate political entities, will carry out to serve the overall interests of the Filipino people in line with the principles of national sovereignty and social justice.

Two powers at war in the Philippines

As explicitly stated in the Party’s Program for a People’s Democratic Revolution, the overall aim of the CPP is to build a people’s democratic government (PDG) that would in time be established nationwide and replace the rotten US neocolonial client-state. The PDG represents the workers, peasants, the petty-bourgeoisie and the national capitalists. The broad toiling masses are being roused to wage armed revolution by the worsening forms of oppression and exploitation which they daily suffer.

In contrast, the neocolonial state (expressed as the GRP or the Government of the Republic of the Philippines) represents the interests of the US (primarily through its command and control of the AFP), and the reactionary classes of big bourgeois compradors, big landlords and big bureaucrat capitalists (the most parasitic class to which Duterte belongs to).

The neocolonial reactionary state is currently the dominant government in the Philippines. The PDG is still comparatively weak, although it is already established nationwide, covering at least 95% of all provinces, with political authority covering a few thousand barrios.

Nature of civil war and peace negotiations

Peace negotiations have been going on for more than 25 years now. There are peace negotiations because there are two governments at war with each other.

On the one hand, the revolutionary forces behind the PDG are not yet capable of overthrowing the GRP. On the other hand, the GRP has been weakened considerably by the ever worsening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system that it is incapable of pushing back the steady growth of the CPP/NPA, even with the heightening intervention of the US military.

Thus is the nature of the civil war in the Philippines. That two armed powers are confronting each other in the battlefield and across the table is the undeniable context behind the long-running NDFP-GRP peace talks.

Duterte trivializes the negotiations by claiming the NDFP wants only “power sharing.” No. The NDFP does not covet Duterte’s powers. It seeks, rather, for the two powers, while at war to come to an agreement to address the country’s outstanding problems for the benefit of the people.

#Manila #Philippines #CPP #Socialism #Duterte #ComprehensiveAgreementOnRespectForHumanRightsAndInternationalHumanitarianLawCARHRIHL #ComprehensiveAgreementOnSocioEconomicReformsCASER

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following June 20 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

By insisting to hold NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) -GRP (Government of the Republic of Philippines) peace negotiations in Manila, Duterte is putting forward a demand it knows is totally unacceptable to the revolutionary forces. It is like the NDFP insisting that peace talks be held in the territories under the political authority of the revolutionary forces—something that Duterte will definitely not accept.

In the demand to hold the talks in the Philippines, Duterte is practically scrapping The Hague Declaration of 1992 and, by consequence, the entire peace NDFP-GRP peace negotiations itself. He also wants to trash all the past efforts of the Royal Norweigian Government as Third Party Facilitator.

Duterte is showing complete antipathy towards holding serious peace negotiations with the NDFP, and merely wants to hold hostage and completely paralyze the talks. He wants to use the cancellation of the agreements to resume talks with the NDFP to justify his total war under Oplan Kapayapaan, and advance his scheme to establish a fascist dictatorship and impose nationwide martial law.

By practically scrapping peace talks, Duterte is removing all impediments to the campaign of all-out offensives, aerial bombardments, forcing thousands of civilians to “surrender” as armed rebels, extrajudicial killings ala Tokhang, and other grave abuses by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against the peasants, national minorities and other oppressed peoples. Duterte vainly hopes to crush the NPA militarily before the end of 2018.

The NPA will surely frustrate the aims of the Duterte regime by waging extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare. Duterte is rousing the Filipino people to unite, fight back and oust his despicable fascist regime.

#ManilaPhilippines #Manila #Philippines #Asia #PeoplesStruggles #NationalDemocraticFrontOfThePhilippines #CPP #Socialism #Duterte

Manila, Philippines – Massive demonstrations took place in the Manila, Nov. 13, as thousands of workers, students, faith-based communities and others are taking to the streets to condemn U.S. President Trump and his lackey, Philippine President Duterte.

According to a statement from the Communist Party of Philippines, “The ASEAN [Association of South East Asian Nations] and East Asia Summit to be held in the Philippines on Nov. 12,13 and 14 will serve as occasion for the imperialist powers to project their military and political power in the Asia-Pacific region and wring further liberalization policies from the Philippines and other backward economies. U.S. imperialist chieftain Donald Trump is set to visit the Philippines, as well as Japan, China, South Korea and Vietnam.”

#ManilaPhilippines #Manila #Philippines #CommunistPartyOfThePhilippines #DonaldTrump #RodrigoDuterte #ASEAN #Asia

Leila Khaled catapulted into global prominence in the 1960s after she hijacked two airliners and led her people's struggle to liberate their homeland from Israeli occupation. Many decades later, she remains a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and is now a member of the Palestinian National Council.

In an interview by Kodao Production, she talked about what she thinks of her trip. Below are highlights of her statement and a link to the interview.

On the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association, Khaled said, “It is a step forward for the relations of our two people and the peoples' struggle.” She said the formation of the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) committee as a common project will help isolate Israel to end its apartheid occupation of Palestine.

She added that the Fifth ILPS General Assembly that drew representatives from peoples' organizations in 37 countries is an important venue to discuss issues and common concerns comprehensively. It was here that she learned that there is a genocide being wage by the U.S.-backed Philippine puppet government and multinational mining corporations against the lumads and indigenous peoples in the Philippines who were fighting to save their ancestral lands from imperialist plunders.

She said that the genocide against the lumad is very much the same as the genocide wage by Israel and the Zionists against the Palestinian people.

Khaled also stated, “Now through internet and social media it is easier to get information about the national democratic revolution in the Philippines. It is important that our people are educated with the struggle of other people, especially the struggle of the Filipino people, because we believe that we are part of the international movement for liberation and freedom against oppression and intervention of imperialist powers.”

To view the interview with Leila Khaled

#Manila #AntiwarMovement #Palestine #Philippines #MiddleEast #PeoplesStruggles

“The Aquino regime is clearly showing its anti-poor bias in employing state brutality to forcibly demolish homes and drive away the people from their communities in order to give way to big business interests and their public-private partnership projects,” said the CPP.

The Aquino regime has allocated at least more than one half billion U.S. dollars for various projects to be carried out under its public-private partnership scheme.

On Aug. 29, 39 people, including three students and a 70-year old man were arrested by the police when local residents resisted the fencing of a 140-hectare lot in Barangay Bonbon, Aloguinsan town in Cebu. The land is being claimed by the Gantuangco family.

At least 200 policemen accompanied demolition teams and their bulldozers to forcibly remove the residents from their homes and fence off the area. A barricade set up by local residents was brutally attacked by the policemen. Close to a hundred families will lose their homes because of the planned construction of a shipyard and economic zone.

Yesterday, at least two residents of Old Balara community in Quezon City were arrested when local homeowners set up a barricade to resist the demolition of their homes by policemen and armed goons of the Metro Manila Development Authority and the National Housing Authority.

The area is being claimed by Susana Realty, a big-comprador land developer. At least 1000 families will be rendered homeless by the demolitions.

“That the Old Balara demolition was carried out under pouring rain, underscore the complete disregard of the Aquino regime for the plight of the urban poor,” said the CPP.

In communities around the C-5 road project, at least 35,000 families have already been driven away either through forcible demolitions or so-called relocation programs which residents are forced to accede to under threat of demolition.

The CPP called on the urban poor to resist the Aquino regime's campaign to demolish their homes. “The Aquino regime continues to carry out the Philippine Development Plan designed and funded by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank which gives premium to big-scale comprador projects in partnership with foreign big capitalists at the expense of urban poor communities.”

“The Aquino regime has chosen to abide by its commitments to the IMF and foreign big banks instead of heeding the clamor of the people for jobs, higher wages, price controls, decent housing and other social services,” said the CPP. “In doing so, the Aquino regime continues to isolate itself from the people and push the people to the path of resistance and struggle.”

#ManilaPhilippines #Manila #Philippines #CorazonAquino #Asia