The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) vigorously condemns President Rodrigo Duterte for threatening the imposition of martial law against the Filipino people to force them to comply with his disastrous anti-people policies in his alleged combating of the Covid-19 pandemic.

On television on April 16, 2020, he made this threat declaring that the people had better comply because he is ordering the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to take charge of enforcing his lock down in the whole of Luzon and forcing the people to follow his orders on the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ). He has assigned the Philippine National Police (PNP) to assist the AFP.

President Duterte in his lock down order on Metro Manila and the whole Luzon, has caused more than 700 companies to close. Millions of workers are rendered jobless. He has also ordered a transportation shut down. Hundreds of thousands have to walk to their work. A man had to walk several kilometers from the hospital to his home, carrying the dead body of his son.

Hungry residents of San Roque who came out to protest because they were hungry were arrested and put in jail. Yesterday, former House Representative Ariel Casilao and five others who were bringing relief goods to residents in Norzagaray, Bulacan were stopped at a police checkpoint. They and seven residents who met them to receive the goods were also arrested. Up to now they are in police custody.

President Duterte should be reminded that his idol, President Ferdinand Marcos who declared martial law in 1972 was finally overthrown by a mass uprising of millions, and escaped only with the help of the United States. He was brought to safety in Hawaii. We also remind President Duterte when Marcos started on the ill-fated track of fascist dictatorship, he was far younger than the current president in his mid-70s. And the social and economic conditions are now far worse.

The NDFP believes that President Duterte has another option. Instead of intensifying his oppression of the Filipino people to the extent that his overthrow becomes a possibility, he could issue an extension of the unilateral ceasefire that expired on April 15. This would heed the call of the United Nations Secretary General for a global ceasefire to combat the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the call of the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP). The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has extended its unilateral ceasefire until April 30 “to prioritize the fight against the pandemic and ensure the safety, health and well-being of everyone.”

President Duterte could also heed the call of Michelle Bachelet, the Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission, to release all political prisoners. This will significantly improve the atmosphere for the resumption of peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the NDFP.

Luis Jalandoni

Member, Executive Committee and National Council

National Democratic Front of the Philippines

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Fight Back News Service is circulating the following July 31 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Extending martial law will serve as a practical admission that Duterte’s militarist solution to the armed conflict is a big failure. The civil war across the country continues to rage on. The New People’s Army remains strong in Mindanao and across the country. The Moro people’s armed resistance is irrepressible.

By choosing to impose martial law and fascist violence to suppress the people, Duterte has succeeded only in inciting more people to take up arms. Under conditions of martial law, killings and widespread abuses have been perpetrated by the military and police forces with impunity.

Under Duterte’s protection, military and AFP-attached death squads have killed red-tagged personalities. Any expression of grievance or opposition, however legitimate under the Philippine constitution, is being severely suppressed.

Duterte is using martial law to conceal his refusal to address the social and economic demands of the people, especially the problems of the peasant masses and the Lumad and other minority peoples. Military force is being used to push the conversion of ancestral and agricultural lands to favor big plantation owners and mining operations. Self-organized Lumad community schools have been ordered closed. Peasant struggles demanding land have been violently suppressed as in the Sagay massacre.

Martial law and military rule has benefited only the big corporations and big landlords. To the ordinary masses, martial law is equal to government red-tagging and surveillance, arbitrary arrests, torture and state-sponsored killings. Widespread social discontent across Mindanao, Negros, Samar, Bicol and the rest of the country.

Proposals to extend martial law in Mindanao will serve also Duterte’s aim to buttress his declaration or de facto martial law nationwide. It falls right into Duterte’s perpetuation scheme through charter change.

Martial law in Mindanao and de facto martial law in Negros and across the country will continue to rouse the people to resist in all forms and wage armed resistance. Duterte’s armed suppression under martial law is giving the people no other recourse but to support the armed struggle and join the New People’s Army.

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Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao to mount his war of destruction in Marawi, intensify and extend Oplan Kapayapaan and impose his tyrannical and terrorist rule across the country.

In the name of “fighting terrorism,” Duterte bombed Marawi with utter disregard for the lives, property and livelihood of the Meranaws and the city’s other inhabitants. Hundreds of thousands evacuated, more than 1,200 have been killed and not less than 800 are still missing. This is Duterte’s biggest crime against the people under martial law. But this is not his only crime.

Wielding military power, Duterte and his armed minions in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have committed a great number of crimes against the Filipino people. Everyday under martial law and Oplan Kapayapaan, hundreds of barangays, especially in the Mindanao hinterlands, are under AFP occupation, surveillance, restriction and oppression; pounded by bombs and artillery and threatened to be the next Marawi.

Mindanao martial law is a war against the toiling masses; an armed oppression of the unarmed people. Hundreds are persecuted and slapped with trumped up charges. Every three days, a new victim of extrajudicial killings by the AFP and its armed minions is added to the growing list. Daily the people suffer the intimidation, threats and assaults by the AFP’s fascist troops.

The imposition of Mindanao martial law is a key component of the US-designed Oplan Kapayapaan war of suppression across the country. The US plays a central role in supporting martial law. In Marawi, US officials, advisers and military troops openly intervened by flying drones and dropping bombs.

With US support, the AFP employs its unrestrained powers in Mindanao to push its anti-people war across the country. By extending Mindanao martial law, the Duterte regime wishes to “normalize” the reactionary state’s use of terrorism and make its miscreance acceptable.

Duterte employs martial law tactics across the entire country. Today, millions live under military rule across the archipelago. Because of Mindanao martial law, AFP troops and officials are emboldened to abuse their power, abuse human rights and suppress the democratic mass struggles.

Duterte uses Mindanao martial law to intimidate the Filipino people and show that nothing can impede his power. It is a key part of his tyrannical and terrorist rule across the country.

Recently, Duterte ousted the chief justice of the Supreme Court who he declared his enemy. Duterte used a questionable legal maneuver (quo warranto instead of impeachment), although the real force behind it was his tyrannical power. This is also the force behind efforts to fully control the Senate in order to make it acquiesce to his charter change scheme to perpetuate himself in power in the form of a transition to a federal form of government.

The Filipino people must advance their struggles to end Mindanao martial law, end Oplan Kapayapaan and end Duterte’s rule.

The revolutionary armed struggle must be assiduously waged as the main form of resistance against fascist rule. Because of Duterte’s armed suppression, the necessity of taking up arms to defend against fascism and advance the people’s revolutionary cause becomes ever clearer.

With tyrannical and terrorist measures, Duterte is running roughshod and aggravating a growing number of people. The people’s anger is ever seething. The basic sectors’ resistance against the fascist Duterte and AFP as they advance their democratic cause is growing. The ranks of organizations, parties, institutions and personalities calling for his ouster from power is swelling.

The anti-Duterte united front must be further expanded nationwide and strengthened. This mainly rests on the breadth and strength of the basic democratic sectors. Thus, it should give all-out support to the anti-fascist struggles of the toiling masses in order to clamor for justice against all of the AFP’s fascist crimes, expose and oppose the abuses of human rights and support the widespread uprising against Duterte’s terrorism and tyranny.

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