Duterte is sending AFP and PNP rank-and-file to their deaths

The recent death of a former soldier at the hands of policemen enforcing Duterte’s martial law-type quarantine, is a clear manifestation of the fascist dictatorship using arms to control the people, remaining with no comprehensive solution to curb the spread of the virus. State forces are trying to cover-up the incident as another “nanlaban” case despite claims and evidences showing that the residents were trying to inform the policemen that the victim is suffering from a mental health condition.

This is on top off a series of human rights violation committed under the military lockdown of the fascist regime. Relief volunteers are being arrested, households are being searched without warrants, and artists who criticized the government are criminalized. It is without a doubt that Duterte is using the national emergency to vilify dissent and those who will not follow his orders. Duterte has shown his true fascist colors and intends to endanger the lives of the Filipino, whether by neglecting to implement medical solutions or by coercing the people into submission.

Duterte has enabled his minions to disregard the law and instill a culture of abuse and fear using the institutions of the state. Instead of “serving and protecting” the Filipino people, police and military personnel are being used by the regime as disposable tools to protect the interest of the reactionary class. Thousands of them have died protecting mining and agro-industrial plantations, defending landlords, and protecting foreign corporate interest as ordered by the tyrannic regimes. This is the true nature of these mercenary institutions- tools for the ruling class to oppress the people. The ruling class has turned thousands of uniformed personnel into murderers, lapdogs, rapists, and thieves while pitting them against their fellow Filipinos dying from hunger, poverty, unemployment, landlessness, and inequality.

In this pandemic, Duterte has used the rank-and-file personnel of the AFP and the PNP as buffers against the spread of COVID-19. Instead of institutionalizing comprehensive health programs such as mass testing, contact tracing, and the production of ample medical equipment, Duterte has used them to man checkpoints and keep the people under control resulting to more than 70 of them already positive with COVID-19 and thousands of civilians arrested.

Unbeknownst to them, the regime is using them as pawns to exploit the crisis and lay down its fascist machinery all-over the country while the president and his military stalwarts in the Cabinet are receiving VIP testing treatments and large-scale corruption. Duterte’s military dictatorship is incapable of handling this national emergency and more Filipinos will die as long as he stays in power.

The Filipino people must continue to fight the fascist regime and defend the democratic rights of the people. The revolutionary movement has long called for the rank-and-file of the AFP and the PNP to stand for the true interest of the people and join the people’s armed revolution for the liberation of the people from class oppression and exploitation.

In the words of the Martin Montana from the New People’s Army in the Ilocos-Cordillera Region, “[y]ou certainly know this too well…

That your commanders have no sincere concern at all for your precious lives. Because of orders from your generals and other high ranking officials who only care about the pursuance of their promotion and the large amounts of bonuses and rewards they shall receive, they thrust you ordinary soldiers and policemen into the gateway of death.

It is not the concern of your commanders, all the more your lunatic and terrorist commander-in-chief Duterte, if many of you would die in battle. Neither is it their concern if you don’t have enough provision of logistics and supplies for your combat operations and if you don’t receive enough benefits. As long as they gain commendations from your “accomplishments” while they wallow in the wealth they amass from embezzling large funds of the AFP-PNP, and protecting and managing criminal activities such as the illegal drug business.”

Photo from The Telegraph (UK)