END THE LIES—Duterte’s rule is on the brink of collapse
Duterte’s anti-oligarch pronouncement is nothing but a sham, a manifestaion of his desperation to stay in power.
“We simply put an end to the privilege of one family in using a public resource to protect and promote their private interest, (that) was part of the changes that the Duterte administration has vowed to bring to the country.”
These were the words of Duterte’s lapdog Alan Peter Cayetano in his comical attempt to explain the administration’s move to deny the ABS-CBN franchise renewal application.
Duterte and his minions are certainly on a new level of desperation if they are willing to use such absurd lies to try and cover up their tracks. “Reclaiming patrimony from oligarchs”? “[Calling] out those who abuse the system”? Are these not the very things Duterte has been endeavoring to stifle since the start of his Presidency?
Now, the masses ask:
1. Is it not Duterte who promised an end to contractualization but has never come through? Instead, he implemented fake and useless measures such as EO 51 and DO 174 that not only kept contractualization alive, but also legitimized it. Duterte then reneged to saying that his hands are tied regarding the matter — a clear sign that he does not have the guts to go against his big bourgeois comprador allies who help fill his pockets.
2. What happened to the land reform Duterte bragged about since his campaign? In fact, Duterte played this card no differently than previous regimes did — he engaged in a bogus land reform to ultimately be able to sell out lands to landlords, bureaucrat capitalists, and big multinational agri-corporations who install their own plantations, factories, or commercial spaces. More, his Martial Law in Mindanao, Oplan Sauron in Visayas, and Oplan Kapayapaan in the entire country resulted in death and destruction in the countryside comparable only to Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship.
3. How come Duterte’s administration is now pushing for infrastructure and tourism funding over distribution of aid and free mass testing for all? He intentionally overlooked the dangers of hastily reopening the economy despite the lack of mass testing just to be able to restore the cash flow. Despite the record-breaking unemployment and increased hunger and poverty in the entire country, Duterte is more worried about generating income for his bureaucrat capitalist cohorts.
4. How can Duterte explain the absolute disregard for the everyday Filipino’s woes during the COVID-19 problem, in total favor of the big businesses? Four mounths into the quarantine, Duterte’s social amelioration program is still nothing but an utter failure —unable to provide comprehensive aid to the different sectors of the basic masses. Mass testing is also still not in the capacity the country needs to effectively contain the virus. On the other hand, Duterte’s cabinet is apparently more focused on railroading the CREATE bill which will reduce corporate income tax and several complementary bills to open the country to more foreign direct investments which can only harm the local and national industry. Not to mention, Duterte attempted to throw Php35 million for “floating hospitals” in the way of long-time ally and Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy — the same man who placed 4th in Duterte’s top campaign donors, giving a total of Php30 million in campaign funds.
5. Speaking of campaign, why did Duterte go back on his promise to not accept campaign donations from big businessmen and bureaucrat capitalists? No, his entire campaign was built from the money he received from the country’s top millionaires. As a matter of fact, he received an average of Php73 million each from just his top two donors, and a total of Php334 million from just the top 13 donors. Duterte is too indebted and beholden to the country’s financial oligarchs to now claim that he is anti-oligarch.
6. Lastly, is it not still Duterte who relentlessly enforces the wills and wishes of his imperialist masters to the detriment of his own people? The masses will never forget how Duterte, despite global protest, continued his bloody Oplan Tokhang and All-Out War in the countryside, upon US President Donald Trump’s request. Nor can it pass how Duterte, time and again, handed our national sovereignty in a plate to Chinese President Xi Jinping in territorial disputes.
The masses’ verdict? LIES.
No one submits to imperialist masters and big bourgeois compradors like Duterte does. This is not about ending oligarchy. This is not about seizing one family’s privileges.
NO. Duterte, in his ravenous obsession with his tyrannical rule, is losing control. Much like Marcos’ time, even the ruling classes are now growing restless. The people’s call for ouster is deafening and Duterte is finding it more and more difficult to consolidate his power among the richest and most powerful. Duterte’s tactics are unraveling and he is using the people’s very calls against him to take down his ruling class foes.
Yet, what Duterte and his cronies did is crystal clear: take down ruling class opponents, and in the process, silence dissent while adding 11,000 workers to the unemployment list — a list now longer than ever due to the COVID-19 crisis.
Meanwhile, the New People’s Army is being tagged as a terrorist organization for genuinely working to take the political power off the hands of richest few and return it to the masses. Furthermore, the Anti-Terror Law is posing itself to be Duterte’s most crucial apparatus to prevent dissenters from calling out abuses and dissuade more people from joining the demand for his ouster.
But the people will not be deceived.
For more than five decades, the masses have witnessed and played their part in truly reclaiming patrimony from oligarchs. Through agrarian revolution in the countryside, lands are confiscated from despotic landlords and given back to the farmers; big multinational corporations are sentenced and punished for the destruction and theft of farming lands and murder of farmers and peasant leaders. In the cities, the revolutionary mass movement is at the heart of organizing all sectors to strengthen the campaign for systemic change, amplifying criticisms and revolutionary propaganda, and preparing for the arrival of the people’s army from the countryside.
This is the national democratic revolution. And this, only this, can release the masses from the shackles of the system that puts into power tyrants, despots, capitalists, and oligarchs alike.
Duterte’s ouster will be just the beginning.
