By CPP Information Bureau
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) dissed the Aquino-sponsored commemoration of the EDSA people’s power uprising as stale and uninspiring, as it “failed to address the grave social problems of landlessness, unemployment, poverty, hunger, social injustice and worsening inequities.”
“The Aquino regime is now responsible for the perpetuation of the acute social ills that plague the Filipino people,” said the CPP.
“Aquino has sought to draw from the spirit of the EDSA people uprising to generate support for his regime but miserably fails to inspire the toiling masses whose grave social conditions continue to deteriorate under his antipeople and pro-imperialist policies.”
“For choosing to be servile to the US and compliant with IMF-WB policies in exchange for loans, favorable credit ratings and second-hand military hardware, for choosing to fleece the people with more taxes while failing to carry out land reform, provide employment and raise wages, for misrepresenting doleout money from the World Bank as a solution to poverty while cutting back on government spending on social services, Aquino now symbolizes all the social ills that beset the Filipino toiling masses,” added the CPP.
“It is now quite apparent that Aquino’s so-called ‘daang matuwid’ (righteous path) is nothing more than an empty slogan that serves as a smokescreen for measures and policies to provide state favors to foreign big capitalists and local pro-Aquino oligarchs,” said the CPP. “It has likewise become obvious that Aquino’s ‘daang matuwid’ rhetoric is simply a big fat lie to cover up large-scale corruption — the use of public funds to secure the investments and guarantee profits of favored companies and foreign big businesses.”
“Beneath his anti-Arroyo spiel, Aquino has made insignificant strides in ensuring that just punishment is meted out against the former president and her coterie of plunderers and fascists,” said the CPP. “Not only are the people disappointed that the accused Arroyo is being provided privileges and amenities in the guise of a hospital-arrest, they are questioning how determined the Aquino regime really is in pursuing the prosecution of Arroyo after it has failed to file charges on the more notorious cases of fraud in the 2004 election, the ZTE bribery scandal and grave human rights violations.”
Exactly 26 years ago today, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA) and forces of the National Democratic Front (NDF) celebrated with the Filipino people the victory of their long-drawn struggle to put an end to the US-Marcos dictatorship. Four days of massive demonstrations along EDSA, at the foot of the Mendiola bridge and other places in almost all major cities nationwide forced the extremely isolated and detested dictator Marcos to flee the country and secure himself and his family and the loot he has accumulated from 20 years of corruption. plunder and oppression.
“The EDSA people’s power uprising is a historic victory of the people’s democratic resistance against the Marcos dictatorship,” said the CPP. “It is the product of two decades of struggle. In the end, a broad front of the toiling masses, of urban petty-bourgeois sectors and of anti-Marcos reactionaries emerged united to decisively put an end to the 20 year dictatorship.”
“Aquino’s EDSA commemoration, however, can inspire only the ruling classes, specifically big landlords and business groups who now are having a heyday under the ruling regime,” said the CPP. “Hobnobbing with Aquino in yesterday’s government-sponsored events were bona fide members of the Philippine gentry while the ‘masa’ whom Aquino kept patronizing in his speech, were kept at bay by tall steel fences.”
“For the Filipino people, a commemoration of the 1986 EDSA People Power uprising can achieve relevance only in so far as it can inspire them to wage militant and revolutionary struggle to put an end to their oppression and exploitation,” pointed out the CPP.