By Elias Dipasupil
Secretary-General, National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Martial Law may be more than five decades past today, but its legacy of deception, corruption, puppetry, and fascism remains—carried on by no less than the nation’s present ruler.
When the dictatorship was established in 1972, it was not so much against a purported threat to “national security” than a measure to give way to unhampered corruption never before seen in the nation’s annals. Absolute power bred state repression against the people’s clamor for relief in the economic crisis, demand for transparency in government, and calls to remove the US military bases.
The resultant colossal plunder, military atrocities, human rights abuses, institutionalization of militarism and impunity are historical facts. They are the legacy of this country’s dark past.
Now, the original nepo baby, heir to billions of plundered wealth, who danced in numerous parties in luxurious presidential yachts while Filipino children were sick or dying of malnutrition, who publicly insists on the erasure from history of his father’s court-proven human rights violations against more than 10,000 victims, and who still refuses to pay Php 203 billion of estate taxes, tries to deflect the people’s indignation by proclaiming that he would have wanted to join the street protests if he were not president. This is not deception nor shallow theatrics but insult to the people’s righteous anger.
But then, Martial Law was not a simple power grab by a greedy bureaucrat. It was planned and orchestrated by US imperialists and big landlords to perpetuate their power via their chosen bureaucrat capitalist agent, who willingly became a puppet for his own avaricious interest. So, under the fascist Marcos dictatorship, the US military bases remained, parity rights for US corporations were guaranteed, the country’s coffers and natural resources were plundered, debt ballooned, public funds were siphoned off to crony big business and big landlords, and the impoverished Filipino became poorer. It was fascism, the most blatant face of bureaucrat-capitalism, in perfect choreography with US imperialism and local feudalism.
It is this martial law legacy that the present US-Marcos Regime continues to perpetuate. In lieu of the US bases, there are EDCA sites and increased US military presence serving US hegemonic ambitions and presenting the country as target in an inter-imperialist war. Public funds are again siphoned off to fake flood control and other infrastructure projects in a symphony of unbridled corruption across all regions and agencies. The people continue to bear the weight of soaring prices of goods and services and all kinds of taxes while debt service ratio remains at 30% of the budget. Aerial bombings, hamletting, EJKS, abductions, arbitrary arrests, harassment and fake amnesty or local peace talks by the NTF-ELCAC, police, and military form the structure of undeclared Martial Law.
It is truly just for the people to launch massive street marches and all forms of protest to decry this deception, corruption, puppetry, and fascism and to demand accountability and immediate, tangible reforms. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines salutes and supports the protests of the open democratic people’s movement and calls upon the Filipino people to continue with the struggle and bring it to bigger and greater heights.
But while powerful open mass protests may result in needed reforms, the Marcos legacy will only morph into more insidious forms, again and again to thwart these results, using the military for violent repression and all agencies of government for deception through superficial reforms.
The NDFP has long been proposing reforms for national economic development to ensure the country’s economic and political sovereignty. Nationalization and non-privatization of strategic industries, utilities, social services and natural resources; compulsory licensing, compulsory disclosure, and patent limitations for foreign corporations; land distribution for landless farmers; recognition of the rights to ancestral lands and termination of land conversions and environmentally destructive corporations; are only a few. But all proposals have been roundly rejected because such reforms would curtail the ability of the triumvirate of US imperialists. feudal lords, and bureaucrat capitalists to raid the country’s coffers and weaken their corruption-based political power. As long as this evil trio of US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism hold sway, it will wage a multi-pronged war of deception and fascist violence against the people to maintain its power.
The people are left with no recourse for thorough systemic change but to launch the national democratic revolution that will make reforms meaningful, effective and lasting—reforms within a revolution that can only be won through a people’s war, with people’s revolutionary organizations and a people’s army. Thus, it is not only just but also necessary for the people to bear arms, to wage the revolutionary patriotic armed struggle for true democracy, liberation, prosperity and peace.
