The Communist Party of the Philippines has denounced the Duterte regime for the widespread abuse of power, violations of human rights and corruption as a result of its policy of locking down entire communities.
In a statement, dated April 29, 2020, released by its Information Bureau, the CPP stressed that the Duterte regime’s claim of containing Covid-19 thru the lockdown is not supported by any scientific study.
All over Luzon and many parts of the country, people’s rights are being abused by power-hungry military and police troops. Working people are being accosted in the streets and brutalized, tortured and subjected to various forms of inhumane and demeaning punishment. People’s private homes are being violated by the regime’s brutes. People are being threatened and silenced for expressing their disgust and exposing their conditions.
CPP
The CPP said more than 130,000 have been apprehended for violations of curfew, travel restrictions, face mask requirement and other increasingly stringent and repressive policies that are arbitrarily set by the police and government officials.
It further said that the Duterte regime has turned its so-called measures to counter the virus to further justify fascist rule, repression and suppression of the people’s democratic rights. The regime has labeled ordinary people asserting their rights as “pasaway” (disobedient) and is criminalizing all dissent and opposition to the regime.
Newspaper accounts have reported, documented and denounced increasing incidents of police and military brutalities in urban and rural communities, invasion and violations of privacy, arresting humanitarian missions, and curtailing the freedom of expression by coercing and threatening netizens to refrain from using social media to vent their frustration, desperation and anger at the isolated regime.
The experiences of other countries, the CPP emphasized, have shown that a more democratic response to the Covid-19 pandemic is possible and effective, with the necessary public health measures to protect the elderly, pregnant women and the infirm who are most vulnerable to the disease.
Blatant corruption amidst people’s hunger and desperation
The CPP also blasted rampant corruption under Covid-19. Duterte’s closest associates, it said, are raking in profits from his emergency rule.
The CPP cited, for instance, Duterte’s business dummy Dennis Uy, who had two of his ships rented by government for P35 million each, and turned into a quarantine center, even if another quarantine center at the PICC is underutilized; The PICC facility, on the other hand,was constructed by another Duterte crony, the Villars; the reported overpriced $1 billion purchase of personal protective equipment; and, the AFP Chief-of-Staff himself being exposed as using his position to receive favors when he wrote the Chinese embassy asking for some medicine for his personal use.
Revolutionary government promises to take action
The CPP has urged the people to continue documenting and reporting abuses and violations of their their rights and to report and send these to the appropriate organs of the people’s democratic government, Party committees and units of the NPA which will receive these and can investigate and take action.
“The Party calls on the Filipino to demand an end to the Duterte regime’s continued lockdown which was imposed in lieu of the necessary public health measures. They must assert that a more democratic and science-based response to the crisis is possible. They must oppose Duterte’s schemes to establish a fascist dictatorship and prolong the people’s sufferings under a draconian regime,” the CPP concluded.#
