CPP Statement On 51st Anniversary Of Declaration Of Martial Law Under Marcos Sr
Marco Valbuena | Chief Information Officer | Communist Party Of The Philippines
September 21, 2023
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) joins the Filipino people in marking today the 51st anniversary of martial law amid worsening economic crisis, subservience to foreign powers, state terrorism and political repression under the dictator’s son Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
More than ever, the Filipino people, especially the downtrodden masses of workers, peasants and other toiling people, must muster the courage and strength to unite and fight the anti-people, anti-democratic and anti-national US-Marcos regime.
The return of the Marcoses to political power through sheer fraud and chicanery exposes the gross deterioration of the moribund semicolonial and semifeudal system.
Just like during the time of his father, political power today is increasingly being monopolized and centralized in the hands of Marcos Jr. Congress is a veritable Marcos rubber stamp. The Supreme Court and other courts are slowly removing legal impediments for the Marcoses to recover their billion of pesos of illegal wealth.
Corruption under Marcos Jr has become increasingly barefaced with the plan to build the Maharlika Investment Fund, in which Marcos can funnel ₱500-billion in public funds to favored cronies, with hundreds of billions of pesos being allotted to infrastructure projects that line up their pockets with kickbacks, billions of pesos of confidential and intelligence funds, large-scale smuggling of rice and other commodities, and so on.
In just over one year in power, Marcos reign is characterized by heightening state terrorism, employing dirty and dark tactics to silence critics and attack organizations and people who oppose the anti-people and oppressive projects and programs. Marcos’ military forces continue to carry out large-scale combat operations, psychological warfare, aerial bombing, shelling and hamletting of communities resulting in gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
Marcos is displaying utter subservience to US imperialism, allowing it to establish military bases and fortify its presence in the Philippines, in violation of the country’s sovereignty. Marcos is allowing the US to use the Philippines as a springboard for its geopolitical strategy of containing and encircling China, and using the country to bring inter-imperialist conflict to the brink of war.
Marcos continues to implement neoliberal economic policies and programs which serve foreign and local big business interests, intensify the exploitation of workers, and cause the economic dispossession, dislocation and marginalization of peasants and petty bourgeois sectors. The quality of life of millions of Filipino families continue to deteriorate as a result of low wages and lack of income amid rising prices of food, fuel and basic commodities and services.
Marcos ignores the clamor for substantive wage increases, genuine land reform, reduction and elimination of land rent, fair farm gate prices for palay, onions, garlic and other peasant produce, greater budget allocation for health, education and other social services, a stop to jeepney phaseout and land reclamation projects, and other urgent demands.
The Marcos regime is politically isolated and aloof from the Filipino masses. Marcos is completely out of touch with the economic difficulties and sufferings of the masses. This is made worse by his jet-setting and high-style living which he does not make any effort to hide, using public money and the presidential luxury jet to fly to Singapore and other places.
In 1972, Marcos Sr imposed martial law as a declaration of war of the US-supported neocolonial state against the Filipino people. Instead of stopping the growth of the New People’s Army, Marcos Sr’s military dictatorship and reign of terror only fueled further the people’s armed resistance, and served as the No. 1 recruiter for the NPA. The civil war has raged since then, during which time the people’s army expanded nationwide and waged guerrilla warfare in wide areas across the country.
The AFP has waged all-out war and strategic offensives over the course of the past five years. It has prematurely declared provinces to be “insurgency free” only to be proven wrong by NPA armed offensives and encounters in these areas. The same tactics of state terrorism being applied today by the AFP give the people no other option but to fight back with arms.
In the face of heightened political repression and economic suffering, the NPA is ever determined to fight for the Filipino people and carry forward revolutionary armed resistance against intensified state terrorism under Marcos.
Source : https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/crisis-corruption-state-terrorism-puppetry-mark-51st-anniversary-of-martial-law-declaration/