Official CPP Statement On The Commemoration Of The 39th Anniversary Of The EDSA Uprising
Marco Valbuena | Chief Information Officer | Communist Party Of The Philippines
February 24, 2025
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) joins the Filipino people in marking tomorrow the 39th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA Uprising, the historic culmination of the 14-year resistance against the US-Marcos fascist dictatorship. For four days, millions of people converged along EDSA and other major streets in Metro Manila, as well as in major cities and towns across the country, in an uprising that ended the tyrannical and terrorist reign of the much-detested Marcos regime.
While ignited by the brazen fraud committed by Ferdinand Marcos Sr during the snap elections, the mass demonstrations during the 1986 EDSA Uprising are, more than anything, a testament to the relentless struggle and sacrifices of the Filipino people over nearly fifteen years of resistance against the oppressive and tyrannical regime. We pay tribute to the tens of thousands of peasants and workers, students, women, other ordinary people, communist cadres of Red fighters of the New People’s Army who stood valiantly and fought a protracted struggle against the fascist regime.
Commemorating the 39th anniversary of the EDSA Uprising is profoundly relevant today, as we find ourselves under the shadow of another Marcos, the dictator’s son, whose family leveraged the ill-gotten wealth estimated to be more than ₱500 billion amassed during their criminal and corrupt reign under martial law to ascend to power in 2022 in collusion with the tyrant Duterte. The current president, Marcos Jr, now sits atop the same oppressive and exploitative system, ruled by the US imperialists, the big bourgeois compradors, big landlords and bureaucrat capitalists.
The legacy of corruption continues under the current Marcos regime. With power and influence in his hands, Marcos Jr has succeeded in having courts dismiss at least nine cases of corruption against the Marcoses involving more than ₱200 billion. Marcos Jr and his cronies are raking in billions upon billions of pesos in unaudited intelligence funds, kickbacks from infrastructure projects, pork barrel money, the Maharlika Investment Fund and many other forms of corruption. Marcos Jr is living the life while people wallow in poverty and hunger.
Like his father, and past tyrants, Marcos Jr now reigns with the same iron fist, employing the state armed forces and police, and subjecting the Filipino people to gross violations of human rights. The different aspects of martial law remain, especially in the countryside, where people are subjected to surveillance, fascist intimidation, unlawful arrests, state-sanctioned abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, massacres, aerial bombardments, shelling and military occupation of communities.
Marcos Jr’s attempt to downplay the EDSA Uprising is part of a larger scheme to rewrite history, obscure the past by erasing the crimes and abuses committed by the Marcos dictatorship from the people’s collective memory, in order to legitimize its own fascist rule. Marcos Jr will surely fail in his attempt to revise history. The Filipino people will forever remember and honor those who fought the dictatorship, and will be inspired by their sacrifices as they struggle against the same tyrannical rule.
Like his dictator father, Marcos Jr is trying to silence dissent, suppress opposition, and intimidate the people into submission, using the same tactics employed by his dictator father and by fascist regimes of the past. The people will not be cowed by these tactics.
The Party joins the commemoration of the 1986 EDSA uprising not only to remind ourselves of our history, but also to amplify the call to heighten the people’s resistance against the Marcos puppet and fascist regime. The Party vows to continue to mobilize and organize the masses to unite and wage resistance against the regime’s fascist policies, defend their democratic rights and fight for their urgent demands amid worsening crisis.
The Party and all revolutionary forces are determined to persevere in the fight to end imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism, wage all forms of resistance, principally armed struggle, to advance the people’s war with the goal of attaining national and social liberation, and laying the grounds for a socialist future.
Source : https://philippinerevolution.nu/statements/on-the-commemoration-of-the-39th-anniversary-of-the-edsa-uprising/