By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
27 February 2002
It is fine that the mass protest actions continue to condemn the US military intervention and puppetry of the Macapagal regime.
Gloria Macapagal knows no bounds for her puppetry. She is a far more shameless puppet than Marcos who never called for US combat troops to fight the MNLF, a far larger force in his time than the small bandit gang Abu Sayyaf.
We must uphold the principle of national sovereignty of the Filipino people against the military intervention of the biggest terrorist force in history, US imperialism, which killed 1.4 million Filipinos from 1899 to 1916.
Macapagal underestimates the patriotism of the Filipino people and overestimates her own demagogic attempts to capitalize on the military campaign against the despicable Abu Sayyaf, which in the first place is a creation of the US CIA and AFP puppet officers.
We can frustrate the calculation of Macapagal that by serving as drummer girl and camp follower of the US combat troops, she can distract the attention of the people from the outrageous corruption of her administration and the rapidly worsening economic and social conditions.
Let us call the attention of the people to the corruption of the regime to sharpen the people’s awareness of the exceedingly exploitative and oppressive character of the ruling system. Let us arouse, organize and mobilize the people for protest mass actions against cases of corruption, such as the following:
1. Payoffs from Eduardo Cojuangco for his continuing control of San Miguel Brewery Corporation and other assets acquired with the coconut levy funds. The government has been reduced to having only seven out of fifteen in the SMB board of directors and the government shares will be diluted upon the entry of Kirin. Finally, a big portion of the government shares will be sold. As a result of the deal with Cojuangco, Gloria Macapagal and Mike Arroyo are reported to be at least worth 30 billion pesos more. They have also gotten the promise of Cojuangco to support the electoral bid of Macapagal in 2004.
2. Scam involving the so-called PEACE bonds amounting to 1.8 billion pesos. This is a racketeering operation by Macapagal’s “socdem” cronies, including Norberto Gonzales, Dinky Soliman, Ging Deles and Vicky Garchitorena. They have imitated Eduardo Cojuangco’s old trick of using state power to transfer public resources to a private entity called CODE-NGO. The loot is comparable in magnitude to the jueteng collection of Estrada.
3. Bribes for pushers of the resolutions to allow Estrada go abroad. A slush fund of two billion pesos from Estrada’s financiers was used to pay off a powerful couple and a number of the senators and congressmen who signed the resolutions to let Estrada escape prosecution for plunder under the guise of going abroad for medical treatment.
4. Repeated milking of IMPSA. IMPSA has been milked by one regime after another from Ramos through Estrada to Macapagal. Under the Macapagal regime, the first gentleman and second gentleman collaborated in making the approach to IMPSA. The Argentinean company readily yielded to the milking because the funds come from a World Bank-led syndicate of banks and the ultimate debtor is after all the Philippine government.
5. The thriving jueteng racket. Estrada was toppled after being exposed for receiving jueteng money. But the jueteng racket is thriving more than ever before. It is now run by gambling lords closeto the Macapagal regime. In many provinces, the jueteng collectors double as drug pushers.
The avowed reason of Macapagal and Mike Arroyo for collecting funds at so rapid a rate is to prepare for the 2004 elections. But at the rate that they are collecting funds, the two shall have become too exposed as corrupt and too discredited as to render futile Macapagal’s electoral plans for 2004. #
