By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
19 January 2002

At the rate that Gloria Macapagal has offended the broad masses of the people, she will face an increasingly determined and vigorous broad-based opposition in the second year of her administration.

Four serious issues work against her:

1. Aggravation of the socioeconomic crisis and people’s suffering due to continuing servility to the foreign monopolies, the IMF, World Bank and WTO;
2. Rampant bureaucratic corruption, shady compromises with the biggest plunderers and cronies, and criminal syndicates run by military and police officers;
3. Escalating US military intervention in violation of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the constitutional ban on foreign bases, troops or facilities; and
4. Brutal military and police campaigns to suppress the rising mass movement in the cities and countryside.

The relatively peaceful removal of Macapagal from power is probable within one year or so if the following conditions arise:

1. A broad united front of forces takes shape, similar to that which isolated and brought down Marcos and Estrada, and generates nationwide mass protest actions focusing on the economic and social travails of the people.
2. Efforts succeed to persuade the military and police forces to respect the democratic right of the people to assemble and protest.
3. The vice president is willing to succeed the discredited president and preempt any military clique or military-civilian junta from taking power.
4. The armed revolutionary movements of the people of the Philippines, including the Bangsamoro, intensify in the countryside and serve notice to the regime that it cannot suppress the legal democratic forces in the urban areas with impunity.

As the socioeconomic situation further deteriorates, Gloria Macapagal can be driven out of the presidential palace by the widespread and converging mass actions of the hungry and angry masses to the nationwide clanging of empty pots and pans.