http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/958533/congress-leaders-agree-on-con-ass
STATEMENT OF PROF. JOSE MARIA SISON
ON BICAMERAL RESOLUTION TO FORM CON-ASS
AND REVISE 1987 CONSTITUTION
Starting this month, the Lower House and the Senate will railroad the bicameral resolution constituting themselves as the Constituent Assembly in order to revise the 1987 Constitution and make a new charter under the pretext of shifting from a unitary to a federal form of government.
But in fact Duterte and his supermajority in Congress are junking the 1987 Constitution and making a charter change to make way for a fascist dictatorship or a one-man rule in which the powers of government are overconcentrated in the hands of Duterte on top of regional governments run by big compradors, landlords, corrupt bureaucrats and warlords like him.
Duterte and his cohorts are engaged in political swindling when they stay that federalism is the cure to all the big problems of the Philippines. Whatever is the form of government, the rottenness of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system under US imperialism and the local exploiting classes will persist.
What is in fact the form of government being set up by Duterte and his cohorts is a pseudo-federal government ruled by a presidential fascist dictator. This autocrat and his minions in Congress are trying to keep themselves in power for ten more years without having to run and spend for their reelection.
In the absence of any revolutionary social transformation, the country will be getting more of the same ruling families of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists at all levels of government. Corruption will continue to run rampant on top of excessive expenditures for establishing and elaborating on the regional level of government.
The US and other multinational firms will continue to plunder and ravage the human and natural resources of the Philippines. To get the blessings of the US and other imperialist powers, the new pseudo-federal constitution will get rid of the nationality requirements or restrictions on foreign investments in violation of economic sovereignty and national patrimony by simply inserting the phrase, “unless otherwise provided by law.”
Precious limited resources for economic development, at best through centralized and regional planning, will be dissipated by profit remittances and capital repatriation by foreign monopoly firms, bureaucratic corruption and rising bureaucratic and military and police personnel for the central and regional levels of government.
The ever worsening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system will continue to result in the divisiveness of the reactionary classes, the intensification of the anti-imperialist and class struggle, the further rise of the armed revolutionary movement, dissatisfaction of indigenous peoples and national minorities and stronger currents of separatism among the Bangsamoro.
No to federalism