By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
20 July 2002
It is correct to raise the slogan “Oust the US-Arroyo regime!” The broad masses of the people welcome the call because they suffer the ever-worsening socioeconomic crisis and are outraged by the puppetry, corruption, mendacity and repressiveness of the regime.
The slogan can call to life a broad united front of forces capable of either removing Ms Macapagal-Arroyo from power before 2004 or making her lose in the 2004 presidential elections.
And if she can somehow overcome the presidential bid of a retired general like DND secretary Angelo Reyes, supposedly favored by the US as a “law and order” candidate, the broad united front will still have the chance to chase her out of office after 2004.
Whichever of the foregoing possibilities is going to be realized, the revolutionary cause stands to be benefited by the accumulation of the people’s wrath and strength, resulting from any prolongation of Ms Macapagal-Arroyo in power. As of now, the US-Arroyo regime is stinking to high heavens because it has aggravated the crisis of the entire ruling system.
Some major reactionaries who are critical of the regime are still hesitant about joining the broad united front to oust the US-Arroyo regime and are publicly saying that they do not wish to join it lest one more overthrow of a president would totally discredit the reactionary constitution or entire ruling system.
At whatever pace the broad united front develops, the patriotic and progressive forces are resolutely and vigorously using the time to arouse, organize and mobilize the people in their millions in order to isolate the regime and bring it down in due course.
At the moment, the fragility of the regime is dramatically evident from the delicate balance of followers and opponents of the Macapagal-Arroyo ruling clique in the Philippine Senate and in the Lakas-NUCD ruling party. Any attempt of the ruling clique to augment its strength, assert its autonomy or paralyze current opponents in any way will only tend to upset the balance of forces within the reactionary government.
The officers of the reactionary armed forces and police are extremely factionalized according to conflicting political loyalties and ambitions as well as according to competing interests in lucrative criminal activities, including kidnap-for-ransom, smuggling, drug trafficking, jueteng and white slavery. The current ruling clique cannot be too sure about the loyalty of the military and police officers when the mass movement surges again as in the final days of Marcos or Estrada.
The regime is aware that the patriotic and progressive forces of the national-democratic movement are steadily growing in strength and advancing. Instead of extending any friendly hand to them, the regime has been pushing military and police forces to attack them and violate human rights on a wide scale.
We have been informed that the regime has indefinitely suspended the GRP peace negotiations with the NDFP in preparation for scrapping them and has long given the orders to the reactionary armed forces and police to escalate their campaigns of suppression against the people and the people’s army in utter subservience to the US line of pursuing large-scale terrorism under the pretext of combating the small-scale terrorism of such disgruntled assets of the US CIA like the Abu Sayyaf.
We have also received a report that Ms Macapagal-Arroyo has authorized military and police forces to bully, provoke and disperse the rallyists on the day of her state of the nation address on July 22, to show off her “iron fist” on the issue of peace and order. She cannot stamp out the criminal gangsters because they are in cahoots with her military and police officers. And yet she arrogantly calculates that she can assault with impunity unarmed and peaceful demonstrators.
If the regime does not step back from its unjust and brutal course, it will only cause the intensification of all forms of resistance by the revolutionary forces and people. It cannot gain anything by unleashing threats and attacks against them. The current raging crisis of the world capitalist system and the ruling system is favorable to the armed revolution. #
