Resist Duterte’s terrorism
Dissent and resistance are vital signs of a living democracy — but for President Rodrigo Duterte and his lapdogs, dissent is destabilization; resistance is terrorism.
It is now more than clear that Duterte is setting the stage for a fascist dictatorship: He had openly admitted to being fascist last month — all in the midst of bringing back the police in the killing fields of drug operations, extending martial law in Mindanao for another year, and even threatening to criminalize organized dissent by arresting activists for supposedly conspiring with so-called terrorists.
It is ironic, to say the least: If anything, Duterte’s mass murder of the poor in his brutal anti-drug campaign, his threats to bomb the schools and communities of indigenous peoples, and his suggestions of declaring a “revolutionary” government in order to quell justified rebellion against his tyrannical regime had left the people terrorized more than those he eagerly maligned and vilified as enemies of the state.
Duterte must have forgotten to admit that he is also the country’s leading terrorist — and, in fully unveiling the rotting core his fascist regime, his terror attacks on the people have only intensified.
Despite the success of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) in conducting 2,161 anti-drug operations almost without blood and violence, Duterte is hellbent on satisfying his maniacal bloodlust by taking the operations from PDEA and giving it back to the police.
Lest it be forgotten, brutal police operations took the lives of youth like Kian Loyd Delos Santos and Carl Angelo Arnaiz, among other victims and “collateral damages” of summary executions.
At the start of his term, Duterte promised to end illegal drug trade in the country within his first six months in office— or else, he said he would resign.
Already long overdue on his false promise of change, Duterte is yet to step down and is now frantically clinging to his bloody throne, now that the popularity he once enjoyed is diminishing.
Rightfully expecting strong backlash, Duterte is now taking desperate measures to silence dissent — and his schemes are blatantly transparent.
One must look no further than his continuing undermining of checks and balances: The impeachment proceedings of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno continue along with threats to impeach Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, his tirades on the Commission on Human Rights, and his online troll army’s discrediting of the media.
Even taking cues from the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Duterte had also resorted to declaring the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) as “terrorist organizations” — effectively reducing the long-standing communist insurgency in the country to mere terrorism — in a bid to legalize his crackdown on detractors and activists, including militant youth and student formations, by the way of trumped-up charges, illegal arrests, and spurious accusations of conspiracy and terrorism.
Just as his crackdown on illegal drugs saw the deaths of thousands of alleged drug users and pushers based on mere suspicion, Duterte is now emboldening state forces and his vigilante loyalists to arrest — or worse, kill —dissenters by conveniently labeling them as “rebels” and “terrorists.”
The declaration is already reaping fatal results: The past week saw the killings of clergymen such as activist-priest Marcelito Paez, who was gunned down by still-unidentified assailants in Jaen, Nueva Ecija last Dec. 4, right after facilitating the release of a peasant leader arrested by the army’s 56th infantry battalion for allegedly being a member of the NPA.
Paez’s death followed that of pastor Lovelito Quiñones, who was killed by forces of the police regional mobile group in an encounter in Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro last Dec. 3, with the army’s 203rd brigade claiming that Quiñones was an NPA guerrilla.
The wheels even seem to have started turning long before: Merely a week after formally terminating the peace negotiations with the CPP-NPA,student-activists from the University of the Philippines and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines were killed in an encounter with the police and the Air Force 730the combat group in Nasugbu, Batangas last Nov. 28, where the military had been conducting aerial bombings and arrests of peasant leaders tagged as members of the NPA for the past months.
Unsurprisingly, the military insisted that all 15 casualties in the Nasugbu encounter — including the student-activists — were full-time NPA guerrillas.
School-based formations — and even campus publications — which were already reporting the harassment, intimidation, and red-tagging of their leaders and members by police and suspected military agents for the past months are now receiving anonymous death threats and targeted harassment in the midst of the crackdown on activist groups.
A member of the UST chapter of militant student group League of Filipino Students, for example, received death threats via phone call last Dec. 4; the same number also sent threats to a member of poetry collective KM64.
The madman Duterte, however, does not seem to be satisfied with his bloodbath and totalitarian reign of terror.
Like a true Marcos fanboy, Duterte is now using the excuse of “communist terrorism” to make his rubber stamp Congress approve his bid to further extend martial law in Mindanao for another year and strengthen counterinsurgency operations in the island.
Lumad communities — which had been the usual targets of aerial bombings and military harassment for actively defending their ancestral domains from the land-grabbing of mining companies and transnational corporations — have decried the further extension of martial law as an avenue for the military to tag them as rebels and forcibly drive them out of their lands.
The same day as Quiñones’s death, Karapatan reported that a composite team of the army’s 27th and 33rd infantry battalions and the Marines killed eight Lumad farmers in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, among other Lumad killings linked to counterinsurgency operations.
Lumad families in the area have reclaimed 300 hectares of their domains from the land-grabbing of David M. Consunji Inc.; the military immediately branded them as members of the NPA.
Checkpoints of the 75th infantry battalion have also continued to block the entry of food and relief goods being sent to displaced Lumad families in evacuation centers in Lianga, Surigao del Sur.
The military continues to deny the food blockade despite numerous reports from local media, non-government organizations and civil society groups.
Even more alarming, however, is that fact that the first extension of martial law in Mindanao is not even over and yet Duterte’s lapdogs in Congress are now pushing to put the entire country under martial law.
Coupled with his previous suggestions of declaring a “revolutionary” government, it does not seem far-fetched that the self-declared fascist will push through in declaring a nationwide martial law to finally seize and consolidate his power in a one-man rule.
The country faces darker days ahead; the killings, violence, and the culture of impunity will only continue to worsen as the state paves the way for a fascist dictatorship — and no one is safe.
But if Duterte thinks the people’s struggle will be cowed by threats of arrests, abductions, torture — and even death — he is utterly mistaken: As if he had never read a history book, state oppression and violence only emboldens resistance, and their numbers are growing by the day.
The youth holds power in these trying times, and they must continue to stand and resist the imminent threat of another dictatorship and join the people’s struggle in their fight for genuine change — a change that will never come from the bloody fists of a self-declared fascist.
History has proven time and time again that the people’s struggle can topple down dictators — and Duterte and his reign of terror are not exceptions.
