On the morning of September 21, the 216 arrested youth protesters stood side by side with thousands of Filipinos demanding change. By that same afternoon, they were battered, handcuffed, and herded into cramped police vehicles, their voices drowned by gunshots, their visions blurred by tear gas, and their dignity assaulted by truncheons. Majority of the arrested individuals are from working class and urban poor backgrounds, 91 of whom are minors. Their only “crime” was expressing anger against the theft of billions, if not trillions, of pesos through corruption-laced flood control projects, confidential funds, and sweetheart deals that enriched both the Marcos Jr. and the Duterte ruling cliques.
Reactionary groups were quick to condemn the people’s militant protests as “unacceptable” or “violent.” They wag their fingers at protesters who blocked roads or clashed with police, yet remain on the side of the ruling class in the face of the daily violence endured by the poor. But what could be more just than the oppressed peoples rising against the everyday violence they endure? Against the corruption that drains resources meant for their survival, against the poverty that chains families in hunger, and against militarization that displaces entire communities? To condemn the people’s resistance while excusing the system that produces their misery is the highest form of hypocrisy. In truth, the people’s militant response is not only understandable, it is just and it is rightful, for no oppressed class in history has ever won freedom without daring to resist.
Furthermore, the violence unleashed on the Filipino youth protesters once again exposes the fascist nature of the reactionary Philippine state. Contrary to claims of a supposed “democracy” that exists in the country, what prevails in reality is a thin façade of “democratic elections” and “civil liberties” that conceals the iron rule of the landlords, and the big comprador bourgeoisie represented in the state by their bureaucrat capitalist agents. This “democracy” extends only to the ruling class while the majority of the Filipinos – the workers and peasants – are denied even the most basic rights when they dare to demand and assert change.
Lenin reminds us that “the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another.” And indeed for the oppressed, freedom of speech ends when their voices and their actions threaten the ruling class, freedom of assembly ends when their gatherings in their millions expose corruption and injustice, and freedom of association ends when their organizations challenge imperialist plunder.
Fascism in the countryside
The fascist terror of the reactionary Marcos Jr regime extends beyond the urban centers and cities. In the Philippine countryside, fascism takes the form of a relentless counterrevolutionary war. Under Marcos Jr., the fascist Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has intensified its counterrevolutionary terror among peasant communities resulting in at least 51,206 civilian victims of indiscriminate bombing, 67,024 cases of indiscriminate firing, and at least 45,097 victims of forced evacuation due to military operations.
Under the current National Action Plan on Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) scheme, the Marcos Jr. regime engages in scorched-earth warfare, the militarization of civilian bureaucracy, and psywar operations. Bombing rice fields, strafing forests, and displacing peasants are acts of terror meant to break the backbone of the peasant masses which form the strongest support base of the people’s war. These actions are blatant violations of International Humanitarian Law, which prohibits attacks on civilians, yet the Marcos Jr. regime continues them with impunity.
Behind these bombings lies the hand of US imperialism. American advisers and funding sustain the AFP’s relentless military operations while US bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) serve as launch pads for surveillance and logistical support.
Why fascism intensifies
The ruling classes resort to fascism because the semicolonial and semifeudal system is in permanent crisis. The Philippines is shackled by foreign debt, import-dependent, and unable to industrialize. Land remains concentrated in the hands of a few families while millions of peasants till land they do not own. Wages are depressed, prices soar, and jobs are scarce.
Marcos Jr., as the current US puppet, has no solution but to deepen neoliberal policies: foreign investment liberalization, resource extraction, privatization of services, and massive borrowing. Coupled with the massive thievery of state resources by bureaucrat capitalists, these measures exacerbate poverty and inequality pushing more Filipinos to resist and to take up arms. And when the people resist, the ruling classes respond with outright fascist repression, which is their response to their own bankruptcy.
But the more they repress, the more resistance grows. Each act of violence unmasks the state, convincing more people to take the path of armed revolution. The youth beaten in the streets return to organize with greater determination. The peasants bombed in the fields seek refuge in the people’s army. Every atrocity brings fresh recruits to the ranks of the revolution.
The massive protests swelling in the cities are not isolated episodes of unrest, they feed into a broader resurgence of the revolutionary movement, including especially the armed struggle in the countryside. While the AFP and Marcos Jr. boast that the people’s war is in “decline,” the reality on the ground tells a different story. As long as the objective conditions that gave rise to the Philippine revolution (landlessness, poverty, foreign domination, and state violence) remain firmly in place, the armed revolution will not fade but rather will just continue to grow in strength.
Waging revolution is the only path forward
Waging the national democratic revolution is the only path forward to defeat fascist terror. History has shown us that the ruling class will never voluntarily give up their seats of power nor their machinery for violence; they will only sharpen it whenever their power is threatened.
The aim of the national democratic revolution is not simply to replace one president with another but to establish a people’s democratic government rooted in the basic alliance of workers and peasants. Such a government will expropriate the wealth of landlords and compradors, distribute land to the tillers, nationalize key industries, and assert genuine independence from US imperialism.
The people’s democratic government, built in the midst of war and sustained by the sacrifices of the masses and Red fighters, is already taking shape in the guerrilla zones of the countryside, where revolutionary organs of political power distribute land, run schools, and administer justice.
To counter fascist terror, the Filipino people must intensify their struggle in all forms: from mass protests and demonstrations in the streets, workers’ strikes, various forms of cultural resistance, and engage decisively in armed revolutionary struggle. To end state terror, the people must dismantle the old reactionary state and build their own. To secure a future free from corruption, plunder, and imperialist domination, the people must win the national democratic revolution and establish the people’s democratic government.
Marcos Jr. may wield the iron fist, but the Filipino people hold the hammer of history. And history has always shown that no fascist regime, no matter how brutal, can outlast and defeat the people’s struggle for national and social liberation.
source: NDFP