The Filipino people anxiously await Duterte’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) next week, not because they want to listen to another slew of lies, deception, bullying, cursing and threatening of the Malacañang barnacle, rather because they hope this will be the last they will have to bear these.

The people hope that this will be the last time they will hear Duterte order his police and military forces to kill those whom he want killed, imprison those he want jailed, and silence everyone else. They are eager to see an end to Duterte’s tyranny, the plunder of the people’s coffers, the aggrandizement of those in power, the abandonment of the people’s health, education and welfare, the ravaging of the county’s natural wealth, the unending borrowing of funds, the sale of the country’s seas to foreign powers and the betrayal of the nation’s sovereignty.

The truth, however, is that this might not be the last of Duterte. He himself has declared his intent to stay beyond 2022. Despite his bombast that “I am ready to go to jail” for all his bloody crimes, Duterte is mortally afraid of the possibility that he will be prosecuted, sentenced and be made to rot in a coop. Thus, Duterte is now doing everything to keep himself in the throne.

His blabber “I don’t want Sara to run” is a hoax because this is in fact what he really wants to happen to cement their dynasty in Malacañang. In reality, this is what his minions in PDP-Laban are pushing for, combined with his plan to run as vice president, even if this means dividing and grabbing their party’s leadership from former allies who refuse to dance to his tune.

The daughter-father Duterte tandem for the 2022 presidential and vice-presidential elections, under one or two parties, appears to be the tyrant’s trump card. Wielding the entire government’s resources and the machinery to rig the elections, he can make the elections’ result go his way, just as he made his ticket with their Senate and congressional seats in 2019.

While playing his 2022 election cards, Duterte is also intensifying his campaign of mass killings, arrests and suppression. Part of this was the recent “terrorist designation” by the “Anti-Terrorism Council” against the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Behind the veil of “anti-terrorism” and “counterinsurgency,” the regime will undoubtedly target patriotic, democratic and progressive forces, as well as advocates of peace talks and the political opposition who have been accused of supporting, aiding, friends or contacts of the revolutionary movement.

In the countryside, the military has deployed its troops in hundreds upon hundreds of villages under its “Retooled Community Support Program” (RCSP). Attacks against the masses by the AFP and PNP are relentless to ensure their votes and paralyze their resistance against the terrorist regime.

By intensifying the campaign of suppression, Duterte aims to prevent the high possibility that widespread anger and an uprising of millions of people will be ignited once election results are found to be rigged. Duterte knows the Filipino people do not want another six years under his dynasty.

All forces upholding democracy and the people’s well-being must unite to frustrate any attempt of the US-Duterte terrorist regime to remain in power. The various forms of the anti-Duterte united front must broaden and strengthen against his national treachery, corruption, fascism and oppression of the people.

The opposition forces, as well as the progressives and other anti-Duterte forces face a formidable challenge of uniting behind a single pair of presidential and vice-presidential candidates to more effectively fight the Dutertes in the elections. They face a giant challenge of fighting a regime in power that has no qualms in abusing power and all the resources of the state for their self interests.

In the face of the regime’s relentless repression and the worsening social conditions, it is big challenge for the people to fight for the restoration of their democratic rights and for their clamor for wage increases and emergency aid, against onerous taxes, for addition funds for health, for a rollback in the prices of oil and other commodities, a return of face-to-face classes and so on.

There must be efforts to thoroughly strengthen and expand worker’s unions, peasant associations and other forms of organizations of the masses of toiling people, youth, teachers, employees, women and other sectors. They must wisely avoid becoming targets of state violence and suppression while shattering the terrorist regime’s culture of fear by waging different forms of collective resistance.

Pull together the people’s outrage against Duterte’s tyrannical regime and be alert for twists in the situation and sudden sparks of rage to rally the masses in their millions in a possible widespread uprising from now until the elections or right after Duterte rigs the election count.

The Party and the revolutionary forces will continue to play a crucial role as the strongest core of the anti-Duterte movement. In particular, the New People’s Army (NPA) must continue to intensify its tactical offensives against the regime’s armed minions. Every victorious offensive against the AFP and PNP inspires and emboldens the masses to carry forward the struggle to end their sufferings under the US-Duterte fascist regime.