Editorial:
Thwart the US-Arroyo regime's cruel antipeople blows

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

Mass organizations, political forces and even the church sector are up in arms against the Arroyo regime's plans to raise the value added tax (VAT) from 10 to 12% and expand its coverage to include petroleum products and electricity, medical and legal services. They are also utterly opposed to opening the country's natural wealth anew to the plunder of foreign mining corporations with the final affirmation of the Mining Act of 1995. The people are angered no end over the two latest pro-imperialist and antipeople policies being pushed by the Arroyo government in its desperate attempt to shore up the rotten semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system.

The Arroyo regime has turned a deaf ear on the widespread clamor against the VAT increase. It does not give a damn if the VAT increase would cause prices of commodities to skyrocket and devastate the people economically. Arroyo does not even have the slightest compassion for the people, going all-out to push for the VAT increase even as she zealously obstructs measures to raise workers' wages.

Even worse than the VAT increase, the US-Arroyo regime is now pulling all stops to dismantle the frontiers of Philippine national patrimony and grant foreign monopoly capitalists total freedom to plunder the country's mineral wealth.

Arroyo and her officials have exposed themselves as nothing but administrators of the neocolonial state whose loyalty is to foreign businesses. They do not conceal their glee over plans of foreign capitalists to seize and exploit what is left of the country's wealth. The Arroyo regime has no concern whatsoever should foreign monopoly capitalists' mining operations bring about the unprecedented destruction of mountain and river systems and agricultural lands, wreak havoc on the lives of the toiling masses, and further stunt the local economy.

The US-Arroyo regime offers all kinds of incentives to foreign capitalists, including tax holidays, the right to repatriate 100% of their profits and exemption from inspections to ascertain compliance with environmental protection standards. These and many more are all guaranteed by the Mining Act of 1995 which the Supreme Court upheld with finality this February.

The US-Arroyo regime strains to picture the large-scale entry of foreign capitalists in mining as contributing to economic advance. It turns a blind eye to the fact that in the past 60 years, such policies have only resulted in massive unemployment, the destruction of productive forces, capital depletion and chronic crisis.

There is urgent need for the Filipino people to take all-out action to stop the US-Arroyo regime from implementing the VAT increase and relentlessly offering come-ons to foreign capitalists to invest in mining. All possible means must be employed to frustrate these sinister schemes. Only then can the people prevent their further economic ruin and their added oppression and suffering.

Gloria Arroyo's insistence on implementing the VAT increase incites widespread anger against her regime. Her indifference to the people's grievances and her propagation of the lie that "it is the people who will benefit from the VAT increase" are stoking the fires of protest.

Those opposed to the implementation of the Mining Act of 1995 also come from a broad spectrum. They must be rallied to prevent the entry of foreign capitalists and their plunder of the country's mineral wealth. The Filipino people will wage a national war to fight for and defend economic sovereignty and the country's national patrimony.

In particular, committees and officials of the organs of political power at various levels nationwide must use their authority to implement specific policies on land reform and laws that defend the peasantry and minority peoples' right to land and against environmental destruction. Units of the New People's Army (NPA) have a responsibility to ensure that these laws and policies are implemented.

The Filipino people's mass actions and struggles against the VAT increase and the entry of foreign capitalists in the mining industry are all linked to, and are in the service of, the people's struggle against the US-Arroyo regime. In fact, these struggles emphasize the urgent need to end Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's puppet, antipeople, corrupt and repressive government.

In advancing these struggles, it is the responsibility of the revolutionary forces to raise the people's consciousness and show the need for a new-democratic revolution to put an end to the neocolonial state and the semicolonial and semifeudal social system through protracted people's war.

07 February 2005
English Edition

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