Fascism and Counterrevolutionary Violence of the Neocolonial State
While people�s protests and resistance grow in scope and strength, the reactionary ruling classes intensify their use of pretense and deception, fascist intimidation and suppression.
The neocolonial state is in deep crisis, convulsed by widespread revolutionary resistance. Fascist violence is its primary means of defending and perpetuating the exploitation of workers and peasants. This is the Estrada government�s priority.
In the countryside, open terror reigns and recognized international humanitarian laws are flagrantly violated. In the cities, behind the facade of democratic processes, the human rights of workers, the urban poor and other sectors are widely suppressed.
Military Rule in the Countryside
Hundreds of thousands of peasant families endure hardships, are subjected to violence and forcibly evacuated by the military from lands claimed by foreign and local mining and logging corporations. In the mountains of Mindanao, Northern Luzon and other regions, there are continued bombings and strafing, widespread arrests and detention and hamletting of whole communities perpetrated by the AFP.
In South Cotobato, 240,000 B�laans and countless Manobos were forced out of their land grabbed by the Western Mining Corporation, an Australian company. Since 1996, the 37th and 20th IB of the Philippine Army have been attempting to forcibly evacuate the tribes. In 1997, the army units were replaced by the 28th IB and the CAFGU. The latter conducted extensive and successive miltary campaigns, including ruthless bombings intended to banish the minorities.
Five sitios in Brgy. Mayon, Compostela, Davao, were bombed by the 60th IB last July 12. More than a thousand people were forced to evacuate. From 1992 to 1998, villages in Mahagsay, San Luis, Agusan del Sur were bombed before the harvest season. In Brgy. Quipot, San Juan, Batangas, brothers Crisostomo and Francisco Baes were abducted, imprisoned and tortured by PNP troops last June 19. The two are members of the militant Samahang Magbubukid sa Batangas which is protesting widespread land-use conversion in the province.
In barrios where it suspects the presence of revolutionary forces, the AFP openly terrorizes the people through arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, bombings and killings.
Last December 25, 1997, the 73rd and 29th IB bombed and assaulted four barrios in Paquibato District, Davao City. The military retaliated by victimizing innocent civilians after the NPA successfully disarmed 18 CAFGUs in a nearby area.
Last March 19, 1997, the 68th IB bombed Brgy. Lucapon, Sta. Cruz, Zambales on suspicion that there were NPA guerrillas in the area. The entire barrio was zoned, houses ransacked and suspected NPA supporters arrested.
Suppression and Repression in the Cities
Strikes are commonly attacked by the police and military. From 1995 to 1997, 71 cases of picketline dispersals resulting in the death of eight strikers were recorded. From 1996 to 1997, more than 10,000 cases of human rights violations against workers were also reported.
Laws and mechanisms which restrict the right to strike and bind unions to unending legal processes are extensively employed. An outstanding example is the Herrera Law�s (RA 6715) provision on assumption of jurisdiction.
This June, Philippine Air Lines (PAL) employees went on strike to assert the right to job security of 5,000 workers laid off by the company. Estrada invoked the repressive Herrera Law to break the strike and compel the workers to sign an agreement favorable to PAL owner Lucio Tan. Since 1989, strikes over which the DOLE (Department of Labor and Employment) assumed jurisdiction increased by 125%.
In the country�s 19 export processing zones, unions and strikes are banned outright.
The urban poor are forcibly evacuated from land claimed by real estate speculators and big businessmen. Within the few months before the APEC Summit was held in November 1996, some 50,000 families lost their homes and livelihood due to the government�s violent demolition operations.
Even other sections of the urban pettybourgeoisie fall prey to state violence. Human rights advocates and pro-people activists are persecuted, at times resulting in the �salvaging� of identified protesters. No one is spared by the reactionary armed forces. In one intance, the family of the late Rolando Olalia, their lawyers and supporters were harassed and intimidated after they revived the murder case against former and active AFP officials who abducted, tortured and killed Olalia and Leonor Alay-ay in 1986.
Violating Humanitarian Laws of War
The ruthlessness and atrocity of AFP forces against captured members of the revolutionary movement go on unabated. Many of those arrested especially in armed encounters are summarily executed or tortured and forced to become intelligence assets or counterrevolutionary psywar agents of the AFP-PNP.
Women fighters are often abused and raped before being killed.
In Dikapanikian, Dingalan, Aurora, four young members of an NPA auxillary unit, including two women, were massacred by 56th and 70th IB elements led by Lt. Raymundo Aguada last July 9. The women were raped and murdered, their genital areas riddled with bullets to conceal the savagery they had been subjected to.
At Villa Gracia, Maddela, Quirino, troops under Lieutenant Diaz (�Bravo� Company), and Lieutenant Gendraule (�Charlie� Company) of the 77th IB, killed Ka Egan (Sofronio Yba�ez) after capturing him unwounded in an encirclement operation last January 24.
At Sto. Domingo, Jones, Isabela last January 30, troops under Lieutenant Castro (�Bravo� Company) of the 21st IB, seized Ka Deo (Ernesto dela Pe�a) after a 30-minute gunfight. Instead of applying first aid to Ka Deo who was only slightly wounded, he was left to bleed to death; he died five hours later.
The PNP and AFP incessantly violate the agreements with the NDF signed by the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines). The capture, detention and torture of Sotero Llamas and Danilo Borjal, both consultants of the NDF negotiating panel, are clear violations of the JASIG (Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantee). Last January 29, Antonio Jamora, member of Danilo Borjal�s staff, was also arrested and threatened by members of the AFP.
To deceive and trap the NPA into declaring an indefinite ceasefire, the AFP often announces bogus SOMOs (suspension of offensive military operations), which it brazenly violates anyway. Last March 28, in the middle of the regime�s own SOMO (Dec. 1997 � June 1998), elements of the 58th IB encircled an NPA squad in Buenavista, Agusan del Norte. Three Red fighters were killed and two were taken prisoner. Remelo Basilan and Ruel Distresa were detained and hidden from their families and friends.
In Marilog District, Davao City, troopers from the 73rd IB encircled an NPA unit last May 2, killing nine Red fighters, a farmer and his 12-year-old child. To cover up their violation of their own SOMO, the soldiers accused the guerrillas of being cattle rustlers.
Despite Estrada�s having signed the Comprehensive Agreement for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law between the NDFP and the GRP, political prisoners charged with criminal cases remain imprisoned.
In one case, Ka Benzar (Amado Payot), an NPA commander apprehended last March in South Cotabato, was tortured and imprisoned with criminal charges filed against him. Records show that no less than 134 political prisoners are illegally detained in different parts of the country.
Continuing and Intensifying Fascism
Despite the fall of the US-Marcos fascist dictatorship in 1986, the consecutive Aquino, Ramos and Estrada regimes perpetuated the fascist machinery of the AFP-PNP. US imperialism maintains its tight grip over the AFP-PNP, the largest and most notorious defender of imperialist rule in the country. The attempts of the puppet Estrada regime to repatriate Ver and his sons is only the latest among its schemes to clear the names of even the worst fascist scalawags of the AFP-PNP.
Counterrevolutionary violence and fascism lurk behind the thin veil of �Filipino-style democracy� bandied about by former president Ramos and his fellow reactionaries. Extensive and intensifying fascism are basic characteristics of a crisis-ridden semicolonial and semifeudal system. Even the first two years of the Aquino puppet regime (a time when the anti-fascist uprising that catapulted it to power still enjoyed some momentum) were marked by the unprecedented growth of AFP forces, the widespread buildup of the CAFGU and vigilante groups, large-scale military campaigns within and around urban centers, and the brazen murder of nationalist leaders and activists such as Lando Olalia, Leonor Alay-ay and Lean Alejandro.
From the time of the Ramos puppet regime, there have been unmistakable signs of growing fascism and preparations for more systematic fascist surveillance and control of the people, such as Gen. Jose Almonte�s proposal for a national identification system. In the name of the anti-crime campaign, these fascist decrees are being upheld by the Estrada regime.
Despite the serious monetary and economic crisis and large cuts in the budgetary allotments for social services, the Estrada government will provide P30.2 billion to finance the recruitment of more AFP personnel and the acquisition of military equipment. It is gearing for bigger battles against the struggling masses and the revolutionary movement.
This year alone, the Estrada regime is planning to recruit 3,500 additional AFP soldiers. This contradicts Secretary of Defense Orlando Mercado�s claim that the regime is now capable of defeating, militarily, the NPA and Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, which Malaca�ang and the AFP refer to as the �primary threats to internal security.�
Due to lack of funds, the 15-year P331 billion AFP modernization program has been temporarily set aside. The purchase of modern warplanes and war vessels has been deferred in favor of concentrating the strength and resources of the reactionary army on campaigns to �clear, hold and consolidate� areas affected by the two �internal threats.� The Estrada regime is now desperately seeking from the US additional arms and training support for the AFP. Intensifying state fascism will, without doubt, be met head-on by the people�s vigorous struggles.
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