Estrada regime: at the brink of death:
Puppetry, corruption and fascism

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The Estrada regime�s two-and-a-half-year existence has been characterized by unbridled corruption, fascism and puppetry that have

Within this relatively short period, the reactionary state under Estrada�s administration has likewise been besieged by a political crisis unprecedented in its intensity�a crisis that was further set off in October when former Estrada cohort Gov. Luis �Chavit� Singson exposed the breadth and depth of the regime�s corruption and depravity.

Barefaced cronyism and corruption. The Estrada regime will undoubtedly go down in the history of reactionary politics in the country for its unabashed cronyism and for corruption of such scandalous proportions.

One of Estrada�s first acts upon becoming president was pay debts of gratitude to those who bankrolled his campaign and put him in power.

By the first month of his regime�s existence, Estrada had restored his patron and Marcos� biggest crony Eduardo �Danding� Cojuangco to the board of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) and instructed government representatives in the company to elect him as SMC chair. By virtue of an executive order signed by Estrada, Cojuangco was also able to recover possession this November of the ill-gotten coco levy funds and is in the process of being absolved of charges filed against him in court. To camouflage Cojuangco�s dirty landgrabbing schemes, Estrada dubbed him as the �godfather of land reform� and officially promoted his �corporative scheme�.

Estrada, at the same time, proceeded to pay his political debts to the Marcoses, his long-time allies. He attempted to reverse the judgment of history when he hailed the late despised dictator as a hero. With Estrada�s blessings, the Marcos family has been fully restored to power. Estrada has also colluded with the reactionary courts and revisionist renegades in continuing to extend protection to the Marcoses so that they would not be held answerable for their grave crimes against the people, could retain their ill-gotten wealth, recover properties sequestered by government and deprive some 10,000 victims of martial rule of their just indemnification.

Through a series of decisions, Estrada has also extended favors to another major campaign contributor, the big bourgeois comprador Lucio Tan. Upon Estrada�s orders, Tan was cleared in August of charges of evading payment of P25 billion in taxes. When workers of the Tanowned Philippine Airlines (PAL) struck in September 1998, Estrada forced union leaders to sign an agreement compelling PAL workers to observe a 10-year moratorium on strikes and wage increases. Malaca�ang also maneuvered the forging of an agreement limiting the number of passengers that PAL rival carrier Eva Air could fly to Taiwan.

Among Estrada�s other cronies are William Gatchalian, Jaime Dichavez, Jacinto Ng, Lucio Co, Mark Jimenez, Dante Tan and Charlie �Atong� Ang. All of them have been favored with contracts, import quotas and access to credit from government banks and financial institutions. In return, they have been fronting for Estrada to legitimize his illegal acquisition of various assets. Countless members of Estrada�s family, his relatives, mistresses and friends have also received assorted favors and privileges from government.

Estrada has endeavored to acquire all the perks of power with indecent haste. The congressional pork barrel was banned so that Malaca�ang could centralize the collection of commissions from big projects.

More than this, the operations of criminal syndicates were centrally directed by Estrada from Malaca�ang. He continued and expanded the old kidnap for ransom business that he began with Gen. Panfilo Lacson back in their days at the Presidential Anti-Crime Commission. He established Task Force Aduana to dismantle rival smuggling syndicates, especially in Subic, and monopolize the takings.

Singson has in turn exposed how Estrada centralized jueteng collections nationwide and extended protection in exchange. Not satisfied, Estrada eventually legalized jueteng (through the �Bingo 2-balls� gambling scheme designed by Atong Ang) to facilitate supervision of its operations and make it difficult for anyone else to cut into the hundreds of millions of pesos of jueteng booty.

The money-grubbing Estrada did not pass on any opportunity to have more of it. Recent r e p o r t s exposed how he copped 40% (or US$8 million) of the $20-million ransom paid for 20 tourists abducted from Malaysia in March by Abu Sayyaf bandits. Estrada demanded a commission in exchange for his regime�s participation in negotiations for the captives� release. Estrada�s emissary and negotiator Robert Aventajado himself got 10% (or US$2 million).

The regime has been extremely corrupt to sustain the excessively luxurious lifestyle of Estrada, his family and mistresses in the midst of the people�s widespread poverty. But the exposure of scandals involving his regime has also paved the way for his downfall.

Blood-stained record of fascism. Estrada had early on consolidated his regime�s fascist machinery and manifested his penchant for militarist methods of suppressing the people�s resistance.

He appointed as police chief his most trusted henchman Gen. Panfilo Lacson, a rabid fascist with many blood debts against the people and the revolutionary forces. Estrada granted Lacson immense powers, including appointing him as head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force. He also established his own base within the reactionary military by promoting to leading positions such loyal followers as Gen. Angelo Reyes (chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines or AFP) and Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim (deputy AFP chief and head of the Intelligence Service of the AFP).

He signed in August 1998 the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, the first point in the substantive agenda of the peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). But he junked it soon after. The regime terminated the peace negotiations and eventually discarded all agreements between the NDFP and the GRP forged in almost 10 years of talks between the two panels. It was not long before the Estrada regime brazenly violated the ceasefire agreement between the GRP and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). To compel the MILF to surrender, Estrada ordered tens of thousands of troops to attack not only the MILF camps in various areas of Mindanao but Moro communities as well. At the same time, the Estrada regime also seized on the Abu Sayyaf hostagetaking incidents to intensify its anti- Moro war.

The regime extended its anti- Moro war and and sowed terror beyond Mindanao. In Metro Manila, two Moro workers were summarily executed and 26 innocent Moro civilians were abducted and accused of being responsible for bombings instigated by the Estrada government. The government scuttled negotiations so it could enforce unimpeded, the counterrevolutionary Oplan Makabayan against the NDFP and Oplan Pisces Alpha against the MILF.

Unlike previous oplans of the reactionary government that gave relative stress to psychological warfare, both Oplan Makabayan and Oplan Pisces Alpha markedly emphasize largescale military operations to crush the people�s armed resistance. In Southern Tagalog, one of the regions that has borne the brunt of the regime�s militarist attacks, the Estrada government, in its first two years, had exceeded the 20-year record of the Marcos dictatorship in terms of the number of victims of counterrevolutionary violence. In Mindanao, up to a million people have forcibly evacuated their homes due to bombings and attacks, massacres amd harassment inflicted by the reactionary military on the Moro people. Hundreds also fell ill and died in filthy and cramped evacuation centers run by the government. Estrada has further strengthened the fascist machinery. He has added another 35,000 to the number of CAFGU paramilitary forces. The military has revived and armed anti-communist cults for use against the revolutionary movement. The regime has also whipped up anti-Moro hysteria to encourage the organization of anti-Moro vigilante groups.

Unabashed puppetry. In May 1998, the Estrada regime once more manifested its unabashed puppetry with the approval by the reactionary Senate of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA). Through the VFA and other military agreements, US troops are allowed unlimited access to any part of the Philippines and use it for military exercises. The US is also free to use any of the country�s seaports or airports to transport its troops. The VFA ensures that the Philippines will continue to serve the US� forward deployment strategy where the US maintains troops that are in a constant state of readiness to launch wars of aggression against any enemy in the Asia-Pacific up to the Middle East, including the Philippines.

Since the VFA was approved, the Estrada regime has had many occasions to prove that it is a loyal puppet of US imperialism.

No less than six mlitary exercises have been launched in the Philippines by US troops since the VFA took effect, including Balikatan 2000 held from January to March 2000. A month before Balikatan was held, successive military operations that victimized Aeta minorities were waged by the AFP in Central Luzon to �clear� the area for the launching of military exercises by its imperialist master�s troops. After Balikatan, the puppet government allowed two American soldiers who mauled a driver in Cebu to leave the Philippines without answering for their crime.

In August, two youths (aged 17 and 18) were killed and an 11- year-old boy was wounded when an M79 grenade exploded as they were gathering firewood at the site in Toledo, Cebu where Flash Piston 007 was conducted. Instead of demanding that the US take responsibility for the incident, Malaca�ang instead offered hush money to the victims� families. As can be expected from a loyal puppet, the Estrada government has not taken any step to demand that the US clean up the toxic waste left behind by American troops when their military bases in Pampanga and Zambales were dismantled. Meanwhile, at least 126 persons have died and 174 others are seriously ill due to exposure to the toxic waste.

Eighteen military exercises are scheduled for 2001 under the VFA.

As the intensifying crisis rocks not only his regime but the entire reactionary system, Estrada�s outright puppetry will all the more become manifest.

THE INTENSIFYING political crisis has accelerated the forging of a broad anti-Estrada front and pushed the regime to extreme isolation. As of this writing, the Estrada regime has virtually become a condemned prisoner drawn closer to his grave with every tick of the clock.

December 2000
English Edition

	Editorial: With the onset of 2001, unleash a powerful storm that shall put an end to the US-Estrada regime
	Selected quotes Mobilize the broad masses of the people to deliver the death blow to the Estrada regime �Armando Liwanag
	Estrada regime: at the brink of death: Rapidly plummeting economic crisis
	Estrada regime: at the brink of death: Puppetry, corruption and fascism
	FASCIST STATE ON A RAMPAGE
	Trouble in the neocolonies
	Paving the way for an international league of people�s struggles
	News of struggle
	More news from Bicol