Editorial:
Resist the imposition of added burdens on the people

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The Filipino people must intensify their militant struggle against the US-Arroyo regime's plan to impose added burdens on them. It is their only weapon against the reactionary state's unbridled attacks on their livelihood.

The current intensification of the economic and fiscal crisis is proof of the semicolonial and semifeudal system's inexorable decay. Big foreign capitalists relentlessly plunder the country's resources, causing the backward, agrarian and non-industrialized character of the country's economy�an economy in a permanent state of crisis.

Due to the absence of self-reliant local production, the country suffers from a permanently lopsided balance of trade. Big foreign capitalists unrestrainedly extract profit, and bureaucrat capitalists raid the nation's coffers without letup. The state and local economy are constantly in a financial bind. The problem escalates whenever bridge funds from loans provided by imperialist banks and financial institutions are insufficient.

The current severe fiscal crisis that has come to the fore is but an extension of the financial crisis that held the Philippine economy in a stranglehold in 1997. Instead of reversing the policies of trade and investment liberalization that led to the 1997 crisis, the Arroyo regime has perpetuated them and expanded their coverage.

The impending outbreak of the fiscal crisis directly results from the following factors:

(a) unrestrained payments for anomalous and unproductive foreign debts and the fact that the reactionary government allocates up to more than 60% of its budget to service these debts;

(b) a policy that grants tax exemptions to foreign investors and allows them to repatriate 100% of their profits and capital;

(c) a standstill in local production, particularly local manufacturing; and

(d) worsening corruption, especially among bureaucrat capitalists who collude with big businessmen in the latter's bid to avoid paying appropriate taxes.

It is the Filipino people who suffer the most from the dearth of state funds. Even as the ruling state ensures that funds are available to service anomalous and unproductive foreign debts, health and education services and even other necessary infrastructure continue to deteriorate due to a severe shortage of funds.

Arroyo's sham solutions

All the sound and fury emanating from the Arroyo regime and bourgeois economists about the possible explosion of a "fiscal crisis" in the next two to three years merely condition the public to swallow the poison pills that imperialism has been prescribing for the Philippines.

The Arroyo regime will be imposing added taxes on the Filipino people in a desperate bid to generate more than P80 billion worth of funds for the government. It strains to conjure a "spirit of cooperation" to make the new tax burdens more palatable to a people already mired in poverty.

None of these measures will resolve the fiscal crisis. Even if they generate additional revenue�at the price of the people's extreme suffering�they cannot eradicate the real roots of the ever-worsening fiscal crisis.

Gloria Arroyo is not in a position to provide a solution to the fiscal crisis. First of all, she is a rabidly loyal disciple of imperialism and cannot be expected to undertake any measure that would contravene imperialist-dictated policies on the Philippines. Secondly, the Arroyo government is a government of thieves whose rapacity knows no bounds. Despite Arroyo's constant perorations about abolishing the congressional "pork barrel," her office's P1 billion "intelligence" budget and special discretionary funds remain untouchable. Suspicion is rife on the so-called "bayanihan fund" pooled from voluntary contributions of politicians and big businessmen.

Arroyo's measures redound to nothing but more suffering for the people in the form of added tax burdens with attendent hikes in the prices of electricity, water and other services and commodities. It is also the people who are expected to bear the brunt of so-called "austerity measures" through proposed budget cuts for health and education services. Meanwhile, amid calls for austerity, Arroyo and her retinue shamelessly carry on with their extravagant lifestyles, going on successive trips abroad and using expensive luxury vehicles, among others.

Intensify the people's unified resistance

The Filipino people must launch intensive struggles to thwart the Arroyo regime's attacks on their livelihood. Only through collective struggle can the people prevent the further decline of their economic status.

In the obtaining situation, it is the revolutionary forces' responsibility to lead the people's struggle against rising prices of petroleum products and spiralling costs of electricity, water and heath and education services. It is of utmost importance to advance and intensify the struggle to increase workers' wages and salaries of government employees nationwide.

The revolutionary forces must harness through various means, the people's widespread anger and unleash it in massive street demonstrations. In the face of the Arroyo regime's obstinacy, only massive demonstrations of tens of thousands of people can prevent the imposition of added burdens on the people.

The intensified economic crisis exposes the rottenness and clearly shows the need to smash the present ruling system to pave the way for the establishment of a new, vigorous and progressive revolutionary order.

It is the revolutionary forces' responsibility to explain to the nation that only revolutionary change can provide a permanent solution to the chronic crisis gripping the Filipino people.

07 September 2004
English Edition

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