Editorial: A year of hardships and ruthlessness for the people
The first year of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime was marked by economic decline and bigger hardships for the people, disclosures of large-scale corruption, increasingly intensive militarization in many areas in the countryside and grave violations of human rights and pervasive deep seated discontent among the people.
Macapagal-Arroyo boasted this December that the state of the national economy continues to be rosy and on the road to further advance in the coming year. She convened a National Socio-Economic Summit on December 10 in order to unite the ruling classes into accelerating the "globalization" policy and to justify and proffer militarist measures in the face of the continuing and worsening crisis in the country.
But Macapagal-Arroyo's unfounded optimism cannot cover up the true state of the Philippine economy, conspicuous for the further slowdown of export-oriented production due to the world crisis of overproduction. Electronic and computer-related products are the principal exports of the Philippines from the special economic zones (SEZ), but the market for these products is presently in the doldrums. This has resulted in the steep plunge of investments in the SEZ in 2001, resulting in the mass retrenchment of workers.
The massive layoffs have all the more pushed hundreds of thousands of workers and their families into more severe destitution and desperation. In the meantime, the take-home pay of workers is far too meager for them and their families' decent living, especially given the continuing rise in the price of commodities. The call and struggle of the workers for a P125 across-the-board daily wage increase is widespread. Despite the urgency of such a just demand, Macapagal-Arroyo continues to stubbornly oppose it. Instead of raising wages, a token P30 Emergency Cost of Living Allowance was implemented in virtual ridicule of the workers.
The economists of the regime brag that agriculture made a big headway in 2001. However, this increase in production is all relative to the continued slump in the agricultural sector during the last two years as a result of bad weather.
Actually, whatever is pointed to as "progress" in agriculture in 2001 was more so along the lines of production for export and did not respond to the needs of the people, especially in regard to food. Due to the callous liberalization of agriculture according to WTO dictates, the production of essential agricultural products for consumption has been on the downtrend. The food security of the Filipino people is all the more endangered. During the past years, the extent of lands planted with mango, asparagus, banana, pineapple and other export products had doubled. On the other hand, rice shortages and rice importations have been increasing as a result of its dwindling production and the liberalization of agricultural imports. The privatization of the NFA and of rice importation is now being accelerated. The regime is even encouraging rice farmers to import rice! Together with these, various imports of agricultural products have been flooding the country.
Nothing is being done by the government to implement genuine land reform. On the other hand, the regime and Danding Cojuangco have colluded in the large-scale landgrabbing and forcible conversion of farmlands that have been the source of livelihood of more than a hundred thousand peasants from Isabela, Negros and Mindanao. Instead of helping the peasant masses increase their incomes, the regime has done nothing to obtain a just increase in the farm gate prices of agricultural products.
In the face of the unprecedented poverty of the people, corruption and profligate lifestyles of the highest officials in government, including those closest to the president, have become blatant. Thousands of cases of corruption have been filed in various agencies of government. No less than Miguel Arroyo, the president's husband, and members of the Cabinet closest to the president, such as Sec. Hernando Perez, and presidential advisers, such as Norberto Gonzales, have been involved in anomalous contracts, in perpetrating pressure tactics and maneuvers in business, in secret deals and various other cases involving billions of pesos.
The economic crisis, worsening people's poverty and the ruling regime's continued trampling of the people's interest have caused widespread disgust. Struggles of workers and other democratic sectors in the cities are growing in strength; so too, the armed struggle and antifeudal struggles in the countryside. The revolutionary movement is fast advancing and gaining force throughout the country.
The Macapagal-Arroyo regime responds with a renewed level of violence: harsh military operations and rampant violations of human rights. Right after the May elections, martial rule has been reigning in many places in the countryside by means of large-scale military concentrations and military operations. Since then, there has been no letup in the military's rampage.
In terms of breadth, intensity and ruthlessness of destruction in the countryside, the newly seated Macapagal-Arroyo regime has undoubtedly already surpassed the ousted Estrada regime. The 544 recorded cases of human rights violations by the Macapagal-Arroyo regime in its first 11 months, principally due to the militarization of the countryside, is greater than the recorded 436 cases in the last 11 months of the Estrada regime.
After Basilan, the degree of concentration of AFP and PNP troops in Southern Tagalog, especially in Mindoro Oriental, and other places where the revolutionary armed struggle is strong, is most extraordinary. In these places, the peasant masses and minority people have had no respite from the destruction inflicted in the swath of blatant militarization.
After Army Maj. Noel Buan, a prisoner of war of the NPA, was released in Mindoro, the regime took vengeance on the people there by way of widespread, large-scale and continuous search-and-destroy operations, made worse with widespread kidnappings, killings and terrorism in communities suspected to be supportive of the revolutionary movement. In Isabela, the military is presently conducting its most intensive operations since 1995. The militarist policies and measures of the regime have become all the more paramount in the wake of its subservience to the US call and drive for an imperialist war of aggression against Afghanistan. The US "anti-terrorist" war is considered by the puppet regime as a golden opportunity to make the Philippines an instrument of imperialist aggression, in exchange for additional military and financial aid.
To the intense crisis flailing the nation, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime's response has been all-out puppetry to imperialism and the sowing of fascism within the country. The fascist repression of the people who are up in arms due to poverty was all the more affirmed when the maintenance of "peace and order" was pointed to in the Economic Summit as the "key" to economic recovery.
The ruling regime continues to use counterrevolutionary dual tactics of waging all-out military campaigns against the revolutionary forces and intensive military operations in the revolutionary mass base areas as it flip-flops on the question of peace talks.
The broad ranks of the people, middle forces, church people and others promoting peace are pressing for the continuation of the peace talks. Just as it turned out in the November survey of the Social Weather Stations, the people widely disapprove of the obduracy of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime in regard to the peace talks.
The announcement of the NDFP and GRP panels that the peace talks will resume on January 7, 2002 is good news.
In order for the peace talks to proceed, the Joint Monitoring Committee should be formed to follow the implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). Negotiations in regard to socio-economic reforms can be started and agreements arrived at towards athe resolution of the basic socio-economic problems in the country.
But the peace talks remain in limbo due to the predominant will of the militarist clique led by Gen. Angelo Reyes. Macapagal-Arroyo nurctures this militarist clique and gives all-out support to the further escalation of concentrated military operations against the revolution and the people.
They now use as pretext the US "war against terrorism" and the inclusion of the NPA in the new list of those whom the US considers as terrorist, even as the NPA is a revolutionary and liberation army that is against terrorism, and it is in fact the US which is the foremost terrorist in the world.
Whether or not there are peace talks, the revolutionary movement and the people will continue with their life-and-death struggle to eliminate the root causes of prevalent poverty and injustice and establish a free, just, developed and prosperous society that enjoys genuine and lasting peace.
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