Intensifying fascism of the US-Estrada regime
On the whole, the US-Estrada regime employs the outdated style and tactics of the dictator Marcos in launching war against the people with its unbridled use of fascist violence and terror to vanquish any hint of resistance. But Estrada is in far more desperate straits owing to the social crisis that is by every means sharper than that which existed at the time of martial law. This has seriously limited the resources available for waging fascist war, exacerbated graver factionalism among the ranks of the reactionaries and, most important, paved the way for the broader unity and firmer conviction of the people in resisting oppression and violence.
Particularly in the countryside, and even in the cities, the reactionary military and police continue to attack, destroy and plunder the lives and property of the toiling masses. Under the aegis of the so-called �Oplan Makabayan� (OpMak), the reactionary state is pursuing its renewed ambition to crush the people�s revolutionary struggle through all-out war. With OpMak, the reactionary police and military will without doubt persist in being the notorious human rights violators that they are.
Last May, Estrada rushed to arbitrarily put an end to the peace negotiations in order do away with all the obstacles that could hinder the launching of an all-out war. In its desperation to quell the widening resistance of the toiling masses, the fascist regime ceaselessly tramples on the people�s human rights.
According to human rights organizations, the US-Estrada regime perpetrated a record 562 cases of human rights violations from the beginning of its term until December. In Southern Tagalog, 176 cases have been reported. In the Bicol region, 77 cases of illegal detention and arbitrary arrest and nine cases of salvaging were documented in Estrada�s first 16 months. The accounts do not as yet include cases of human rights violations in Central Luzon and Western Mindanao.
Already, this tops the bloody record of Estrada�s predecessor Gen. Fidel V. Ramos in his first year of office. Yet the number of verified cases documenting the current fascist regime�s violations continues to tip the scale. The following are cases covering only the last quarter of 1999:
Martial rule in the countryside. In advancing counterrevolution, the military incessantly conducts forced evacuations, salvaging, strafing and arrests, sows terror and threatens farmers, women, the youth and national minorities. The military, police and paramilitary forces also continue to ransack and burn peasants� property. Current practice indicates that military authority indeed prevails over any of the reactionary government�s civilian structures. In the first two weeks of December, 80 Aeta families lost their homes, 10 people were killed and two were missing due to the intensification of OpMak along the triboundary areas of Pampanga, Bataan and Zambales.
Forces of the 69th IB treacherously fired at residents of Sitio Pusud Gabun, Barangay Nagbuklod, Floridablanca, Pampanga after failing to score in an encounter with the NPA. Indong Bulong, an elderly Aeta, was hit on the thigh. After only a few days, 50 policemen and 30 soldiers composed of the 24th and 69th IB, Scout Rangers, the Philippine Air Force, Special Action Force and Regional Mobile Group were deployed around Pusod Gabun. They disrupted classes when they turned the school in Nabuklod into their temporary base. Two barangay tanods also disappeared after they were forced by the troops to serve as guides.
Militarization also continues to hound Tarlac, Bohol, Nueva Vizcaya and Mindanao. In Tarlac, cases of arson, robbery, manhandling, excessive drinking, unpaid debts, verbal abuse, strafing, harassment and terrorism by troops of the 69th IB have piled up. The soldiers terrorize the people and justify their presence by claiming to maintain �peace and order� against supposed criminals at large.
They prohibit villagers from working on their swidden farms in the mountains to prevent them from allegedly supporting and giving food to the NPA. Troopers of the 69th IB accuse the barriofolk of being NPA members, pointing their guns at and threatening to massacre villagers, especially those who argue with them.
Forces of the �B� coy on the other hand also ceaselessly terrorize and harass the people of Quezon, Nueva Vizcaya. Despite a petition from the barriofolk in Sitio Totong, Barangay Bonifacio, Quezon, however, Capt. Donald Hongitan, the troops� commander, has declared that the operations shall continue.
In various towns of Bohol, military troops impose curfews so that they may conduct patrols unimpeded. In the course of such patrols that focus on searching for NPA units, the number of people victimized by illegal arrests, strafing and intimidation by AFP and PNP forces continues to grow.
In Mindanao, fierce military operations continue. On November 10, in Carmen, North Cotobato, brutal AFP attacks forced 5,000 people to evacuate their homes. Aside from this, the AFP�s indiscriminate bombing, strafing and other violent measures against the Moro people have resulted in mounting deaths and destruction.
Serving the ruling class at the expense of the people In catering further to the interests of landlords, local compradors and foreign investors, the US-Estrada regime orders the reactionary armed forces to launch savage attacks on the ranks of people who dare to stand up for their rights.
On December 15, two Manobos were executed while two others were wounded by the armed security forces of the Silangan Investors and Management, Inc. in Quezon, Bukidnon. Eddie Suello, 28 and Romeo Talisan, 50, both members of the Quezon Manobo Tribal Association (Quemtras), were killed after security guards attacked the minorities who demanded their rights to more than 2,000 hectares of ancestral lands. Two other Quemtras members suffered injuries.
On December 14, in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, 13 protesters were hurt when troops from the town�s PNP Regional Mobile Group attempted to dismantle an antilogging barricade. Aboard four trucks, the policemen fired at and hit the barricaders with truncheons to give way to 22 logging trucks of the Timber Industries of the Philippines, Inc.
On December 1, in Digos, Davao del Sur, policemen strafed the home of the Gonzales family to drive them out of the land they tilled. The day after, the policemen harassed a female member of the family, slaughtered seven cows and wounded nine other farm animals in order to force the Gonzaleses to leave.
Likewise, armed security forces have relentlessly been intimidating farmers on vast haciendas in Bulacan, Pampanga, Batangas, Zamboanga del Norte and Negros Occidental as well as in a growing number of provinces all over the country where agricultural lands are set to be converted for use by big business.
Further suppression of revolutionary forces, brazen disregard for international humanitarian laws. With or without peace negotiations, the fascist regime has never denied its intention to do everything in its power to crush the revolutionary movement.
Abductions of cadres and activists are widespread. One of the most recent cases involved the prolonged detention of Ruben Saluta of the NPA-Panay by forces of the Military Intelligence Group (MIG). He was seized along with a companion on November 23, but relatives who had been searching for him for almost a month had come up empty-handed. On December 22, an alleged vigilante group owned Saluta�s abduction. The following day, the PNP in Panay declared that Saluta was in their custody. It is obvious that the emergence of a so-called vigilante group was merely a smokescreen by the MIG to wash its hands off Saluta�s case.
On the other hand, Bernard Alvarez whom the military suspects to be an NPA official in Bohol, remains missing. He was captured after being wounded in an encounter between the NPA and the 8th Reconnaissance Group in Barangay Rosariohan, Batuan on August 15.
Justice continues to elude Godofredo �Ka Paking� Guimbaolibot, a respected Party cadre, Rolando Jubahib, a Red fighter and two officials of Bullex Mining, Mariano Diamante and Edwin Asion, who were treacherously massacred by forces of the 60th IB in Compostela Valley on August 2. The four were arrested at a checkpoint by troops led by Lt. Rolando Cateel who ordered them to disembark and later brought them to a remote area where they were tortured and salvaged.
The military�s abduction and illegal detention of Leonardo Pitao or Ka Parago in November is another example of the Estrada regime�s gross disregard for the rights of prisoners of war, particularly those who had been rendered hors d� combat. This is the exact opposite of the revolutionary movement�s humane and respectful treatment of prisoners of war (see related article).
Human rights violations in the cities The state�s widespread use of fascist violence against workers, the urban poor, students, the petty bourgeoisie in the cities and forces of the legal democratic movement continues.
On December 4, some 40 people including nine employees of the Mondragon Leisure and Resorts Corporation suffered injuries as they were forced to leave the premises of the Clark Special Economic Zone. The attack was ordered by police officials in Angeles City and Central Luzon.
Also in the first week of December, dubbed as the �Week of the Urban Poor�, around 700 families lost their homes in Madrigal Estate, San Juan, Metro Manila.
Jinggoy Estrada, son of Joseph Estrada and current mayor of San Juan, wants to convert the Madrigal Estate, which used to be a relocation site for victims of demolition under the Marcos regime, into a commercial center.
On November 24, soldiers and policemen violently demolished around 105 houses in Barangay Sto. Tomas, Baguio City, upon the orders of Mayor Domogan.
During the informal meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders at the Philippine International Convention Center also on November 24, around 10 people were injured when elements of the Southern Police District (SPD) used water cannons and truncheons against more than 200 demonstrators. Before this, urban poor residents of Dabudabu, Pasay City were violently evicted on November 19 in order to �beautify� Roxas Boulevard for the ASEAN meeting. Two were killed, four children lost consciousness and a three-month-old infant was hurt when the demolition team sprayed tear gas on the residents. Besides the National Capital Region SPD, the Special Weapons and Tactics Team and representatives of the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor, National Housing Authority and the Urban Poor Affairs Office of Pasay were involved in the violent eviction.
An estimated one million urban poor residents are set to be evicted in the course of implementing Estrada�s much-vaunted housing projects.
Also on November 19, some 10 students supporting a workers� strike at Shoemart (SM) North Edsa were hurt when around 200 guards attempted to dismantle the picket line. Four days before, five workers were hurt in an earlier attack by SM guards on the workers. SM workers struck to demand a P115 increase in their daily wage.
Meanwhile, even the petty bourgeoisie and other sectors in the cities have not been spared from the fascist Estrada regime�s harassment and suppression. Anyone who voices out criticism or protest against the reactionary system is sure to suffer persecution, overtly or otherwise.
Not a few students, employees, or staunch advocates of democratic rights, not to mention media persons, have been hounded by the fascist state.
The reactionary fascist regime is also intensifying its persecution of forces of the legal democratic movement. One of its leaders, Vicente Ladlad, was illegally arrested and detained in July.
On November 22, the MIG of Iloilo rearrested Roberto Cabales, active organizer of the national democratic movement. He and his companion were threatened with death if he did not admit to being a member of the NPA. After a series of interrogations, he was released the following day. Cabales was first abducted in June and was kept under prolonged detention by the MIG without charges.
One hundred and thirty nine (139) political detainees continue to languish in prison, making Estrada�s move of freeing only 10 detainees in December a mere publicity stunt. Meanwhile, political detainees forcibly charged with criminal cases continue to grow in number. Victims of human rights violations under the Marcos dictatorship are still denied indemnification while Estrada has allowed the Marcoses� full return to power.
All of these are the fruits of the fascist US-Estrada regime�s iron fist policy. It had trashed the Comprehensive Agreement for the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, which was signed by the GRP and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in 1998, even before it predictably ended the peace negotiations in May.
The US-Estrada regime can be expected to outdo its predecessors in the realm of human rights violations. Estrada has appointed notorious fascists�Brig. Gen. Angelo Reyes and Dir. Gen. Panfilo Lacson�to the topmost posts in the AFP and PNP. We must be vigilant and resist all attempts to implement the warrantless arrest policy, the national identification system and other forms of human rights repression proposed by Lacson, and against persistent attempts to rewrite the reactionary constitution, all of which are intended to enable the regime to relentlessly ride roughshod over the people�s rights. Meantime, it is certain that mounting violations of their rights shall rouse the people to courageously confront fascist violence and with full determination, advance the revolutionary struggle.
| 
