Chief imperialist and number one terrorist's visit merely highlights neocolonial rule and system in the Philippines

Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
October 16, 2003

US President George W. Bush's visit on October 18 merely brings to the fore the reality of neocolonial rule and the neocolonial system in the Philippines. It will not bring an iota of good to the Filipino people. It will not provide land to peasants with no land of their own to till. It will not give jobs to the unemployed. It will not put food on the tables of the hungry. Neither will it build homes for the poor cramped in patched-up hovels.

Only the puppets, big compradors, bureaucrat capitalists, fascists, exploiters and oppressors of the people have reason to lavishly celebrate the visit of their esteemed master and adored god-the world's chief imperialist and number one terrorist.

They will be gorging themselves rotten in a million-peso banquet that is their offering to Bush. Led by the chief puppet Gloria Arroyo, they will hail a century of colonial and semicolonial rule by the all-powerful America as well as their latest conspiracies and schemes to brazenly exacerbate the exploitation and oppression of the people. As they wallow in their gluttony, they will sing hossanas to imperialist "globalization" and heap praise on the "war against terrorism." As they wave the US flag, they will applaud the US' terrorist aggression on and occupation of Iraq and US armed intervention in the Philippines and other parts of the globe.

Together they will fawningly kneel before their lord to beseech him grant his subjects alms-something to line their own pockets with so as to satiate themselves, something to put into the bankrupt government's coffers, a few outmoded military hardware to annihilate a people up in arms. In exchange, they are ready to give up all-even the little that is left of Philippine independence. They stand ready to allow the entry of foreign combat troops and blindly accept the trampling of the nation's sovereignty. They are ready to enter into unequal treaties that will grant even more privileges and benefits to foreign monopoly capitalists. They are ready to amend the government's constitution to further the US' preeminent neocolonial rights in the Philippines.

There is no other fitting welcome for George W. Bush but the all-out demonstration of indignation and protest against all of US imperialism's crimes and its trampling of our nation's freedom. As the current chief imperialist, he must be held accountable, along with his coterie of puppets, for the hundreds of thousands of our fellow Filipinos killed by American troops in 1898-1913, for the plunder of our natural resources and the exploitation of the toiling masses' dirt-cheap labor power, for the imposition of policies and treaties that have condemned the Philippines to an ever-deepening crisis and severely suppressed the people.

The whole world must see that the Filipino people are not docile lambs who will kowtow before the most powerful imperialist and terrorist. The entire world must bear witness to the massive burning of US flags-the symbol of the Philippines' national oppression, the symbol of the toiling masses' oppression the world over.

The Filipino people must reverberate worldwide their furious protests against the US' intensifying semicolonial exploitation and oppression in the Philippines especially in recent years, coinciding with the Arroyo regime's detestable puppetry. To escape the severe recession that has their economy in a stranglehold, US imperialism has been intensifying its oppression and exploitation of the Philippines and other semicolonial countries in its desire to achieve a tighter grip on the supply of raw materials and natural resources and squeeze more profits from the proletariat and other exploited classes' sweat and toil. Through the use of the "anti-terrorism" doctrine, the US has been trampling on all existing policies governing civilized international relations such as respect for the sovereignty and independence of nations, equal relations, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and non-aggression.

The Filipino people must demonstrate their unified patriotic stand and their desire to break free from the clutches of US imperialism. The unequal treaties must be abrogated. We must cry out: "Revoke the Mutual Defense Treaty! Repeal the Visiting Forces Agreement! Annul the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement! Resist measures that will restore US military bases in the country-small or expansive, permanent or otherwise.

Resist laws and treaties that pave the way for the foreign exploitation of our economy: the Philippine Mining Act, the Bank Liberalization Law and other pro-imperialist laws governing the economy, as well as plans to grant "equal" constitutional rights (like the Parity Rights did) to big foreign capitalists with respect to land ownership, exploitation of natural resources, access to strategic industries and services and control over the Philippine economy as a whole.

Repudiate the US' "anti-terrorism" doctrine that the Arroyo regime blindly supports. Arroyo has slaughtered and sacrificed the peace talks on the altar of "anti-terrorism," ripping to shreds ten agreements between the government and the National Democratic Front. She has declared her own terrorist war and ordered the massive militarization of the countryside. In its failure to defeat the revolutionary armed movement, the military trains its guns and cannons on the millions of people who have taken a stand and are waging resistance. Massacres, summary executions, forcible evacuations, food blockades, illegal arrests, torture and other human rights violations are rampant. Arroyo's terrorist war is oblivious to any law. Arroyo shamelessly pushes for US armed intervention in the Philippine civil war and the anti-Moro war, deluding herself that this would cause the revolutionary forces to cower in fear.

The Arroyo regime's excessively lavish preparations to welcome George W. Bush are execrable. Gloria Arroyo manifests her fawning obeisance to her lord and god. It is infuriating to see the red carpet rolled out for Bush while shanties of the poor are razed and protesters mercilessly truncheoned.

The Arroyo regime despicably glorifies Bush even as he is denounced by the world's peoples and even by the American people for being a fascist warmonger and for his imperialist bullying, deception and lies.

But Arroyo will pay dearly for turning a blind eye to all this. Even as the world's peoples abhor Bush and history passes judgment over the object of her idolatry, Arroyo will likewise be judged in the Philippines for her stupid obsequiousness to her imperialist master and the grave suffering she has wrought on the Filipino people.

Back to top