Punishing the media: Military, Arroyo regime, desperate, fascist

Rubi Del Mundo
Spokesperson
National Democratic Front-Southern Mindanao
March 06, 2005

By punishing the media for interviewing "known terrorists" the military's proposed antiterrorism law signifies brazen fascism and open repression, worse than the heydays of the Marcos dictatorship. The National Democratic Front Southern Mindanao scores the AFP and the Arroyo regime for this latest scheme to abuse basic rights to free press and information.

This latest tact of penalizing journalists who cover and interview alleged terrorists, specifically personalities belonging to the NDF, Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army is outrageous. It is a desperate effort to reverse the tide of public opinion and mass actions against the Arroyo regime and the AFP.

The Arroyo regime is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of people about the revolution and the legitimate people's struggle. Clearly, the Arroyo regime is trying to obscure the ongoing civil war-a war between the counter-revolutionary government of big compradors and landlords represented by the Arroyo regime and the people's democratic government represented by the NDFP.

Instead, the AFP and the Arroyo regime intend to sow fear and to whip the media to docility by coercing it to toe the line of the reactionary government at the expense of the people's interest to truth, justice and freedom.

By deploying intelligence agents and soldiers in media institutions and dangling the option to provide arms to journalists at the height of the media killings, the AFP only shows its intent to obliterate the media, its more progressive elements, and its role in the people's movement and the national democratic revolution.

The media are the latest victims of the bogus and imperialist-led war on terror. By muzzling the press, the AFP seeks to stifle the truth that the real terrorists are the Arroyo and the Bush regimes.

The AFP has hypocritically assigned the term "terrorist" to groups other than itself when it is the one perpetrating massacres, displacements, and extra-judicial killings against civilians and is wantonly violating international humanitarian laws. It is utterly dangerous when the AFP is given blanket authority to tag as terrorists all those it deems as dissidents and critics, including the media who interview them.

This latest ploy continues to allow the imperialist US government to trample on Philippine sovereignty and interfere on our affairs by prevailing with the "terrorist" listing of the CPP, NPA and NDF chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison. This act of the AFP is another blatant violation by the Arroyo regime of the 1st and 2nd Oslo Joint Statements in the GRP-NDF peace negotiations which requires it to work for the delisting of the CPP, NPA and Sison in the US FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organizations) list. #

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