PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

Ten reasons why the Arroyo regime is ripe for the ousting
October 26, 2004

There are ten outstanding reasons why the corrupt, antipeople and puppet regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is ripe for the ousting.

1. It has failed to take any measure to stop the incessant increases in oil prices resulting in more economic difficulties for the Filipino people. It has chosen to capitulate to the international overpricing scheme of multinational oil companies. It has guarded and defended the drive of foreign oil multinationals for superprofits. It has shown the least concern for the Filipino people who suffer gravely for every increase in the prices of oil products. There is widespread clamor to repudiate the oil deregulation law. Yet, Arroyo, true to her pro-US "free market" ideology, has adamantly refused to even subject it to review.
2. It has failed to address the constant rise in the prices of food and other basic commodities. Through government edict, the prices of electricity and water have increased and will continue to increase in the next few months. The Arroyo regime has failed to institute measures to stop overpricing by unscrupulous big traders. On the other hand, it has persistently opposed any substantial increase in minimum wages. It addresses the problem of hunger with insignificant band-aid measures like the much-vaunted food coupons scheme.
3. It has failed to generate employment, despite its declarations to do so. It has not taken measures to carry out national industrialization and land reform. Instead, it relies heavily on the export of labor to ease the unemployment problem. Locally, it cannot show anything beyond the call-center "boom" which does not contribute anything significant towards the all-sided development of the economy and is bound to dissipate in a few years' time.
4. It has perpetuated the over-reliance of the Philippine economy on foreign credit, leading to the worsening Philippine foreign debt crisis. Philippine foreign debt now stands at $56.3 billion. Arroyo refuses to repudiate the Automatic Appropriations Act and assiduously makes debt payments. By 2005, the Arroyo regime will have squandered P2 trillion in foreign debt servicing. At the same time, Arroyo has increased local public debt to P1.8 trillion from just above P1 trillion four years ago.
5. It has made obscene cutbacks on social spending to enable it to continue foreign debt servicing and reduce its budget deficit. Government services now cost more, making much needed health and education services inaccessible to the toiling masses. It has refused to increase the salary of teachers and public health workers, leading to a mass exodus of professionals seeking overseas employment as nurses and caregivers.
6. It plans to impose additional tax measures that would increase the tax burden on the Filipino people and worsen their economic hardships. In planning to impose tax measures on oil, alcohol and cigarette products and telecommunications services, the Arroyo government is demonstrating its extreme callousness to the people's plight. Increased state revenues through increased taxes will not accrue to the the people in the form of improved health, education and other essential social services. Instead, it will only enable the Arroyo regime to continue its corruption and the equally burdensome foreign debt servicing.
7. It has brought bureaucrat capitalist corruption to new heights. With the worsening crisis and contraction of economic production, high-ranking military and civilian officials, including Gloria and Mike Arroyo themselves, have employed their power and influence to receive millions of pesos of bribe money and engage in unscrupulous dealings. The Arroyo regime has constantly raided public pension funds for their private use. Billions of pesos of GSIS and AFP funds were used by Arroyo for her election campaign earlier this year. It is estimated that up to P120 billion is lost annually to corruption. Arroyo extends protection to crrupt officials in exchange for a percentage of their booty.
8. It has unleashed unprecedented violence against the people. It has waged a violent "war of terror" that targets principally unarmed civilians and people's organizations in both the cities and countryside, in a desperate bid to stop the growth of the armed revolutionary movement. It has employed the iron fist policy to quell dissent under the pretext of quashing destabilization plots. The Arroyo regime has repeatedly dispersed street demonstrations, especially those undertaken by the toiling masses to voice out their democratic aspirations.
9. It has practically ended peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front and shut off the possibility of a political settlement of the current armed conflict by unilaterally imposing preconditions in violation of previously agreed principles. The presidential adviser on National Security has arrogantly declared that peace talks can only proceed if the NDF agrees to a ceasefire. The Arroyo regime has exhibited extreme indifference to pursuing the peace talks by consistently failing to undertake its obligations stipulated in past agreements including the February and April Oslo Agreements of 2004. These include the need to take positive measures to address the oustanding issue of the terrorist listing of the CPP, the New People's Army and NDF Senior Consultant Jose Ma. Sison.
10. It has exhibited boundless puppetry to US imperialist policy. It has allowed and encouraged the US government to carry out military intervention in the Philippines in the guise of launching so-called "joint military exercises" and allowing it to use the Philippine as a platform for the rapid deployment of American troops in Southeast Asia and the Pacific region, in general. It has failed to stand up for national sovereignty in allowing the US to determine national policy through its unilateral and unfounded inclusion of the CPP, the NPA and Jose Ma. Sison in its list of "foreign terrorists." It has implemented economic policies in line with imperialist globalization which violate Philippine national patrimony and allow foreign monopoly capitalist firms to control strategic public enterprises to the detriment of Philippine local business and the interest of the Filipino people.

The removal of Arroyo from Malaca�ang may take various forms, either through a popular uprising, a civil disobedience movement, a mass withdrawal of support by political parties and personages, a voluntary resignation of Arroyo, a coup d'etat or any combination thereof.

In intensifying the revolutionary armed struggle and carrying out more frequent and bigger tactical offensives, the New People's Army is able to help weaken the Arroyo regime and contribute to the Filipino people's effort to overthrow it.

Whatever form it takes, the political authority that will take its place will have to confront and address the ten oustanding issues of the Filipino people enumerated above that have caused grave unrest and dissent against the Arroyo regime.

Unrooting the problems confronting the Filipino people, however, entails more than replacing the personalities of the reactionary state. It requires the overthrow of the ruling oppressive and exploitative social system. This can only be achieved by establishing a people's democratic government to replace the reactionary state of pro-imperialist, big bourgeois compradors and big landlords. The people's democratic government, a government of workers, peasants and other patriotic classes, shall stand for national sovereignty and democracy, carry out genuine land reform and pursue the path of national industrialization.

Reference:
Anne Buenaventura
Media Officer
Cellphone Number: +63910-240-3553



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