NDF-EV calls Leyte Landing commemoration a waste of public funds and a historical sham

Remarking on the Arroyo government's 61st commemoration of the Leyte Landing, the National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas (NDF-EV) said today that the event should be seen as a waste of public funds and a historical sham. �Commemorating the Leyte Landing is one of those useless public ceremonies that are irrelevant to the people,� said Fr. Santiago Salas, NDF-EV spokesperson. �The only ones who actually rave for it are the high-ranking local and national officials, who find it an occasion to display their bureaucratic pompousness and colonial mentality. The common people who are hard up in this time of crisis resent the way that public funds are thrown away on such a frivolity and in honor of the foreign colonial master in our history at that.�

The October 20 Leyte Landing annual ceremony remembers the return of the US armed forces during World War II to the then Japanese-occupied Philippines in 1944 to retake their colony. The US went on to regain control over the whole country once more, before granting nominal independence in 1946 while remaining effectively in charge through political, economic, military and cultural ties.

�During World War II, the pro-Japanese collaborator and the pro-US 'little brown brother' were essentially the same,� Fr. Salas said. �They worshiped a foreign master and belittled the patriotism and self-reliance of the Filipino people. The real heroes of that time were those who rejected domination by any foreign power and asserted national freedom and democracy. Thus the Leyte Landing is a historical sham, when the return of US imperialism never brought us liberty and prosperity but the prolongation of misery and want to this very day.�

Fr. Salas added that commemorating the Leyte Landing shows how subservient and mendicant really are the Arroyo government and its high officials in the region. �It is as if they are permanently rooted by the shoreline before Leyte Gulf, welcoming now and forever the US warships�except that today it is not only US military intervention that transgress on our sovereignty, but also economic exploitation through imperialist globalization, as well as continuing US influence in our internal affairs. These we discern from the recent scandals of US spying in the Philippines and the Arroyo regime's courtship of US support for charter change.�

The NDF-EV spokesperson said that the real heroes of Philippine history are the Filipino people. �We in the NDF-EV believe in the people, in their patriotism and capacity to shape their own history. When the people are aroused, organized and mobilized, they can carry out social transformation through their armed struggle and mass movement. Today the officials of the US puppet regime can fuss over the Leyte Landing ceremony for their foreign master. Tomorrow when the people will be awakened will be a social upheaval never seen before, a revolution for national freedom and democracy that will sweep away US imperialism and all those who promote and benefit from it.� #

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

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