On the Arroyo Regime of Terror

Communist Party of the Philippines
April 07, 2005

The document "Know the Enemy: Are We Missing the Point?" prepared by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) lays the groundwork for intensifying the Arroyo regime's nationwide campaign to clamp down on people's struggles and legitimate dissent.

It blindly and dogmatically tags sectoral organizations, media and church associations, political parties and alliances as "legal fronts of the CPP" because they defend the people's democratic interests and criticize the Arroyo regime's corruption, puppetry and militarism.

This briefing paper which starkly illustrates the AFP's narrow viewpoint, confirms the Arroyo government's campaign of suppression against mass-based opposition to its rule. This campaign, first experimented on in Mindoro since 2000, is now being carried out nationwide.

The Arroyo Regime of Terror seeks to silence and eliminate all opposition to its rule. It first targets the democratic and patriotic mass-based organizations, which have been the most active and vigorous in exposing and fighting new tax measures, oil price increases, price increases in water, electricity and government services, corruption in the Arroyo government, US military intervention, state terrorism and human rights violations and other crimes of the Arroyo regime against the people.

The Arroyo government identifies the revolutionary armed movement as its principal "national security threat". Yet the New People's Army (NPA) is the least to be hurt by this campaign of suppression. Because of the depth and breadth of its mass support, the NPA has continued to advance in the past years despite the all-out war unleashed by the Arroyo regime since 2001.

It is the unarmed leaders and members of mass-based organizations and critics of the Arroyo regime who are the most vulnerable to this campaign of suppression. In a span of several months, the Arroyo regime has perpetrated political assassinations, forced disappearances and illegal arrests. At least 32 have been killed since January.

In hoping to eliminate the mass-based organizations, the Arroyo regime wishes to target as well the elite opposition with whom it refuses to share economic and political privileges. In imposing martial law in 1972, Marcos used the same pretext of fighting the revolutionary armed struggle, only to end up employing the state's entire fascist machinery to clamp down on all opposition and establish its authoritarian rule.

By circulating the document "Know the Enemy" among the AFP's local commands, the Arroyo regime has made official its orders to carry out a nationwide campaign of suppression against the mass-based organizations. It has unleashed and ordered its fascist running dogs to surveil, harass and attack organizations which for the past years have already been the principal targets of Arroyo's state terrorism being perpetrated in the name of "anti-terrorism".

It is fine for the organizations labeled in the AFP's "Know the Enemy" as "fronts of the CPP" to expose and oppose such fascist Red-baiting. It is likewise important for them to firmly and courageously assert their political and civil rights to stop the Arroyo regime from establishing an out and out fascist dictatorship.

The enemies of the Arroyo Regime of Terror are multiplying. As the number of the Arroyo regime's victims increases, as it perpetuates and worsens the socio-economic crisis, as it relies more on the US and the military to prop up its rule, the more this Regime of Terror becomes isolated.

As long as the regime persists in its puppetry, corruption and state terrorism, it will only be a matter of time before a broad united front emerges and acts to put an end to Arroyo's rule.