Arroyo Regime Must Come to an End For its Grave Crimes Against the People

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
June 28, 2005

The belated confession of Gloria M. Arroyo that hers is the voice on the tapes, telling a commissioner on elections to deliver the vote margin that she wanted, cannot exculpate her from the grave crime of massive electoral fraud. This is not a minor lapse in judgment but a serious crime that must be thoroughly investigated and tried.

Arroyo has made her confession because of the mounting popular demand for her to break her silence and the failure of her armed agents to locate the original tapes in order to destroy them.

The confession is done in bad faith. The apology is insincere and worthless because it is not accompanied by her resignation. It is intended to let the electoral cheat and her cohorts keep their ill-gotten power and all the opportunities for further bureaucratic corruption at the expense of the Filipino people.

After the confession of Gloria M. Arroyo, in the face of the undeniable truth and under the pressure of public opinion and mass unrest, there is greater and more compelling reason for the Filipino people to exercise their sovereign power to oust her and her cohorts from power or compel them to resign through the mass movement.

The House of Representatives is dominated by Arroyo loyalists headed by Speaker Jose de Venecia. It is therefore futile to undertake impeachment proceedings against her. The only way to remove her from power and make her answerable for her crimes is to undertake a mass movement with cumulative strength, scope and intensity.

Arroyo has committed too many grave crimes aside from massive electoral fraud. Following the orders of the US as her imperialist master, she has intensified the exploitation and oppression of the Filipino people. The broad masses of the people are revolted by their economic suffering and the cruelty of state terrorism under the Arroyo regime.

It is fine if the broad united front and the broad mass movement can remove the Arroyo ruling clique from power. They have a good chance of ousting the ruling clique within the second half of this year, if certain groups and movements of military and police forces keep their word to uphold civilian supremacy, respect the people�s rights and withdraw support from the hated regime.

After the resignation or ouster of the Arroyo-de Castro tandem, a people�s democratic council can act as a transition government to conduct snap elections of executive officials as well as delegates to a constitutional convention that is not in the clutches of Arroyo and Speaker De Venecia.

But some powerful forces wish to condone all the accumulated and continuing crimes of the Arroyo ruling clique because of the irrational fear that the entire ruling system might be undermined by the mass movement if once more this succeeds in removing a ruling clique from power before the next presidential elections.

For any length of time that it can prolong its rule, the rotten Arroyo reactionary clique can only deepen and aggravate the rottenness of the entire ruling system of big compradors and landlords servile to US imperialism. It can only drive the people to overthrow not only itself but the entire ruling system.

If the regime is able to stay in power through the use of brute force and because certain forces condone and support it, the Filipino people are more than ever justified in waging the armed revolution for national liberation and democracy against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes. ###


Back to top