EVEN DELFIN LORENZANA, a lackey of the US, got fed up with Rodrigo Duterte’s lies and treating the people stupid. On May 29, he openly contradicted Duterte’s duplicitous claim for several months now that legitimate organizations, the political opposition, journalists, lawyers and even television personalities are conspiring with the revolutionary movement to oust him.

Lorenzana said that the ouster plot is fake as nothing is heard about it in the military. Lorenzana downplayed the ouster plot to refute news that there are rifts within the military and police.

The statement came few weeks after two ouster matrices implicating several personalities in the conspiracy were deceptively peddled by Sal Panelo, Duterte’s spokesperson. Panelo and Duterte used the matrices during the elections to vilify the opposition. The first matrix was a response to a video where Pe­ter Joe­mel Advincu­la, al­ias Bi­koy, accused Duterte, his henchmen and family as biggest protectors of drug syndicates. Few weeks after surfacing, Advincula contradicted his earlier statements saying that he only made the accusations as directed by the political opposition.

The clamor of the people to oust the Duterte regime—that is notorious for corruption, widespread killings and treason—is undeniably broad. To counter this, the regime is making it appear that aboveground organizations are conniving with the armed movement to illegalize their legitimate demands and condemnation of abuses perpetrated by the regime.

Prof. Jose Ma. Sison has since layed down the requisites to ousting the incumbent president. Among these are the support of the political opposition and military at the time when Duterte is completely isolated. However, this isolation will primarily be brought about by the strong push of the mass movement and rifts among the reactionaries.