Without a doubt, Duterte is the Philippine national bully. Surrounded by armor, he acts as if he is invincible.

He controls his armed minions who never fail to comply with all his orders. Tens of thousands of have been killed and millions are tyrannized. He holds the people’s money. He has congress in his pockets and holds the court by their necks. Whoever stands in the way is rammed down and linked to drugs. Whoever makes a stand is a friend of the communist.

The whole country is under his tyranny. The entire people suffer. There are no jobs to get and no land to till. Wages remain low while prices continue to soar. The Dutertes get richer, together with the syndicates, the favored oligarchs and their foreign capitalist partners. Debt is accumulated for money-making projects. The people get no benefit but are made to shoulder payments.

But behind Duterte’s arrogance, he is in fact trembling in his knees. Drunk with tyranny, he desperately clings to power. He is utterly afraid of falling from his throne. He mortally fears being held accountable for innumerable crimes and abuses against the people. He is haunted by nightmares of being imprisoned and dying behind bars.

Duterte’s biggest fear is how millions of oppressed and exploited, the impoverished and hungry, those overburdened by crisis, the famished, the grieving mothers, children unable to go school, in short, the mass of peasants and Filipino workers, will unite and rise up. He dreads of being overthrown the same way the people overthrew Marcos and Estrada.
To prevent this from coming true, Duterte is relentlessly suppressing, oppressing, threatening and inflicting violence against patriotic and democratic forces. He targets activists, unionists and organizers in different sectors, even advocates of human rights, media workers and lawyers.
Using the obsolete anticommunist and antiterrorist doctrine, Duterte incriminates them in the armed movement, spies on their every action, charges them with trumped up cases, imprison and assassinate them. Duterte aims to silence the national democratic mass movement that is at the forefront and core of the Filipino people’s resistance.

Duterte’s use of the full powers of the state to suppress the people, at its most basic, shows that the ruling system is weak and in a state of decay and suffers from deep political and economic crisis. It shows that Duterte is unable to rule the people through persuasion by addressing their grievances and responding to their needs.

In the eyes of the people, Duterte has lost all moral right to lead after three years of mass murder, continued proliferation of illegal drugs, failed promises to end contractualization, preventing wage increases, bogus land reform, rural hunger and poverty, oppression and military abuses, national treachery, sell out of the country’s rights and patrimony, subservience to foreign powers, while he gorges and enriches himself through crime and plundering billions of pesos of the people’s money.

Duterte makes up for his loss of moral right and standing to lead by using power derived from pure fascist state violence. Until he is confronted by a bigger force, he will continue to flaunt his power believing he can rule eternally by using fear and terrorism.

The Filipino people’s own history teaches that the ambition of dictators to rule forever is mere fantasy. Duterte is a fool if he believes there is no power bigger than his. As the Filipino people exhibited in 1986 and 2001, tyrants and dictators are no match to a united people!

It is high time to end Duterte’s reign. The people will undergo more untold suffering if he will last three more years. The people must now again manifest their power. This power is derived from patriotic and democratic unity. From the factories and schools, from the city and rural communities, millions must fill the streets in the cities and town centers. Shatter the fear and, in concert, demand justice and freedom from tyranny and terrorism.
The New People’s Army must exert all-out effort to seize the initiative to mount tactical offensives against Duterte’s military forces, police and armed agents who sow terrorist violence against the people.

Make the entire archipelago hear the reverberating march of the toiling masses and all freedom and democracy-loving people. Make the US-Duterte regime tremble. Rouse the entire nation.