Like rabid dogs, the state armed forces have been unleashed to carry out all-out attacks against the Filipino people under the brutal terrorism of the US-Marcos regime. This war is becoming more and more cruel in the desperation to silence and destroy all forms of the people’s resistance to make way for even worse oppression, exploitation and plunder.

In the countryside or cities, troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) carry out relentless fascist attacks. The Philippines remains under undeclared martial law. Across the country, the AFP and PNP and state terrorism reign.

More than a hundred battalions of soldiers are scattered across the countryside, especially in villages where the peasant masses struggle for genuine land reform. They place villages under hamlet, control people’s movements, impose food blockades and more.

The AFP focuses on areas where foreign capitalist-owned or foreign debt-funded mining operations, plantations or infrastructure projects exist or aim to expand. They use as model Sara Duterte’s false “Peace Economy” program in Paquibato District, Davao City where herds of armed fascists overrun communities to suppress the masses’ resistance, and dull their senses with “livelihood” programs while plantation owners rob them of their land to expand production of banana, coffee, oil palm and others.

Military operations of the AFP target peasant leaders and activists. Even without proof, the AFP accuse them of supporting the New People’s Army (NPA) to justify the use of armed suppression against civilians. At least 96 have fallen victims to state killings, including four children, since Marcos assumed power, including eight farmers killed in Negros just this May 21-27.

In addition to the numerous killings are abductions and torture of farmers, kidnapping of children and infants (such as the cases of Baby Rhea and Baby Marx), suppression of families of suspected revolutionary, and other dirty tactics under the AFP campaign of “surrender” against civilians, a direct affront on human rights and even against the legal processes under reactionary law.

In the city, there is unabated harassment against progressive and democratic unions, semi-proletariat and urban poor associations, organizations of students, teachers, women, health workers and others. As in the countryside, the AFP claim without evidence that these organizations support the armed revolution. Soldiers and police swarm factories, communities, campuses, even offices to spy on and intimidate the people.

Whether in the cities or rural areas, the AFP blurs the distinction between combatants and civilians to justify armed repression of activists and the use of armed violence to suppress democratic rights. Leaders and active members of organizations, as well as their families, are monitored, harassed and forced to “surrender” despite facing no charges.

There are rising number of cases of enforced disappearance—mostly activists, organizer or mass leaders who are illegally abducted by armed state agents. They are secretly detained and subjected to intense torture—physically and mentally—to force them to give up their principles of serving the people and break their will to fight for democracy and freedom. Those they succeed to break are publicly presented as “surrenderers.” While those who remain strong are summarily killed—such as in the recent abduction and murder of NDFP consultants in Negros and Bohol—or disappeared.

Marcos’ iron-hand rule is patterned after the military rule of his father’s 1972-1986 dictatorship. US imperialism supports and instigates Marcos’ fascist rule by pouring weapons and military assistance, in line with US economic and political interests in the country and the Asia-Pacific region.

The attacks against the people by fascist soldiers and police on Marcos’s orders serve to perpetuate the oppressive and exploitative social system, expand the economic interests of landlords, big bourgeois compradors and their foreign capitalist partners, and defend the rotten and corrupt reign of the Marcos family. Marcos, his minions of large bureaucratic capitalists and favored businessmen enrich themselves in power amid the endless suffering of workers, peasants and the toiling masses, as well as the pettybourgeois rank-and-file employees, students and others oppressed sectors.

The Filipino people should firmly defend themselves and thoroughly resist the relentless attacks of the crazed armed forces of the US-Marcos fascist regime. They must strengthen their organized ranks and steel their determination to fight for their democratic rights against military rule and state terrorism. They must untiringly document and expose all cases of human rights violations and international humanitarian laws, and the AFP’s lies to cover up their crimes. Strengthen the cry for Justice! for all victims of fascist killings and abuses by Marcos’ soldiers and police. Build and further strengthen the centers to defend human rights.

The relentless terrorist attacks by state armed forces further stoke the Filipino people’s anger against the puppet, fascist and oppressive Marcos regime. In the cities and countryside, the masses are constantly being compelled to join the people’s army as the only means to defend themselves.

We must further expand and strengthen the NPA and further advance the armed struggle to defend the lives and livelihood of the masses. Stage tactical offensives to punish the criminal soldiers and police behind the killings and other atrocities against the masses. The weapons of the fascist must be seized in order to arm more and more people who wish to fight, to strengthen the people’s army, and carry forward the people’s revolutionary struggle for social liberation and genuine national freedom.