The Filipino people suffers worsening oppression and exploitation amid aggravation of the basic problems of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism under the US-Marcos regime. The next five years is bound to see unparalleled corruption, state terrorism, foreign subservience and antipeople policies. There is no other recourse for the broad masses of the people but to wage militant resistance to defend their rights and advance their aspirations for genuine national freedom and democracy.

The broad sectors view Marcos Jr’s presidency as illegitimate because it was installed through brazen fraud through the automated 2022 elections. It is further discrediting itself with its penchant for foreign junkets, obsession with burnishing the image of his dictator father, and rush to get hold of hundreds of billions of pesos of public funds.

Corruption under Marcos remains acute and worsening. He is busy securing their family’s hidden wealth accumulated during his father’s 14-year dictatorship. He has rehabilitated former Marcos cronies and their heirs to power and privilege. Like his father, Marcos pampers and satiates military officers with large public funds on the pretext of “military modernization” and “counterinsurgency.”

The ruling Marcos clique is in collusion with the Duterte and Arroyo, both notorious for corruption and fascism. They both are given control of large public funds, as well as the privileges to expand their businesses and dynasty. Marcos is set to sign the Maharlika Investment Fund in the coming weeks. He will have ₱500-billion public funds in his hands to regale his cronies and secure further political support.

Since assuming power, Marcos has persistently bowed his head to foreign superpowers, especially to the military power and the economic interest of the US imperialism, and its financial agents such as the World Bank and other institutions. It also kowtows to China even in the face of outright intrusion into the country’s maritime territory.

Marcos continues to carry out neoliberal policies, even if these have already been renounced by other countries, especially by major capitalist economies. We see as a result the destruction of local productive forces, the dispossession of people of their means of production and soures of income, and the undermining of the local economy. Marcos has allowed all-out importation of agricultural products which kill local production, including the unprecedented increase in rice imports. Imported agricultural products are bound to flood the country as it joins the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is set to lead to greater economic dislocation of millions of Filipinos.

Marcos auctions off the Philippines to foreign big capitalists. He attracts them with promises of tax-free operations and with cheap labor. Marcos also uses his position in the Department of Agriculture to push the interests of agribusiness corporations together with the World Bank and other foreign banks behind the veil of “raising productivity” like the failed Masagana 99 program that sank hundreds of thousands of thousands Farmers in debt.

Marcos’ subservience is starkly demonstrated by his acquiesence to US plans to build additional four military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), in addition to other facilities that the US is secretly building with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). It is part of the US strategy to establish military bases to surround its rival China. Marcos allows the country to be used and dragged into a possible armed conflict between the imperialist giants.

While Marcos moves heaven and earth to serve the interests of foreign capitalists and powers, he ignores the grievances of the Filipino masses. He plays deaf amid the cry of workers and employees for substantial wage and salay increases to help them keep up with rising prices and prevent the deterioration of their standards of living. He gives no heed to the demand for genuine land reform amid widespread agricultural crisis, and instead favors plantations, mining companies, construction of dams and other infrastructure, ecotourism and energy projects that are behind widespread land grabbing. He promotes the labor-export policy as band-aid solution to the acute problem of joblessness.

The toiling masses are being dispossessed of their means of production and sources of livelihood under the policies and programs that favor foreign companies and big business accomplices. This is common in the countryside, as well as in cities, as in the case of drivers and jeepney operators who are being denied their routes and prohibited from using their vehicles, as well as fishermen who are being driven away by reclamation project and various ordinances.

Marcos has done nothing to solve the problem of the skyrocketting prices of basic needs. The token number of Kadiwa stores are meaningless amid millions of poverty-stricken Filipino families. Marcos colludes with cartels and smugglers who rake in hoards of money by controlling supply to push up the prices of rice, sugar, onions and more.

Fascist terrorism is Marcos’ response to the grievances and clamor of the Filipino masses. Armed state agents are used in the campaign to suppress unions and organizations that serve as source of people’s strength. Cases of murder and massacres, as well as abductions, illegal and prolonged imprisonment of political detainees. Countryside villages are under the martial law where fascist soldiers and paramilitary reign and people live under fear. Even in the cities, military and police agents enter factories, communities, schools, offices and others on the pretext of the “war against terrorism” to sow terror among the people.

In the face of worsening oppression, exploitation and repression, the Filipino people have no other recourse but to wage all forms of resistance-from the streets to the mountains-to defend their welfare, to advance their interests and to fight for justice. Further expand and strengthen mass organizations and build the broades unity of the people to isolate and fight the anti-people, puppet and fascist US-Marcos regime.