The people are firmly rejecting the conflict of the Marcos and Duterte fascist cliques, both of which represent the worst of the bureaucrat capitalists, and promote the interests of big landlords and comprador bourgeoisie, and imperialist domination in the Philippines.

The conflict recently broke out in the open when Duterte spoke against the charter change or chacha scheme being pushed by Marcos and his minions, at the same time calling on the military to act against congress in case it pursues the plan, and threatening to move for the “secession” of Mindanao.

Duterte is deviously riding on the rising wave of the people’s resistance to chacha to defend his own interests and counter the Marcos clique’s plan to take away his economic and political power. Duterte is fuming over the cancellation of the government contracts he entered into with China, which would deprive him of billions of pesos of kickback, the cutting down Davao’s once multi-billion peso budget. He also resents Marcos’ refusal to block the investigation of the International Criminal Court and the possible issuance of a warrant for his arrest for crimes against humanity.

On the other hand, the Marcos camp remains busy in its push to amend the 1987 Constitution. To muzzle Duterte’s rambling mouth, Marcos temporarily stopped the “people’s initiative” which he said is too divisive. However, the Senate and the House of Representatives continue to push to amend the 1987 Constitution to enshrine in it the neoliberal policies of liberalization, deregulation and privatization, further reinforce foreign capitalist ownership of Philippine resources and economic domination, and strike out its anti-Marcos legacy.

The fascists Marcos and Duterte are openly feuding amid the crisis of the ruling system. In fact, their conflict itself is a result of the crisis which has shrunk the spoils being shared between them addicts to wealth and power.

The conflict of the ruling Marcos and Duterte ruling deepens the hatred and outrage of the Filipino people against the ruling reactionary regime, and strengthens their determination to build a broad united front against chacha, and against policies and measures that further oppress the people and trample on the country’s national freedom.

The conflict has deepened the masses’ hatred of Marcos and Duterte who conspired to steal the 2022 election by creating the false “landslide victory.” The people’s anger is exacerbated by the Marcos’ display of extravagance while the majority suffer from poverty and hardships. He is isolating himself further by ignoring the people’s cry for wages increases, genuine land reform, greater spending for education, health and other social services, and other urgent demands; while providing foreign companies and its local partners with all incentives to make them earn large profits from the exploitation of the country’s cheap labor and resources.

Marcos brazenly abuses his power to take control of hundreds of billions of pesos and funnel it into the business of his cronies. Like Duterte, Marcos is fattening the AFP unprecedented amounts of money that line the pockets of the favored generals, to secure their loyalty. The AFP’s brutal war of suppression continues in the countryside to pave the way for the aggressive entry of foreign businesses, which rob the peasant masses and indigenous people of their agricultural and ancestral lands.

Marcos’ subservience to US geopolitical interests is fanning the people’s patriotism. He has allowed the US to take full control of the AFP to serve its strategy of encircling and containing the rise of China. The US is dragging the Philippines in its schemes to intensify military tensions in the South China Sea, Korean Peninsula and Taiwan, in an attempt to provoke China to an armed conflict. The growing presence of American soldiers and rising number of US military facilities inside the AFP camps are a slap on freedom-loving Filipinos.

The broad antifascist, anti-imperialist and antifeudal united front against the US-Marcos regime continues to expand with patriotic and democratic forces at its head and core. Marcos’s scheme to change the 1987 Constitution is bringing together a wide range of classes and sectors. Despite opposing chacha, Duterte is excluded from the broad united front against the US-Marcos regime, for having committed innumerable crimes against the Filipino people.

The broad united front condemns Marcos for colluding with Duterte to steal the 2022 election, for shielding him from accountability for crimes committed in the course of the war on drugs and the terrorist war of suppression, as well as for extensive corruption including the anomalies during the pandemic.

The people’s united front against the US-Marcos regime’s chacha continues to broaden. At the same time, there is rising clamor by the masses of the people for wage and salary increases, regular and decent jobs, genuine land reform, lower prices of food, fuel and other commodities, and other urgent needs. They are also firmly advancing their resistance to fascist repression of democratic rights, and US military intervention in the country. Throughout the country, the Filipino masses are steadily rising.

The Party and all revolutionary forces will continue to strive to rouse the vast masses of workers and peasants, the pettybourgeois intellectuals and professionals, and all other progressive and patriotic forces, to take action and fight. Amid conditions of crisis, the revolutionary mass movement in the cities and countryside is bound to intensify and fight with ardor, together with the revolutionary armed struggle being waged by the New People’s Army.