At the end of the month, Ferdinand Marcos Jr will stand before Congress to once again deceive the public about his supposed “accomplishments” over the past three years. He will weave intricate lies, but they will fail to conceal the endless suffering endured by the people under his rule. The living standards of the majority continue to plummet relentlessly. The corruption of the Marcos family is unparalleled. He blindly follows the dictates of his US imperialist masters. Political repression intensifies against the people who stand up and fight back.

Marcos brings even greater suffering to ordinary people. High prices of rice remains a burden on the people, which Marcos cannot cover up with his superficial gimmicks. He colludes with oil companies in the skyrocketing prices of diesel and gasoline. Despite widespread calls, Malacañang has blocked the proposed ₱200 daily wage increase for workers and instead imposed additional taxes on the shoulders of the people. Mass layoffs are rampant, unemployment is widespread, hundreds of thousands are forced to seek work abroad, while hundreds of thousands of poor people are evicted from their homes, as their lands, fishing grounds, and sources of livelihood are ruthlessly taken away.

He implements policies and programs that further enrich foreign big capitalists, their complicit big comprador bourgeoisie, landlords, and bureaucrat capitalists. Marcos engages in rampant borrowing that does not benefit the people but is funneled only into flashy infrastructure projects that serve as sources of kickbacks for him and his corrupt officials. Hundreds of billions of pesos in stolen Marcos wealth have been returned to their control, while hundreds of billions more are siphoned off through the Maharlika Investment Fund, Marcos’ confidential and intelligence funds, and squandered on excessive military spending, at the expense of essential social services.

Like previous regimes, Marcos favors big foreign and local capitalists to maximize their profits. He freezes workers’ wages while granting tax breaks to capitalists. He has enabled foreign ownership of land in the Philippines (under the guise of a law allowing 99-year “leases”) and removed environmental regulations to allow unrestrained plunder and destruction of the country’s natural resources.

Marcos provides them with military and police armed protection to suppress the people who are defending their land and livelihood. In urban areas, the fascist agents of the reactionary state are targeting unionized workers who are fighting for their demands for wage increases. Marcos is using the NTF-Elcac and the “Anti-Terrorism Law” to suppress the rights of workers, semi-proletariat, student-youth, fishermen, women, and other democratic sectors to prevent them from organizing and participating in the movement for social change.

In rural areas, state terrorism is evident in the imposition of martial law in barangays and communities, which the NTF-Elcac accuses of supporting the revolutionary armed movement. Extrajudicial killings, intimidation, house searches, illegal arrests, “forced surrenders,” indiscriminate firing, shelling and aerial bombing in fields and mountains near communities are rampant. Children and the elderly are not spared from the brutality of Marcos’ fascist agents. The Marcos regime’s suppression is most severe in remote villages and sitios of farmers and indigenous peoples, whose land is being taken away by foreign mining companies, plantations, and energy and eco-tourism projects.

Marcos is using the facade of “peace” to justify his war of suppression against the Filipino people’s patriotic and democratic movement. This is the kind of “peace” desired by imperialists and the ruling classes, which silences the oppressed and exploited. This is not the just and lasting peace desired by the people, which can only be achieved by addressing their basic demands for free land distribution, national industrialization, genuine freedom, and democracy.

Goaded by his imperialist masters, Marcos has ordered the intensification of war to supposedly crush the New People’s Army. Marcos and the AFP are fully collaborating with US military forces in deploying troops, vehicles, and military equipment in the Philippines, and in launching a series of war exercises aimed at China. Instead of pursuing peaceful dialogue with China, the Marcos regime is escalating armed tensions in the South China Sea.

The Filipino people have nothing to expect from the oppressive, fascist and puppet Marcos regime. As long as Marcos is in power in Malacañang, he will use his power to further plunder the country’s wealth, expand his authority, and wrestle against his political rivals. The people have no other choice but to rise up and fight against the US-Marcos regime.

The people must expand and strengthen their organized strength. In urban areas, workers, urban poor, and youth-students must be united as a solid foundation of strength for other democratic sectors. Democratic and anti-imperialist mass struggles must be intensified in factories, communities, and schools.

In rural areas, the people’s army and the Party’s branches and section committees must be strengthened and expanded in order to exert efforts to build or rebuild peasant organizations to defend against fascism and promote struggles against feudal and semi-feudal exploitation, and to strengthen the call for genuine land reform. Tactical offensives and special operations must be launched to punish the most brutal fascists and fulfill the people’s demand for justice.

The only proper response of the Filipino people is to intensify the mass movement and armed struggle to fight against the oppression and suppression of the US-Marcos regime. With unwavering determination on the path of struggle, Marcos will surely be held accountable and face the judgment of the entire people.