The struggling Filipino people will not be cowed into silence by the US-Duterte regime’s crass display of power and violence in Negros. Instead of petrifying the people, the recent attacks in Negros, including the merciless killing of 14 peasants, emboldens the revolutionary movement. We are determined, now more than ever, to organize the fiercest and broadest resistance that will hasten the fall of the fascist US-Duterte regime.

This task becomes more urgent for revolutionaries as the US-Duterte regime becomes more rabid in attacking civilians and militarizing communities as it has done in Negros Oriental in the last few months. Six battalions of combined forces from the AFP and PNP have been deployed to the province which the regime believes to be a stronghold of the revolutionary forces in Visayas. Unable to defeat the NPA, the AFP and PNP targeted civilians and leaders of people’s organizations, abducting their victims one by one and killing them in isolation.

In line with the regime’s whole of nation approach in crushing the revolutionary movement, the AFP and PNP devised the operational plan Synchronised Enhanced Management of Police Operations (SEMPO) with the ultimate objective of stifling the decades-long struggle for land reform in the province and containing NPA strength in the area. The inclusion of the island of Negros in the areas covered by Memorandum Order 32 was the prelude to the series of counter-revolutionary attacks implemented by the AFP-PNP.

Duterte and his bloodthirsty henchmen aim to make an example out of Negros, a cautionary tale for those who dare to resist the regime’s tyrannical rule. This scheme will fail because no amount of terror can quell the Filipino people’s desire for revolutionary change. Rather than serve as a warning, Negros has become a rallying point for the various forces involved in the anti-fascist struggle. Progressive and human rights defenders all over the country have banded together to call for the cessation of Oplan SEMPO in Negros and demand justice for the atrocities committed against the Negrense people.

The US-Duterte regime errs in thinking that the terror it has unleashed on the people of Negros and the whole country in general will weaken the revolutionary forces. On the contrary, the spate of killings in Negros, the increased militarization of the countryside, the crackdown on activists and progressives in the city coupled with the exacerbated economic crisis nurture conditions that favor the advance of the national democratic revolution.

The intensification of the US-Duterte regime’s counter-revolutionary war will elicit fiercer resistance from the national democratic forces and their allies. Protests and other forms of mass actions will be mounted in urban centers and foment an atmosphere of dissent. Further militarization in the countryside will force millions of peasants, workers, and other oppressed sectors to seek refuge in the armed revolutionary movement. The Filipino people, united in fighting repression and tyranny, will soon bring the US-Duterte regime’s fascist reign to its end. ###