Revolutionaries must take heart: The movement has defeated Martial Law before CPDF: A possible Marcos win and the threat of dictatorship

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Only in a society as rotten and as corrupted as the Philippines can the Marcoses continue to endure and even thrive.

Instead of doing jail time for unabashedly enjoying the spoils of his father’s Martial Rule, Bongbong Marcos is free and free to run for the highest position in the reactionary government. Corrupt courts downgraded his own criminal endeavors, particularly the tax evasion watered down to failure to file income tax returns. His Oxford diploma and the Tallano gold, just some of the outrageous lies he and his family perpetrated, persists through his troll farms and other means of dogged disinformation. By all appearances, Marcos is a strong contender for the position of reactionary Philippine president.

Like Father, Like Son

As millions of Filipinos have already observed, the so-called democratic elections is but a sham run by the ruling class. And the Marcoses, despite their ouster and exile in 1986, never stopped being a part of this class. Rodrigo Duterte himself extends grievous allowances to the Marcoses, as evidenced by his maneuvers to have Ferdinand Marcos buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani in 2016.

Recall that it was in 1980, under dictatorial rule, that the senior Marcos had Apo Macliing Dulag killed because the latter defended his kakailian and the Chico River from the 1,400 square kilometer mega-dam project. Had it gone through, it could have displaced 100,000 homes. Today, the people of Cordillera honors that sacrifice and opposes the return of the Marcoses because there is every indication that the younger Marcos will but continue his dictator-father’s legacy of greed and plunder. Firstly, in his efforts to court the voting public, Bongbong seems content on citing his father’s questionable ‘achievements’ as his qualifications. That, and the fact that his credentials as a politician is equally questionable, and that other fact that he is beneficiary to the ill-gotten wealth (10 billion USD) that his family refuses to return to the people and even bemoans the decision from a Hawaii class action lawsuit that they are liable to compensate the almost 10,000 victims of their patriarch’s bloody regime, it is evident that the fruit does not fall far from the tree.

Martial Law v2.0

If his commitment to evade legitimate journalistic interviews, critical questions and any kind of opposition is anything to go by, it appears that Marcos Jr will not be the type to tolerate dissent. If he does win the presidency, a formally declared or even a de facto Martial Law looms over the Filipino people like an ominous dark sky bringing in summary executions, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests, torture and various other human rights violations. He will most certainly not hold Duterte accountable for the latter’s crimes under Oplan Tokhang, NTF-ELCAC and other state machineries for murder and persecution. Instead, especially with Duterte’s Anti-Terror Law already in place, it would be open season against anyone from revolutionary forces to progressive thinkers to ordinary critical citizens.

And there would surely be a lot of criticisms because Bongbong’s rule will be a flash flood of poverty, sweeping away even more Filipino families in its wake. Barely passing Economics in college, the only economics he has mastered is the neoliberal policies his father allowed into the country in return for huge debts from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In 1981, the older Marcos lowered imports’ tariffs from 100 percent to as low as 10 percent. Thereafter, he filled his own pockets, provided for his family’s appallingly lavish lifestyle and then deposited billions of dollars in Swiss banks, Panaman shell companies and Liechtensteiner foundations for Bongbong and his other descendants to enjoy at the expense of the Filipino people.

If and when Marcos does impose Martial Law, his dictatorship will be a double-edged sword, much like his father’s. Ruling with an iron hand and with impunity can last only for so long. Ferdinand Marcos’ own tyranny led to his downfall when it resulted in millions of Filipinos learning to be critical, mobilizing and further organizing for his removal. The First Quarter Storm gave birth to a generation of hardened revolutionaries whose contributions and legacies continue to this day. Most importantly, the New People’s Army welcomed activists who stood by the basic principle that genuine societal change will come after the triumph of a protracted people’s war against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

Marcos might have succeeded in his campaign of revisionism and disinformation. But the truth will out; and like his father before him, from his own doing. Even those who have been victims of miseducation will live the truth of Marcos tyranny and they, too, will rage against the family that continues to plunder the masses and the system that allows them to do so. Meanwhile, revolutionary forces are far better prepared now than the last time. The national democratic movement has defeated a Marcosian monster more than three decades ago. It will do so again and turn that victory into further fuel to bring the revolutionary struggle even closer to victory. ###

Agkaykaysa, Kaigorotan! Resist another Marcos rule of plunder and tyranny!

Expose the Marcoses’ lies! Defy the myth of a solid North!

Strengthen the New People’s Army! Advance the armed struggle!

CPDF: A possible Marcos win and the threat of dictatorship