The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front condemns in the strongest possible terms Apayao governor Elias Bulut Jr.’s kill order against individuals that rabid Red-haters like him arbitrarily vilify and tag as terrorist. For CPDF, Bulut should know better than incite violence against his own people, especially in support of notorious and much-hated Red-taggers like Lorraine Badoy and the SMNI. This is not the way of indigenous peoples and he should be ashamed of himself.

Bulut practically made every member of progressive groups and organizations even easier targets in this time of rampant violence against defenders of democracy. Unless Bulut’s aspirations is to embrace the all-out fascist way of reactionary governance, he would do well to go back to his roots and rediscover the indigenous way of leadership based on communal welfare, protection for the vulnerable and preservation of life. When an elected official provokes violence and even promises to reward said aggression, he exposes the rottenness of the system he serves.

Because Bulut’s kill order goes against the traditional way of governance, the reasons behind his penchant for violence becomes rather telling. It must be noted that, for more than a year now, the people of Apayao has stood in defiance of big ticket hydropower projects being railroaded in their province. Yet, their opposition remains unheeded while the Pan Pacific Renewable Power Corporation was able to construct Gened 1 and 2 along the Apayo-Abulug River. Five more dams will follow along this river with another two along the Nabuangan River.

Leading this people’s campaign are legal and progressive organizations that fascist-lapdogs like to call communist terrorist groups. Thus, after exposing his fascist self, Bulut is about to confirm whether he deserves the office he currently holds or if he would completely betray the people that elected him by disregarding the i-Apayaos’ self-determination and then persecuting them for sticking to it.

Bulut, Badoy and the National Task Force to End Local Armed Conflict only confirm what the people of Cordillera and the rest of the nation already knows: That a legal parliamentary struggle is inadequate in pursuit of genuine change. The current system is rotten to its core, what with its own government officials recommending and rewarding murder of nationalist and democratic forces, and the only way to overhaul it is through armed revolution. For the Cordillera peoples, it is both tradition and duty to go to war to defend life and ancestral heritage. Bulut, to his own detriment, is already on the wrong side of history.

Hold Bulut accountable for further endangering legal democratic forces! Uphold democratic rights!

Assert the right to self-determination! Protect Apayao and its ancestral resources!

Advance the armed revolution! Join the New People’s Army!