While the recent decision and action of the Bureau of Corrections to release 300 prisoners is not unwelcome, the refusal to free political prisoners is most reprehensible. According to the Bureau, the move stemmed from the effort to decongest prison facilities. Meanwhile, more than 800 detainees are langushing in jail merely for exercising their rights. Giving back their freedom achieves similar objectives, if not even something greater than decongestion itself.

The Cordillera People’s Democratic Front thus condemns this deliberate refusal to free political prisoners and reiterates the call to stop persecution of all dissenters whom the likes of Rodrigo Duterte, Noynoy Aquino and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo kept locked up due to their political convictions. Basic human and civil rights still maintain that the rights to expression, to organization and to peaceful assembly should be granted to every individual. Yet, under fascist regimes, the assertion of these rights could be considered criminal and could entail state-perpetrated violence and incarceration.

Moreover, it could only get worse under the current illegitimate regime. A Marcos at the helm of a reactionary regime is synonymous with terror, fascism and disregard for human rights, similar to the senior Marcos’ campaign to silence dissent also through illegal detention, not to mention torture and summary execution. Bongbong Marcos, in fact, is yet to issue an apology to Martial Law victims in behalf of his family. If anything, this is a sure indication that human rights and peace based on justice is far from reality under the term of the dictator’s heir and namesake. Just this week, the junior Marcos defended his father’s Martial Rule, saying that it was declared ‘to fight two wars from two fronts’ and thus justified. This statement is very far from what Martial Law survivors and their families would want to hear, not even from the positively prejudiced son of the dictator himself.

With Marcos set to speak in front of the United Nations General Assembly within a few days, an enraging fact becomes obvious to the Filipino nation: greedy and opportunistic imperialists in the international community can and will find use for Bongbong Marcos. Much the same way that the Marcos family’s allies enabled Bongbong’s fraudulent victory last May, capitalist governments will lend validity to an illegitimate administration as long as said minion accommodates their neoliberal interests. The fight for accountability and justice thus lies in the hands of the Filipino masses.

But while these cowardly governments jail or kill dissenters, even more people are becoming aware of the need to issue dissent. On top of social and economic calls are the civil and political campaigns that also effectively educate, organize and mobilize the Filipinos in massive numbers. Reactionary regimes repress the legal space for valid opposition but there is the greater arena of armed revolution in the countryside. His predecessors before him never ‘crushed’ the New People’s Army as all of them liked to promise they would. History will judge if a second-rate Marcos can achieve anything remote to ‘crushing’ or if his fascist regime will contribute to the advancement of the people’s war. ###

Stop political persecution! Free all political prisoners!

Never again to another Marcos tyranny! Resist the illegitimate rule of Marcos II!

Advance the people’s war! Join the New People’s Army!