One thing that proves the need for an armed revolution is when the unapologetic heir of the person that caused the impoverishment of millions of Filipinos can still run for the same office that helped perpetuate that poverty. Especially when that predecessor refuses to return the stolen wealth or compensate the victims of his father. In short, the economic system is rotten and the political process is rigged. To take up arms is the only true option towards societal and systemic change.

Vegetable producers of the Cordilleras are reaffirming this lesson. In their frustration over government inaction, they have issued a unity statement to cry foul over brazen smuggling of vegetables from China and South Korea. The Senate hearing late last year yielded nothing significant for the campaign. The influx of smuggled produce already amounted to roughly a billion pesos from May to November just last year. Now, economic conditions aggravate the already dire situation. Higher production costs ensued from the consecutive oil price hikes. A kilo of chicken dung went up from Php105 to Php150. Moving harvest from farm to trading post can now cost Php4 per kilo from its previous Php3. The Duterte administration did not even think to include vegetable producers and truckers in the promised fuel subsidy program.

What is yet unsaid though is that vegetable smuggling is merely an offshoot of neoliberal policies that emerged after the Marcoses’ greed and plunder caused unprecedented economic decline. Ferdinand Marcos’ regime is also notoriously known as a kleptocracy or rule by thieves. Unsurprising, because not only did the Marcoses live off lavishly from everything they could put their hands on, their patriarch even took out huge foreign loans for themselves. The debts set in motion neoliberal policies of privatization, deregulation and liberalization as dictated by the WB and the IMF, creditors to Marcos’ binge loaning.

Liberalization in agriculture, or when trade agreements allowed for the dumping of agricultural products from one country to another, is an example. Such agreements hurt the Philippines whose own agriculture is underdeveloped and thus incapable of exporting as much as it is expected to import. To protect local producers against importation, GATT-WTO exempted some items from entering Philippine markets. Yet, in the anarchy that is monopoly capitalism and its hallmark surplus production, enforcing these exemptions seems too much of an effort. More accurately, enforcing market controls goes against the very soul of capitalism: exploitation and profit.

To wage a revolution requires immense effort as well, but one that the people can readily accept because of the validity of its principles. Much like capitalism, the Marcoses cannot stay on top for too long because the people and their armed revolution are here, roaring to knock them off their pedestals and put them in their proper place in history. Capitalism and the Marcoses must know by now that a national democratic victory is upon their doorstep. ###

End all unfair trade agreements! End all neoliberal policies!

Protect farmers’ rights and the interest of national minorities!

Advance the People’s War!