The National Democratic Front in Eastern Visayas strongly condemns the recent push by members of the dominating Marcos faction in Congress to revive the death penalty. The proposed law will undoubtedly be wielded against perceived political opponents and critics, including the broad masses.

Revolutionary forces in the region are not misled by their whitewashing of the bill by saying the death penalty will only be used to punish big-time drug traffickers. The Duterte regime’s deceptive and failed “drug war” has already proven that violence and an iron fist can never stop the proliferation of illegal drugs and that the reactionary government is unsuccessful in convicting the biggest drug lord in the country, Rodrigo Duterte. The death penalty will never go after the likes of Duterte. As with the entire legal system, it will be disadvantageous to the poor who have limited access to legal services and whom the law does not favor.

Marcos’ cohorts in Senate and in the Lower House are trying to manipulate public opinion and riding on popular sentiment against illegal drugs to veil the regime’s draconian objective of wielding the law to viciously suppress the people. With the proposed death penalty law, anyone can be presented as a “big-time drug trafficker” or somehow involved in illicit activities to be given capital punishment. The state that Marcos heads has an institutionalized practice of planting evidence out of thin air to file bogus cases and punish political opponents. Marcos Junior, of course, is all too familiar with this even during his father’s dictatorship. The sales talk that “law-abiding citizens have nothing to fear” is discomforting.

In the hands of the ruling Marcos-Duterte clique, a group strongly influenced by warmongering generals, has militarist and punitive views on crime, and displays an apparent lack of morality, the death penalty is a weapon to stifle dissent. The very existence of the law aims to impose a climate of fear among the broad range of Marcos’ opponents, including political rivals, members of legal formations, progressive and militant organizations, ordinary civilians whom they arbitrarily red-tag, and revolutionary forces. It forms part of Marcos’ plan to concentrate power into his own hands and silence the opposition. It is not separate from the regime’s vicious repression of protest actions, censorship of media, and militarization of Philippine education through the proposed mandatory ROTC.

All of this serves Marcos’ objective of continuing his family’s plunder of the people’s money, remaining scot-free from their previous convictions, and keeping his imperialist masters, local capitalists and cronies happy.

The NDF-EV calls on the entire Filipino people to reject and resolutely fight the Marcos’ regime’s attempts to revive the death penalty. They must resist all draconian laws that the regime will present as “priority bills” and railroad to the detriment of the basic rights and freedoms of the masses.