The Filipino people are skeptical for the third State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Monday, July 22. Within his rule, the people, especially Negrosanons, have not benefited from a puppet, fascist, corrupt and oppressive regime.

SONA, ever since the previous regimes, is just a performance, demonstration and celebration of the big comprador bourgeoisie-landlord-bureaucrat ruling class of their acquired prosperity and benefits from the bureaucracy. During the SONA, they await the announcement of bribes that their master will throw at them at the dictate of US imperialism, and applaud.

Marcos Jr heartlessly spent ₱20 million for the coming grand SONA even though the people are suffering from hunger and poverty. His regime has only given droplets of aid and support to the people.

In two years, the broad masses have suffered a tremendously worst economy due to the all-out implementation of neoliberal policies. It has resulted in the inflation of basic commodities and commercialization of social services, but there is no corresponding increase in workers’ wages and more livelihood for the people, especially the farmers.

Here in Negros, neoliberal projects of foreign corporations and local big compradors have proliferated in cities and the countryside. Haciendero-compradors’ hold on economic and political power in cahoots with bureaucrat capitalists was further strengthened and consolidated by the approval of the Negros Island region (NIR) which also included Siquijor. This will greatly strengthen Marcos Jr’s social base here on the island.

Marcos Jr, through his mercenaries and butchers, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP), also boasts of “dismantling” the entire revolutionary movement. Because of this, under Marcos Jr’s reign, he filled his hands with the blood of innocent civilians. In Negros Island, there have been more than 700 incidents of human rights violations by the AFP and PNP wherein the victims are not less than 52,800. This includes 47 farmers who were executed and four victims of abduction that have been missing until now.

The people have been mercilessly attacked by the AFP-PNP in favor of US imperialism’s push to shift to external defense. At present, preparations for the brewing war of US imperialism against China are in full swing which will use the Philippines as battleground.

It is anticipated that the use of the Philippines for a proxy war of the US will put the entire country on a quagmire of war. The entire Filipino people will suffer a worse deluge like what is happening now in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip.

In the forthcoming SONA, instead of giving priority to war and heightened militarization of the countryside, NDF-Negros is challenging the US-Marcos regime to address the grievances and demands of the people like genuine land reform, national industrialization and free social services. If not, the people will have no recourse but to revolt.

The strength of the people and the revolutionary movement should not be underestimated by the US-Marcos II regime. Historically, both during the US-Marcos dictatorship and the US-Estrada regime, the people’s united strength with the NPA was what ousted a reactionary regime that perpetuated an oppressive and exploitative system. ###