The US-Marcos II regime’s first year deserves no fanfare or celebration from the people. As a poor copy of his late tyrant father, he has done nothing to uplift the conditions of the Filipino people and instead continued the bloody trail of his predecessor and loose ally Duterte. And, like the dictators before him, Marcos Jr. has proven himself to be another lapdog of imperialism, paving the way further for the US neoliberal offensive stomping on Philippine sovereignty and independence.

Particularly in Southeast Negros, the Marcosian agenda teems with blood, corruption, and foreign interests that domineer and destroy the livelihoods of farmers, farm workers, indigenous peoples, fisherfolk, urban poor, and other marginalized sectors. Through violence and deception, the state exploits the masses to serve their own selfish interests and that of their American masters.

The culture of impunity in the area is championed by mercenaries of the AFP’s 11th IB and the PNP’s Regional Mobile Group. Focused military operations, Retooled Community Support Programs and PNP substations plague hinterland barangays of Santa Catalina, Bayawan City, Valencia, Siaton, Pamplona, Sibulan, and Basay to threaten and harass residents with widespread militarization marked with human rights violations including red-tagging, enforced surrenders, harassment, militarizing civilian institutions and organizations, murders and massacres. The Pamplona massacre last March, along with the bloody Oplan Sauron on 2019 and continuing state-sponsored extrajudicial killings has become a hallmark to induce silence and minimize opposition from Negrosanons.

State forces are deployed in the countryside to act as attack dogs of Marcos Jr. in cahoots with foreign businesses. The perpetration of violence led by Marcos Jr. himself has been made an excuse to militarize communities, including the deployment of the AFP’s Light Reaction Company, to railroad his neoliberal agenda. In the blanket of ‘peace and development’, the reactionary armed forces introduce various ‘projects’ and ‘livelihood programs’. But these do not come from good will; instead, such projects act as cushion and preparatory steps for invasive imperialist and ruling class interests.

For example, the 174-hectare wide reclamation project in Dumaguete City that will displace communities and livelihoods, and the placement of RCSPs in mountain barangays are not for progress at all. The destructive mining operations that have been started by Midan, a South Korean mining firm, in Santa Catalina is in fact a pioneer project to eventually allow more businesses involving mining and quarrying, ecotourism, land-use conversion and other neoliberal attacks in Southeast Negros.

In the grand scheme of things, state terrorism has been utilized to allow imperialist entry and wayward exploitation of our country’s rich natural resources and cheap labor. Neoliberalism is branded with wanton violence. And it is in this reality that the rhetoric of a dismantled guerrilla front is clearly moot and used only to convince foreign interests to claw in Negros. As such, the state forces the people into a corner, resorting to no other choice but to resist, evident in the various anti-mining and anti-neoliberal mass movements in the area the past few months.

With this, the RMPC-NPA calls on the people of Southeast Negros to collectively resist state terrorism and imperialist plunder. It is pertinent that the broadest number be aroused, organized, and mobilized against militarization, land-grabbing, and foreign domination. The NPA will only continue to grow in strength despite the numerous and frankly obsolete ‘dismantled’ declarations. The masses in Southeast Negros cherish and support their genuine army, united in the notion of dismantling the semi-colonial and semi-feudal ruling system represented by US-Marcos II regime. ###