We celebrate the 47th anniversary today of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. The NDFP was founded a year after Marcos declared martial law and imposed a fascist dictatorship on the country for the next 14 years. The NDFP played a significant role in strengthening revolutionary resistance after martial law forced the national democratic mass organizations underground along with others that opposed the Marcos regime. Through the efforts of the underground resistance, the democratic mass movement later revived and openly flourished to culminate in the people’s uprising that ousted Marcos in 1986.

The NDFP is ever more significant today as the tyrant Duterte seeks to exploit the COVID-19 public health crisis for his own dictatorial ends. It is now clear that the Duterte government is utterly inutile in stemming the tide of COVID-19 infection that continues to rise. There is no adequate medical response through mass screening and testing to stop the virus instead of just slowing its spread as the government boasts. Instead, the Duterte government blames the people for its own shortcomings and implements repressive measures to subdue them in the name of order and discipline. In the countryside, Duterte’s troops continue their military operations crudely disguised as COVID-19 assistance, to legitimize their continuing human rights violations.

It is doubtful if the brutal, bungling regime will ever be able to stop the COVID-19 pandemic from devastating the Filipino people. But it is certainly clear the Duterte can use the issue to impose iron rule on the Filipino people.

The NDFP is thus ever more relevant as the Filipino people confront martial law threats once again. The underground revolutionary resistance must rise to the occasion and strengthen itself for the bitter fight against the Duetrte regime. The COVID-19 crisis has been an eye-opener for the people with regards to how abhorrently anti-people and anti-democratic the Duterte regime really is. The people are disgusted at the utter rottenness of the reactionary ruling system and further convinced of overthrowing it as the ultimate solution.

There is no better way of confronting COVID-19 than to strengthen the people’s struggle to reject the Duterte regime’s drive for martial law and to demand pro-people and democratic solutions. The people can go further in bringing the Duterte regime to account for the spreading and devastation of COVID-19, along with his other crimes of human rights violations, corruption and treason. With the strengthening of the underground mass organizations of the basic masses and other progressive and positive forces, the revolutionary resistance exemplified by the NDFP will become ever stronger in fighting and ousting the Duterte regime in due time.