The neoliberal war against the Filipino people!
Published Aug 11, 2005 8:55 PM
There is a war going on in the Philippines.
It’s not the
so-called “War on Terrorism.”
It’s not the usual
regional wars that have been waged in developing countries.
It’s
a war waged against the Filipino people by the neoliberal government of
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
What is happening in the Philippines is happening
all around the world.
Countries are using the mask of the “war on
terror” to destabilize, attack and destroy dissident groups; or any groups
that oppose the State.
In the Philippines, the government is responding to
the criticism and dissent by trying to intimidate and liquidate its
opponents.
In March alone, the beleaguered Arroyo government has unleashed
a wave of repression against its opponents. For example:
March 1: Four
members of GABRIELA, a national alliance of women’s organizations, were
unlawfully arrested and detained in Quezon province.
March 3: Abelardo
Ladera, a city councilor and a provincial coordinator of the Bayan Muna
Partylist, was shot dead....
March 9: Romeo Sanchez, Bayan Muna Partylist
Regional Coordinator and former Bayan Regional Secretary General and radio
broadcaster in the Ilocos region, was shot dead in Baguio City, Northern
Luzon.
March 10: Ernesto Bang, provincial information officer of the
AnakPawis Partylist of workers, peasants and urban poor, was killed in front of
his residence in Camarines Sur, Bikol.
March 13: Fr. William Tadena,
Philip pine Independent Church priest, was shot dead on his way home from
officiating a mass....
[Excerpts from Fact Sheet of the Int’l
Solidarity Mission: In Defense of A People Fighting Repression, p. 2]
The
most recent stage of the Filipino human-rights crisis was sparked by the Nov.
16, 2004, massacre of seven striking workers of Hacienda Luisita (HLI) in
Tarlac, Central Luzon, when Philippine government soldiers opened fire on their
picket line. Many of the people slain, arrested, or “disappeared” in
the following March were people publicly supporting the HLI strikers. Many of
them became victims of a vicious military that reminds one of the U.S.-supported
military juntas and death squads of Latin America during the 1970s, 1980s, and
beyond.
Indeed, many Philippine military
officers are armed and
trained by the Americans.
The Macapagal-Arroyo regime has been implicated
in an election scandal that suggests it bought its way into power. The Bayan-USA
(the overseas chapter of the Philippines-based opposition alliance) has dubbed
“Gloriagate” the tapes indicating the president engaged in electoral
fraud.
At a recent protest in Los Angeles against the Macapagal-Arroyo
regime, Bev Tang, an organizer of the Filipino youth activist group Anakbayan,
talked about the state terrorism that the U.S. funds by supporting the regime:
“They cut funding for social services here in America so that they can
fund the Philippine military and police who torture and kill journalists,
priests, human rights advocates. ...” Bev Tang added, “They cut the
budget on education here in the U.S., so that they can give more money to
repressive states such as the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime under the auspices
of the War on Terror.” [Fr. Angel Buensuceso, “Filipinos in LA Rally
for GMA’s Ouster,” *Bulatlat* (Philippine alternative weekly
newsmagazine), July 3-9, 2005.]
In August an International Solidarity
Mission will visit the Philippines, in five teams, in five different areas of
the country, to gain firsthand knowledge of the nation’s human-rights
crisis. Afterwards, a Peoples’ Tribunal is planned, where ISM observers
will present their findings.
This international fact-finding mission is
designed to be a popular tool to expose and mitigate the horrific human-rights
crisis gripping the Philippines today.
What the Filipino people are really
fighting is the neo-liberalism that has placed a series of post-Marcos regimes
in place, in the service of the United States/International Monetary Fund
powers, and against the democratic rights of the Filipino people. Various
Filipino puppets to the U.S./IMF will have been waging a real war against the
people, to please their foreign masters.
That war seems only to be getting hotter!
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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